Venison and Barley

 Sometimes it pays to cook all of the components of a dish together, especially if it is a slow cooked meal.  However, other times it is preferable to cook a dish such as this in separate stages in order to get the most out of each component of the recipe.  This works better as the latter.  The use of a slow cooker and cooking in stages makes the actual active cooking time fairly short and spread out.

Ingredients:

• 3-4 lbs of venison leg roasts, cut into large chunks (or any other red meat)
• 4 cups of beef stock
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 10 cloves of garlic, whole
• 2 cups of barley
• 1 pound of mushrooms (shitake and crimini) 
• Fresh rosemary 

1)  Start off by browning the meat in a large pan with some tallow.  Any red meat would be fine, I used venison because I have a freezer nearly filled with it.  Beef, lamb, horse, goat, or any other red meat would work just as well for this.  Transfer the now browned meat to a slow cooker and add the onions, garlic, and stock.  Cook this on low overnight (or for 8-10 hours).  Remove everything from the slow cooker except the stock and reserve.

Put the meat, onions, and garlic in the refrigerator for now.

2)  Par boil the barley in a large pot of water.  I always partially cook barley before I put it into a soup or a stew because it has an ungodly capacity for liquid absorption.  In fact, this dish was going to be a stew, at least conceptually.  While you are doing this, clean the mushrooms and cut into a rough dice.  Add them to the stock along with the rosemary and the drained barley.

mushrooms float; barley sinks

3)  Cook the mushrooms and the barley for another 8-10 hours in the slow cooker.  The barley will probably have absorbed all of the stock from the pot, and you will have only a mix of barley and mushrooms.  I feel like no matter how much stock I would have started with, the barley would have just sucked it all up.  This is fine, really, as all of the flavor and nutrients of the beef stock have been incorporated into the barley, which in and of itself is pretty bland.  Remove the rosemary at this time, unless you enjoy picking little sticks and hard leaves out of your teeth later. 

the stock has been completely incorporated into the barley and mushrooms

4)  Shred the venison and add it back into the slow cooker along with the onions and garlic.  Stir everything together and allow the meat to heat up.  Plate into a heated serving bowl.  Rosemary makes a good garnish.  You can pour some more heated stock over this when you serve it if you'd prefer a more soup-like presentation.  I served up the first batch as pictured below, but later on I ended up adding anther quart of stock cut with some water just to have more of a soup...the barley absorbed most of this liquid, too, when I put those leftovers in the fridge.

Ox Tail Tomato Sauce

 

I'll admit that I have very little experience with making Italian style pasta sauces, especially red sauces, but I wanted very much to make a sauce that not only tastes rich and comforting for Christa (who truly appreciates a good bowl of pasta), but would also be loaded with minerals, vitamins, and quality protein as well.  

 

For this, I decided to use an oxtail.  Why an oxtail?  Well, the short of the matter was that I already had the tail thawed out and ready to use, but with no beef stock on hand (whoops), my original plan of braising it as a stew was not destined to come to fruition.  What I ended up with was far better.

It was very good over pasta, but even better served over seared beef liver.

Ingredients:

• One ox tail
• A bottle of red wine (like Cabernet Sauvignon in this case)
• 40 ounces of diced tomatoes (approximately)
• Half of a large onion
• 6 cloves finely diced garlic
• Dried oregano and basil

broiled ox tail

1. Clean ox tail and place under broiler for just long enough to brown the meat.  The one that I used took only ~8 minutes to get some good color on it.  Remove the tail from your oven and let sit on the counter to cool enough for handling while you proceed with the base of the sauce.
2. Pour 2 cups of wine into a sauce pot, and add the garlic and herbs.  Let this come to a boil to remove the alcohol.  Add the tomatoes and reduce to just barely a simmer.  
3. Cut the ox tail into individual joint pieces and submerge them in the sauce.  Ensure that the pot will not come to a full boil (lots of steam and an occasional bubble breaking the surface are all that you're going for here.  Braise the tail pieces in the sauce for about 8 hours.  This is a good overnight process
4. Remove the tail pieces from the sauce and pick all of the meat off of the bones.  Place the meat in a container and reserve in the refrigerator for now.  
5. Dice the onion and saute in a little bit of tallow.  Add this to the sauce, and place the whole pot of sauce in the refrigerator to sit during the next phase of cooking.
6. Take the bone pieces and bits of connective tissue leftover from the tails and place them in a small saucepan.  Add about a cup of wine to this pan, and enough water to completely submerge the bones.  Bring to a rapid boil for about 5 minutes, and then reduce heat to just barely a simmer.  Let this simmer for 8 more hours to soften the bones and draw out more nutrients from the stock.  By now, the bones should be losing some of their integrity.  I pulled them out at this point and mashed them with the poll of an axe before returning them to the wine for a few more hours in order to maximize the surface area.
7. By now, you will have drained all of the minerals, vitamins, and flavor from the bones.  Strain the wine 'stock' through a cheese cloth and return to the saucepan.  Reduce to 1/3 original volume and then combine with the tomato sauce and meat that you had reserved earlier.  Let this simmer for a few more hours on low to allow the flavors to meld.  Toss with pasta and top with the shavings of a good aged raw milk cheese.

broiled tail pieces set into the wine to braise

Add enough tomatoes to submerge the meat.

slow cooked beef; picked off of the bones

Venison with Onion Gravy

While this sounds like one of those lengthy, overnight/multiday recipes, it is actually something that cooks up quick (dinner can be ready in less than 20 minutes) but tastes like a slow cooked meal.  The rich and meaty dish pairs well with a salad of baby greens or some lightly steamed broccoli. 

You'll need the following:

• 2-3 lb venison thigh roast
• 1/4 cup of tallow
• 1/4 cup of spelt flour
• 1 cup of beef stock
• 1 large onion
• Tallow for frying

1)  In a small sauce pan, heat the tallow and stir in the spelt flour to make a roux.  Stir this constantly until it is the color of chocolate.  Be sure to stir out any lumps of flour to ensure that all of the flour is cooked in the fat.  Once the roux reaches a nice dark color, pour the stock into the pot and whisk rapidly to make a smooth gravy.  Bring this to a boil, stirring often, and then turn down the heat to very low.

2)  French the onion into thin slices and put in a pan with hot tallow.  Fry gently over medium heat to soften and slightly caramelize the onion slices.

 

Soft, flavorful, but not overcooked onion

3)  Add the onion to the gravy and stir in thoroughly.  Simmer this for as long as your heart is content on the stove to continue cooking down the onion and incorporating the flavors of the gravy.

Yum...very beefy already

4)  Meanwhile, place your roast on a cutting board and identify the grain.  Cut the roast into 1/4" thick slices against the grain.  In the same pan that you cooked the onions, fry the venison slices in batches and set in a warmed serving dish.

The grain should be fairly obvious

5)  Spoon the gravy over the plated slices of venison and enjoy.

Something is missing, though...something green, perhaps

Beef Stock

 

 

Rich, dark beef stock takes several days to make but is well worth it.

A good home-made bone stock is an essential base for so many sauces, soups, stews, and other dishes that it pays to be able to make your own.  By using good quality ingredients to make your own bone stock, you will have a delicious and nourishing medium full of minerals, vitamins, and incredible depth of flavor to utilize in more dishes than you might initially realize.  While the process is time consuming, most of it is inactive and can even be done while you sleep.

 

 

Ingredients

• Beef Bones - mix of blades and knuckles (this recipe used 10 pounds)
• 3 medium parsnips, coarsely chopped
• 2 large carrots, coarsely chopped
• 2 large onions, quartered with skins still on
• 1/2 of a bunch of celery, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 cup vinegar

1)  Take the bones and lay them out in a single layer in a roasting pan.

cold and unappetizing

2)  Place in a 350F oven for 45-60 minutes, or until the bones have browned nicely and the marrow begins to bubble.  You might steal some of the marrow for a quick snack at this point.  I'm certainly not going to judge you.

hot, roasted bones smell delicious

3)  Place the bones in a large stock pot (mine happens to be 16 quarts) and cover with cold water.  Add the vinegar to this water.

This doesn't look good...but it will get better.

 

4)   Bring this just to a boil and then down to a simmer.  Allow the bones to simmer alone overnight or longer, but no longer than about one day.  After allowing the bones to have their private time in the stock pot, add all of the vegetables and bring back to a boil.  

All the vegetables!

5)  Simmer this for another day.  The vegetables will have given up just about all of the flavor and nutrients that they have to offer after 18-24 hours, so it will be time to remove them.  Simply strain them out and discard.  The vegetables will mostly be at the top of the stock, while the bones stay on the bottom.  You'll also likely find that you have a serious layer of fat accumulating on top of the water. 

 While I don't encourage you to try to remove the fat at this point in time (we will defat later), if the layer is a good inch thick or so, it's easy to lift off plenty of nice clean fat at this point in time to save for cooking later.  In fact, you can boil the water out of the skimmed fat and then filter it to have some really excellent tallow, which is what I did below.

Pastured Tallow:  greatest byproduct ever

6)  Once the bones have simmered for 3 days, they're just about done and it is going to be time to finish off the stock.  You will likely have needed to replenish the water during this process routinely to keep the bones submerged; I had to add about 2 quarts per day.  At this time, you will have a large pot full of a dark brown liquid and some soft, spent bones.  It doesn't even taste very good because there is absolutely no salt in this. (It is important not to salt a stock, because the final product will either be cooked down a little, or in the case of a demiglace, quite a lot.  Salt the dish that you are making with the stock.) 

bones n' sludge

7)  Remove the bones from the pot, and strain into another large pot through a colander to get any large pieces out of the liquid.  Strain this again through a cheesecloth, and then I personally do one final straining through a paper towel or coffee filter in order to obtain a very clean and clear product.  Let the filtered stock sit overnight in the refrigerator, and any remaining fat will solidify at the top of the pot.  Remove this and reserve for future use before bringing the stock just to the boiling point one last time. 

This!  This is what we have been waiting and working for!

 8)  I like to store my stock in the freezer in quart sized glass canning jars.  I put it in the jars simmering-hot so that as it cools it forms a vacuum which sucks the lid firmly down onto the jar.  I then label the jars with some masking tape (most frozen things in a jar look awfully similar when you are digging through a dark chest freezer in a cold garage).  Note how rich the color is (and the flavorr, but I guess you can't really note that through your monitor...).  This stock came out with this intensity without any reduction after de-fatting. 

liquid culinary gold.

 That's it!  You now have a nutrient and mineral rich stock that is a powerhouse of flavor and the excellent foundation of so many dishes that your imagination will be the limiting factor.  It takes a while to make, but you can make quite a bit of it at once and put it away for future use.  

Now, I'm off to use some for a venison mushroom soup for a very special someone... ;)

BBQ Ribs

BBQ Ribs

When we go out to eat, there are typically two types of restaurants that we frequent:  sushi and BBQ.  Good BBQ is something that goes a bit beyond the means that we have to cook at home, as a smoker is not something that we have access to.  Sushi is fun to make (and we have), but the amount of extremely fresh ingredients required to put together a good sushi spread mean that it is often easier and even more economical to dine out when seeking that kind of experience.  Also, 'going out' to eat is a fun activity to engage in from time to time, no matter how much one enjoys home cooking.  It's an excellent way to get exposure to new ideas to try at home.


When we do go out for BBQ, Christa usually likes to sample a different dish each time we go, slowly working her way through the variety of cuts and presentations while accumulating more knowledge of the cuisine and (one day) trying everything that good smoky slow cooking can accomplish.  I, on the other hand, do not consider any trip out for BBQ complete without a rack of ribs.  I love ribs - it's an easy decision to make for me.  There's something wonderful about eating perfectly cooked meat right off of the bones that appeals in ways that brisket and pulled pork never will.

I'm getting hungry just looking at this

The idea of making ribs at home, though, seemed daunting.  As I mentioned before, I cannot smoke meats without a smoker.  However, the desire to make ribs something that we could enjoy on a more regular basis led me to try out a variety of methods involving braising them for long periods in the oven and judiciously applying some extreme heat just before eating.

The results, while not exactly the same as good BBQ, certainly fill that void and provide really tasty ribs anytime we would like them at home.  The method described below works for any cut of ribs, though baby-back are preferential for us.

Ingredients:

• two racks of pork ribs
• dry seasonings (either a rub or just good salt and pepper)
• three Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• BBQ sauce (make your own or find a commercial variety that suits the bill)

Raw Materials

 See the layer of connective tissue there on the back of the racks?  You can either try to remove it entirely, or simply score it with a criss-cross pattern using a sharp knife.  I opt for the latter.  Once the racks are cleaned and dried and prepped as aforementioned, lay them out on a large sheet of aluminum foil and season with the dry seasonings of your choice.  Pour the vinegar over the racks (to provide some initial moisture for the braising process), and then tightly seal the foil into a package around the ribs.  Pop this into the oven for 4 hours at 250F.  Don't open it up, just let it do its thing in there.  What we're doing is cooking them low and slow with lots of moisture in order to soften up the connective tissues and render them quite tender.  Once the ribs have cooked entirely through, open the foil packet and drain off the excess liquid that will have accumulated during cooking.  Turn the broiler of your oven on and brush the back of the racks with BBQ sauce; just a thin layer.  Run the racks under the broiler for no more than 10 minutes, or just long enough to sear the sauce onto the meat without burning it.  Pull the ribs out and brush another coat of sauce on and then broil again.  Flip the racks and repeat this process again on the 'front' of the ribs.  I recommend doing several application of the broiler with thin layers of sauce to really bake it in, as opposed to trying to glop the sauce on too thickly.  You can apply as many layers as you like depending on personal preference.

ribs, Ribs, RIBS!

Once the ribs are broiled to your own personal level of perfection, simply let them cool down enough to serve and enjoy.  The cleanup couldn't be easier as well, as you've cooked them in the aluminum foil (no dishes to do).

This recipe along with a side might easily serve 5-6 people, unless once of those people is me.

Roast Chicken

There's something about a whole roasted chicken that ultimately is just so much more than the sum of any of its parts.  Sure, we cook the breasts (boneless and skinless if we're not interested in pleasing the palate), chicken thighs/legs, and of course one of our favorite meaty snacks: buffalo wings.  However, when a whole bird with all of the bones and skin and connective tissue is allowed to come to perfection in a hot fragrant oven, something almost magical has happened.  The best part of all is that it really takes very little effort on the part of the cook to do this right. 

Pouring the cold brine over the raw chickens the night before

I like to plan in advance for roasting whole birds, as I am a proponent of brining overnight.  To do so, clean your chickens and remove any organs from the cavity.  Place them in a nonreactive vessel (glass or stainless work well enough for this) that is large enough to completely submerge them.

The brining fluid that I use is simply a base of 1/2c of coarse salt for every 2 cups of water, along with an acid component.  For these chickens, I added some lime slices and apple cider vinegar (about 3 tablespoons) along a generous pinch of whole peppercorns.  Into the fridge they went for about 10 hours.

Once the process of brining is complete, simply remove them from the water solution (which you should discard) and them pat the skin of the chickens dry.  It's important that the skin be very dry before you proceed, so I toweled off the birds and then let them sit uncovered in the fridge for another two hours to finish evaporating any liquid on the surface of the skin.

Butter and herbs blended together

During this time, I began to make a flavored butter rub to apply to the chickens.  To do so, I simply took a large pat of pastured Irish butter and melted it in a makeshift double boiler consisting of a small glass bowl within a larger bowl full of boiling water.  To the melted butter I stirred in dried herbes de provence, coarsely ground black pepper, and some grey sea salt.  I set this aside while preparing the assembly of the birds for roasting.

Everything laid out and ready to begin

Buttered up and stuffed...ready for the oven

I turned the oven on to 450 F and then set about prepping the birds.  I lined a large roasting pan with foil to make cleanup a bit easier, and then proceeded to loosely stuff cilantro into the body cavity of the chickens and brush the melted herb butter all over the skins.  The skin should be dry in order to facilitate the adhesion of the butter mixture, which will stick quite nicely when it solidifies on contact with the cold skin of the chickens.  The herbs inside should not be packed tightly, but rather left loose enough to allow heat to circulate freely while providing delicious aromatic flavors to the chicken.  Cilantro is what I chose here because I had it on hand, but rosemary is another classic herb that lends itself very well to this purpose.  The contents of the body cavity will be discarded when the chicken is done, either way,. but they will impart lots of flavor to the meat of the chicken while they steam inside of it.


Pop the birds into the 450 degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes.  This initial high temperature will help to brown the nicely oiled dry skin.  After that, turn the temperature down to 350 and continue to roast for 20 minutes per pound.  As these birds weighed about 4 lbs each, they stayed in the oven for 80 minutes until the meat thermometer registered 165F in the thickest part of the chicken.

This method doesn't require any foil shielding or flipping (trying to roll a hot bird over right out of the oven is a hassle that I never want to deal with again).  The skin crisps up right away and seals in the moisture of the meat.  When you remove them from the oven, be sure to let the chickens rest for at least 20 minutes lest all of those juices run right out when you start to carve them. 

The smell doesn't make the resting period any easier.

While you can certainly enjoy a roast chicken for dinner as-is with a side, I like to reserve the meat for other dishes that I would like to put chicken in (like soup and pizzas).  Whatever you do, I would highly recommend saving the carcasses to make stock with!  We'll talk more about all of those things in a future post, though.

Roast Chicken

1. Clean the chicken.
2. Brine the chicken overnight in a solution of 1/2 cup coarse salt, 2 cups water, lime slices, apple cider vinegar, and peppercorns.
3. Remove the chickens from the solution, discard liquid, and pat dry. Let the bird uncovered in the fridge sit for about 2 hours to allow excess moisture to evaporate.
4. When the chicken is almost ready, melt butter and stir in dried herbes de provence, coarsely ground black pepper, and some grey sea salt. Set aside.
5. Preheat oven to 450º.
6. Stuff the bird with cilantro and coat generously with the butter mixture.
7. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until browned.
8. Bake at 350º for 20 minutes per pound. Internal temperature should reach at least 165º.
9. Remove from oven and let sit for 20 minutes.
10. Discard cilantro.
11. Serve or prepare as desired, reserving carcass for stock.