Entries Tagged as 'Wild Game'

Happiness is a Dirty Kitchen

4

10.9.12

What’s the first thing you cut out when life gets busy? Laying on the couch? Checking stuff/internet surfing? I start slacking on the blog and cleaning. Dustin recently told me, “I like it when you’re busy– you’re much happier. Even though the kitchen is much dirtier.”

And I don’t even know why it’s dirty. It’s not like I’ve done any cooking except testing sausage and bacon recipes for a magazine article. Instead I’ve been living off a steady diet of kolaches, tacos, and the other healthful things for Serious Eats, washed down with rivers of iced coffee, beer, and $3 Whole Foods wine. “How I suffer for my art.”

What else did I do this summer? (It feels like summer is just ending here in Austin BTW) Visited New Orleans for wedding planning! But really just did more eating, drinking, and socializing… then hosted said friends during Hurricane Isaac and repeated the pattern in Austin. I also biked to and from my day job everyday in the 100+ degree heat. I get props for that, right?

I also basked in the glorious Portland late summer weather and attended IFBC while completing a writing class through Cook n’ Scribble. Really, I can always find the time for something if I want to. The class and conference made me realize that this blog has grown SO tiresome. The here-is-some-cool-stuff-I-made-with-a-recipe-and-photo format feels played out.

The last couple months have been a swirl of working, writing, drinking, and schmoozing. I’m exhausted, but I’ve had a blogging breakthrough. Can’t wait to share it with you after I clean my house!

In the meantime, I’m keeping up with the format. Here’s a country pâté I made with some of the scraps from bacon and sausage making along with some venison I found in my freezer.

Paté Campagne  with Venison

1 tablespoon butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small shallot, diced
1/2 of a medium onion, diced
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, minced
1/4 cup cognac
1 pound pork shoulder, cubed (or various leftovers from sausage making)
1 pound venison shoulder or stew meat, cubed
1/4 pound pancetta or slab bacon, cubed
2 bay leaves
1/8 tsp ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground clove
1/4 teaspoon dried ginger
1/4 teaspoon dried coriander
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup shelled pistachios

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Toss the pork, venison, and bacon with the bay leaves, allspice, clove, ginger, coriander, and salt and pepper. Place in the refrigerator overnight.
3. Place the meat mixture in the freezer for 30 minutes.
4. In a pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the garlic, shallot, onion and thyme and cook for about five minutes, stirring frequently.
5. Deglaze the pan with the cognac, scraping up the brown bits. Reduce by half, remove the onion and shallot mixture from the heat, and let cool to room temperature.
6. Discard the bay leaves and grind the cold meat into a bowl set in ice.
7. Add the cooled onion mixture to the meat. Using a sturdy spoon, stir vigorously to combine until the meat takes on a uniform texture.
8. Fold in the pistachios, distributing them evenly.
9. Pack the mixture into a terrine. Cover in foil and bake in a water bath in the preheated oven for about 90 minutes or until a meat thermometer reads 170°F at the center of the pâté.
10. Allow to cool for 1 to 2 days in the refrigerator. Slide the pâté out the terrine and slice before serving.

Sausage Stuffed Quails

7

01.4.12

Last month I bought delicious sausage stuffed quails from Dai Due Butcher Shop, a local artisan company based here in Austin. That day I went to the farmers’ market to splurge on something for an easy meal at home. Dai Due didn’t have a large selection that day, and I thought the sausage-stuffed quails sounded kinda boring. I bought them anyways, and I was SO wrong! The quails were stuffed with Dai Due’s own outstanding sausage, and the meat was moist with a slight herbal undertone.

I stumbled upon two frozen quails and link of homemade Italian sausage in my quest to clean out my freezer. Score! Of course my mind wandered back to eating the magical stuffed quails that night. I have no idea how they made them, but I did my best to recreate them at home.

Sausage Stuffed Quails

Brine:

1/4 cup salt
2 cups water
4 bay leaves
2 semi-boneless quails

Stuffing:

1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
1 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1 link sweet italian sausage

1. In a heavy bottomed pot, combine the water, salt, and bay leaves and bring to a simmer to dissolve the salt. Turn off the heat and let the brine return to room temperature. Place the quails in the brine, and then place the pot in the fridge for 2 to 3 hours.

2. Meanwhile, make the stuffing. Heat the olive oil in a skillet with the red pepper flakes. Add the onion and cook until golden. Next add the garlic and cook for about 2 minutes.

3. Combine the onion, garlic, and breadcrumbs in a small bowl. Squeeze the sausage from the casing and mix to combine all the ingredients evenly.

4. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Stuff the sausage into the cavities of the quails.

5. Pat the quails dry with paper towels to ensure a crisp skin. Rub with olive oil and season with black pepper. Roast for 20-25 minutes.

These quails are best roasted over a bed of root vegetables like carrots, beets, or potatoes. They take longer to cook than the quails, so it’s best to cook them for 30 minutes before placing the quails in the oven. The juices from the sausage will mix with the vegetables, making a satisfying one skillet meal.

Venison Liver Terrine

2

21.3.12

My freezer has been filling up with odd things like chicken feet, pig trotters, wild boar belly, and venison liver. I can’t explain the first two, but the rest is leftover from my Broken Arrow Ranch order last November when I made wild game sausages. This venison liver terrine was an attempt to use up my weird stockpile. I learned my lesson after the lamb liver terrine disaster. Combining straight up liver with other strong flavors is too overwhelming, so there’s venison meat and pork belly in this recipe as well.

Venison Liver Terrine with Vanilla

8 ounces venison shoulder, cubed
8 ounces pork belly, cubed
1 ounce salt
2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp pink salt (sodium nitrate)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 a vanilla bean, split in half
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 cup brandy
1 tablespoon butter
8 ounces venison liver
1 clove of garlic, chopped
2 shallots, sliced
3 large egg whites
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup toasted pistachios

1. Place the cubed pork belly and venison shoulder in a bowl. Sprinkle with the salts and spices and place in the fridge overnight.
2. Put the golden raisins in a bowl. Use a knife to scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean, and add the seeds and pod to the bowl. Cover with the brandy and let the raisins plump overnight.
3. The next day, melt the butter in the pan over medium low. Raise the heat to medium high and sear the cubes of liver so they are browned on the outside but still slightly raw in the middle. This should take less than five minutes. Remove the liver from the pan and set aside.
4. Now add the sliced shallots to the pan and sautee them for about 5 minutes over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook for a minute longer.
5. Drain the vanilla scented brandy from the raisins and reserve the liquid. Deglaze the pan with the vanilla-scented brandy, scraping up the browned bits. Simmer until the brandy has reduced to a paste. Remove the shallots, garlic, and brandy mix from the pan and set aside.
6. Combine the marinated pork belly and venison with the seared liver. Grind the meat through the small die of a meat grinder.
7. Transfer the meat to a food processor. While the meat is grinding to a paste, add the egg whites and the shallot and garlic mixture. Grind until everything is evenly incorporated.

8. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and incorporate the heavy cream. Fold in the pistachios and raisins, alternating them so that they are scattered evenly throughout the terrine.

9. Pour the mixture into a terrine or loaf pan lined with parchment and bake at 300 degrees for about 25 minutes until the center registers 170 degrees with a meat thermometer.

This terrine is slightly unexpected because I flavored it with spices like vanilla bean and cinnamon that are more commonly found in sweet dishes. They tone down the gaminess a bit. It’s also studded with golden raisins and pistachios, but it might be even better with dried cherries.

One Meal to Ruhl(man) Them All: Duck Confit Pierogies & Bigos

8

06.12.11

Lately I’ve alluded to my stockpile of homemade charcuterie including bacon, pork belly lardo, wild game sausages, and duck confit. It was all part of a larger plan for the Charcutepalooza finale. My Pole-ophile partner proposed I make bigos, the national dish of Poland. This “hunter’s stew” of meat, sauerkraut, and cabbage was traditionally made with wild game, but these days it’s almost always made with pork. I wanted to change that.

Pierogies seemed like a natural accompaniment, but filled with what? I dreamed up a French-Polish fusion of shredded duck confit, caramelized onions, and mashed potatoes. Like traditional pierogies, but better.

Thank God my best friend was planning to visit me later that month. She was actually excited to help out. We’re former roommates with a history of taking on crazy cooking projects. On weeknights during college we often made “Japanese extravaganza” with homemade sushi, miso soup, and sweet potato tempura. Our peers thought we were weird. Rachel and I also traveled to Eastern Europe together, including a memorable stop in Poland, so it was fitting that she would help with the dinner. The date was set for Saturday, November 19.

That night we cooked for hours. We maintained our strength with snacks of beer, Polish vodka, and pork belly lardo. I also busted out some symbolic pork rillettes made from the bits of meat accumulated from all of these projects and stored in the freezer all year.

I culled over bigos recipes for weeks. Recipes that included tomato had no appeal. It didn’t seem like something a Polish hunter would eat. But I was charmed by this story in the New York Times about the author Louis Begley and his bigos recipe. I made some modifications to use my charcuterie stockpile, including wild game sausage to make it all the more hunter-y.

Bigos or “Hunter’s Stew”

Ingredients:

2 large sweet onions, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 ounces homemade bacon, cut into 1/2-inch squares
1 pound sauerkraut, preferably fresh
2 pounds cabbage, thinly sliced
2 potatoes, peeled and cut into eighths
4 cloves garlic, peeled
15 black peppercorns
1 pound homemade kabanosy
1 apple, cored and sliced
2 cups homemade duck stock
2 pounds homemade venison & wild boar kielbasa, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 cup red wine
1/2 cup to 1 cup vodka.

1. In a bowl, mix onions with salt and set aside. In a large pot, cook over medium heat until it is crisp and most of the fat has rendered. Add onions and sauté over medium heat about 10 minutes. Add cabbage and sauté for about 5 minutes until some of the water has cooked out.

2. Add sauerkraut, potatoes, garlic, peppercorns, kabanosy, and apples to the onions and cabbage. Add enough wine and stock to just cover and mix well. Cover and cook on low heat for 2 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.

3. Add kielbasa, and cook over low heat for 1 hour before serving.

4. Fifteen minutes before serving, pour vodka over the bigos. Spoon into bowls or onto a plate and serve with a garnish of chopped dill.

Yield: 8 generous servings.

We worked on the pierogies while the bigos bubbled away for about 3 hours. I loved the idea of using sour cream in the dough and settled on this dough recipe. I prepared and assembled caramelized onions and mashed potatoes in advance.

Duck Confit Pierogies with Caramelized Onions and Mashed Potatoes:

Dough by Barbara Rolek from About.com

3 cups all-purpose flour, plus flour to dust the work surface
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sour cream
1 egg
1 cup water

Combine flour, salt, sour cream, egg and water in a large bowl. Mix until dough comes together. If dough is dry, add more water 1 tablespoon at a time, until it’s moist and springy. If the dough is sticky, add more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, until it’s smooth.
On a floured work surface, knead dough for 3 or 4 minutes until elastic. Cover dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Filling

2 cups prepared duck confit, bones removed and shredded
2 cups mashed potatoes
1 cup caramelized onions, prepared in advance, flavored with black pepper and thyme

1. Roll out the dough about 1/8 of an inch thick and cut circles about 4-inches in diameter.

2. Holding a dough circle like a taco, layer about 1 teaspoon of potatoes, 1 teaspoon of duck confit, and 1/2 a teaspoon of caramelized onions. Encase the filling in the dough by sealing the edges. Set aside on a plate lined with parchment paper.

Making rustic pierogies is much easier than making delicate raviolis, but I won’t minimize the work involved. It’s labor intensive! I made about 50 during that weekend and learned something extremely important: place the pierogies on parchment paper because the dough is super sticky. Otherwise they’ll stick to the plate, resulting in oyster-shaped pierogies after they’re cooked. Yes, oysters. You don’t want that to happen after all that hard work.

Boiling the pierogies wouldn’t suffice for this occasion, so we fried them. In the duck fat leftover from the confit. We finally sat down to eat seven hours after we started cooking. The pierogies were absolutely everything I dreamed they would be, and I had been dreaming about them for about a month at that point. The bigos was sweet, sour, and smokey. I think any Polish hunter would have approved.

We made so much food that we enjoyed a second installment of the meal with Dustin’s parents the following weekend. Louis Begley spoke the truth— the flavor of the bigos improved after a few days in the fridge. The sweet and sour qualities of the apple and sauerkraut mellowed while the smokey richness of the meat deepened in flavor. The pierogies froze beautifully

Charcutepalooza taught me so much about food while connecting me with many kindred spirits here in Austin or via Twitter. I’m more than a little sad that it’s ending, but I loved sharing the experience with friends and family over the past few weeks. I couldn’t have done it without their help and support! A special thanks to Rachel for taking control of the pierogies (she has always been more talented with dough than me), and to Dustin for his unwavering support, meat smoking skillz, and eating all the bigos.

Wild Game Sausages

3

29.11.11

I’ve been stocking up on homemade charcuterie for the last Charcutepalooza challenge. I want to include wild game in my final dish (it won’t be revealed until next week) to make it more authentic. I thought it would be easy to get some venison since we have more deer than we know what to do with here in Texas. At least that was my impression.

Last January, we packed up the car and moved from New York City to Austin. As we approached our final destination in Texas, we saw about 20 deer chomping on leaves, flowers, landscaping and whatnot. I felt like we were venturing deep into the wilderness, and it made me nervous. I wanted to cry out to Dustin, “Where the hell are you taking me?!” I had seen maybe three deer in all of my time growing up in Rhode Island.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered how difficult it is to buy venison. A few stores around town sell venison from New Zealand, which is patently absurd. The FDA has almost prohibitively strict standards related to selling wild game in retail outlets. My only option was to order from Broken Arrow Ranch, a meat purveyor here in Texas that is permitted to sell field harvested wild game by bringing a meat inspector with them on hunts.

Venison & Wild Boar Sausage based on Chef Milos’s Country Venison Sausage from Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s Charcuterie. Makes about 2.5 lbs of sausages.

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs. boneless, lean venison
1 lb. wild board belly
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon pink salt
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 cloves fresh garlic, chopped
1/2 cup ice water

1. Combine all the ingredients except the water and toss to mix thoroughly. Chill until ready to grind.

2. Grind the mixture through the small die into a bowl set in ice.

3. Add the water to the meat mixture and mix with a sturdy spoon, gradually adding the water until it is incorporated and the mixture develops a uniform, sticky appearance.

4. Saute a bite-sized portion of the sausage, taste, and adjust seasoning if necessary.

5. Stuff the sausage into the hog casings, and twist into 6-inch links. Let dry 1 to 2 hours at room temperature or in the refrigerator.

6.Hot-smoke the sausages at a temperature of 180 degrees to an internal temperature of 150 degrees. Transfer to an ice bath to chill thoroughly, then refrigerate.

Tasting these sausages was rather climactic after researching wild game sources, emotionally ordering the meat, waiting for the delivery, and making them. I was apprehensive as usual, scared that the wild boar would be too musky and that the sausages’ strong, gamey flavor would permeate my dish. But now I’m excited! These sausages taste like the best, meatiest, most flavorful kielbasa ever, and I think they’ll be the perfect ingredient.

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