Hello to all our summer grilling fans! Yup, that time is here when all you grill masters pull out your barbecue, clean them up and get ready for our favorite outdoor cooking season. Kabobs are always a favorite way to cook meat but we are going to put a little spin on this particular way of cooking. Instead of using skewers, we will use a hinged grilling grate.
This will help keep those wonderful juices inside the meat and not dripping out of those savory little chunks. This particular marinade gives a deliciously different flavor than the usual tastes we associate with kabobs. Also, I am keeping the potatoes and mushrooms separate in this cooking method so you can control the tenderness of the potatoes. Corn is in season right now, making it the perfect reason to get a pile and cook them per our Perfect Corn on the Cob recipe, found in our recipe index at the top. Please enjoy!
Servings: 2
Prep Time (including marinating time): 2 hours
Cooking Time: 10-12 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 lb. venison stew meat
Marinade
- 1 cup of burgundy wine
- 1/2 cup of soy sauce
- 1 tbs. of curry powder
- 1/4 tsp. of ground ginger
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
Kabob ingredients
- 2 medium tomatoes, sliced
- 1 green pepper, sliced
- 1 medium onion, sliced
- 1 zucchini, sliced
- 1 package of sliced mushrooms
- 1 15 oz can of sliced potatoes, drained
- 3 tbs. of butter
- garlic salt, to taste
- ground black pepper
1. Clean stew meat of all silver skin and fat. Cut into 1 to 1 1/2-inch cubes. Set aside.
2. Combine burgundy, soy sauce, curry powder and garlic into a non-reactive bowl and place venison into the marinade.
Marinate for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.
3. While the meat is marinating, slice the zucchini, onion, green pepper and tomatoes. Set aside.
4. In a medium frying pan, melt butter, an eighth of the sliced onion and mushrooms. Saute for about 10 minutes then add potatoes. Season with garlic salt and ground black pepper. Sauté for another 10 minutes, cover and set aside. You don't want to get the potatoes too soft.
5. Start the barbecue. While the coals are getting hot, open a hinged grilling grate and place the zucchini, the rest of the onion, green pepper, tomatoes and meat in it and secure snugly.
6. Place the grate on the grill, cooking for about 5 minutes on each side. Make sure you do not overcook the meat.
7. Serve un-kabob ingredients with potato/mushroom mixture and your favorite beverage!
Translated into English, Coq au Vin means "rooster/cock with wine." Traditionally, it is a long, braising process of an old, tough rooster, but modern recipes today use regular chicken, which doesn't take long to cook at all. The bird in this recipe was a rooster pheasant that was given to me. Although I don't find pheasant breast tough at all, it's legs can certainly be, benefitting from the longer braising time that this recipe was originally intended for.
If using game that you harvested yourself, it will of course take a little more time to prepare, unlike buying ready-to-cook chicken from the store. I cleaned the pheasant as best as I could once it came off the field, but I still needed to put in some extra work before I could actually cook with it, even if the bird was entirely skinned-- or maybe it's because I'm just slow. Getting every bit of feather off the bird was a pain in the butt, but finding pheasant feathers in your finished dish is even worse. Also, remember to look for shot and to dig out feathers that may have lodged into the wounds.
I like dishes like these because they utilize the whole bird, or most of it. Out of laziness, I am sometimes guilty of just breasting out birds as well, but it always makes me feel bad afterwards because there is still quite a bit of meat on the legs, as you can see in the photo above. Learn how to braise and you'll feel more likely to save the whole bird. That's how it should always be.
Servings: 4
Prep time: 45 minutes
Cooking Time: 2 hours
Ingredients:
- 3 slices of thick cut bacon, chopped
- 1 whole pheasant
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 cup + 1 tbs. of flour
- 1/2 lb. of carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 yellow onion, sliced
- 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
- 1/4 cup of cognac or brandy
- 1/2 bottle of dry red wine, like Burgundy or Syrah(Shiraz)
- 1 cup of chicken stock
- 10 fresh springs of thyme
- 2 tbs. of unsalted butter, at room temperature, divided
- 1/2 lb. of pearl onions
- 2 tbs. of olive oil
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 tsp. of sugar
- 1/2 lb. of baby bella mushrooms, quartered
1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.
Clean and wash pheasant thoroughly. Remove any yellow fat on meat. Separate into 6 pieces: legs, breasts and back cut into 2 pieces. Slice breasts into smaller pieces. Sprinkle salt and pepper on all sides. Set aside.
Yellow onion and carrots should be cut like so.
2. In a Dutch oven, cook bacon until crispy over medium heat. Remove bacon and set aside.
3. Lightly dredge pheasant pieces in flour and brown on both sides in bacon fat. Cook in batches and do not overcrowd the pan. No need to cook through. Just brown the outside.
Set aside the pheasant with the bacon.
4. Lower heat to medium-low and add carrots and onion to the pan. Add more oil if necessary. Add a pinch of salt and pepper and cook for 10-12 minutes, or until turning brown-- stir often. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute.
5. Next, add 1/4 cup of cognac to the pan. DO NOT POUR DIRECTLY FROM BOTTLE. Scrape the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon.
Put the bacon and pheasant back into the Dutch oven, along with any juices from the plate. Add wine, chicken stock and thyme. Add 1 tsp. of salt. Bring to a simmer.
Cover with a tight fitting lid and place in a 250 degree F oven for 1.5 hours.
6. For easy peeling, add pearl onions to a pot of boiling water and boil for 2 minutes. Drain and run under cold water. Cut off root end and squeeze onions out of their skins.
They should pop right out!
7. In a skillet, cook pearl onions, 1/2 tsp. of sugar and 1/2 cup of water over high heat. Cook until onions start to fry then lower heat to medium-low. Cook until onions begin to glaze, stir occasionally. Set aside.
8. Quarter mushrooms. Heat 1 tbs. of butter in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add mushrooms and sauté for 5-10 minutes, or until browned.
9. Remove pheasant from oven and bring it back to the stove. Check to see if pheasant legs are tender. Discard thyme. Add mushrooms and pearl onions to the pot.
To thicken up the stew, mash together 1 tbs. of flour and 1 tbs. of softened butter, then mix into the stew. Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper, to taste.
Serve hot with mashed potatoes and/or French bread.
I have been loving spring in Nebraska because of the foraging opportunities. With warmer weather and spring rains come morel mushroom, wild asparagus and wild onion hunting. In a few more weeks, the wild flowers will be out, and in summer will come sweet berries. I have been learning loads, and I can't wait to show Rick when he gets here!
This soup I made is a variation of potato leek. Usually, I like to bake or grill asparagus in olive oil, salt and pepper. That's how I almost always have it. But for the blog, I wanted to try something different.
I also had a bunch of wild onions in the fridge that needed to be used. With its mild, delicate flavor, wild onions make a great garnish for all kinds of dishes, including soup.
To the right is a photo of my friend Bekah. We were out on someone's property to examine some cedar trees. Bekah stopped the truck, we hopped out and she showed me what wild onions look like. So we dug a bunch up with what we had on hand... a small rusty saw and a deer antler-- it worked.
It had just recently rained then and when I think on it, the most distinct things I can remember about that day was the faint, sweet odor of freshly picked wild onions, the feeling of moist dirt under my fingernails and the smell of spring rain all around me. Everything felt so alive. If I could sing, I would've broken into a Julie Andrews song.
Servings: 4
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 30-35 minutes
Ingredients:
- 2 tbs. of butter
- 1 clove of garlic, minced
- 1 leek stalk, white and light green parts chopped and washed thoroughly
- about 6-7 red potatoes (or an equal amount of russets), peeled and diced
- about 15 wild asparagus spears, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 2 cups of chicken stock
- 1 tbs. of chopped wild onions
- 3 sprigs of fresh thyme, snipped (just a pinch for dry)
- salt and pepper, to taste
- grated parmesan cheese, to taste
- hot sauce (optional)
1. In a medium pot, cook garlic and leeks in butter. Cover and cook over low for 10 minutes. Stir often and do not brown the leeks. During the last 5 minutes, add the asparagus.
Next, add potatoes and chicken stock. Then add enough water to submerge all veggies and then some. Bring to a simmer and cook, covered, for 20 minutes.
Here's an Instagram photo of the asparagus I found a couple weeks ago along the roadside. If you know where to look, they're everywhere up here in Northeast Nebraska. They like moist, damp places like roadside ditches and along crop fences.
They can be hard to spot, but look for the yellow, dead mature asparagus plant that stands out. At the base of these dead mature plants might be some green asparagus ready for eating, like in the photo.
2. When cooked, take off heat. With a stick blender, blend veggies until smooth. If using a standard blender, blend in batches. Then mix in snipped thyme, wild onion, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.
Ladle into serving bowls and garnish with extra parmesan cheese, wild onion and hot sauce (optional).
Wild onions like to grow in damp places. They have small, purple/pink flowers at the top and a tiny white bulb at the bottom, similar to scallions. However, they are a lot smaller compared to scallions, more like the size of chives really. Just peel off the brown, burlap-like skin off the bulbs before you use them.
There is a toxic plant that looks similar to wild onions. An easy way to tell them apart is by simply tearing off a piece and smelling it. If it smells like onion, then you have the right kind for eating.
All of the plant is edible, even the flowers. The flowers make pretty garnishes.
Hello all! Garam Masala spice (known as "The Magic Spice") is from northern India and surrounding areas. It's not just a spice, but actually a blend of spices. In Hindi, Garam means "hot" and Masala means "spices." In this context, though, Garam refers to the intensity of spices rather than the heat content. Common spices found in this blend are cinnamon, cloves, black and white cumin seeds, black, brown and green cardamom pods, and both black and white peppercorns. If you want to try something different with wild game, try cooking with Garam Masala. The flavor combination lends itself well with venison. Find it at your local Indian specialty store or online.
This recipe makes a lot of food, so it's perfect for a family meal. With Jen a few time zones away, this fed me all week, which was nice because I didn't have to cook something up every night after coming home late from the gym.
Prep and Cooking Time: 55 minutes
Servings: 4
Ingredients:
- 1 lb of venison roast
- 2 cups of uncooked white rice
- 3 1/2 cups of chicken stock
- 1/2 cup of dry white wine
- 1 tsp. of Garam Masala
- 1 1/2 cups of pearl onions
- 2 fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 1/4 cup of olive oil
- 2 tsp. of Hungarian or sweet paprika
- 1 tbs. of finely chopped rosemary
- 5 cloves of chopped
- 1/2 cup of sliced green onions
- 1 cup of chopped broccoli
- 1 cup of chopped carrots
- salt and pepper, to taste
1. Trim fat and silver skin off roast. Season roast with salt and
pepper. Place roast on a medium-hot
heated grill and cook for 5 minutes on each side. You’re not looking to completely cook the
roast but brown it well on both sides. I
added soaked hickory chips to the coals to give it a smoky flavor. After browning the roast, let it rest for 10-15 minutes. Then cut it into 1/2 to 1 inch cubes and set aside.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine chicken stock, wine and garam masala and bring to a low simmer, making sure the stock does not evaporate too much.
3. While the above stock is coming
to a simmer, heat olive oil over medium-high heat in a large, deep 12-inch cast iron frying pan until it is almost smoking.
Add pearl onions and scallions and cook until soft, stirring frequently. Next, add chopped garlic and continue to stir
making sure you do not burn the garlic.
Reduce the heat to medium and add tomatoes, paprika and rosemary. Cook for about 2 minutes.
4. Add rice and stir well,
mixing all ingredients together, making sure the rice is coated with the olive
oil and cook for an additional two minutes.
Then pour the now simmering
stock into the frying pan along with carrots and mix well. Cover the pan and simmer on low for
approximately 15-20 minutes.
Yum...
5. Add the cubed meat and chopped
broccoli to the frying pan. Cover again for about 15 minutes to allow meat
to heat up and broccoli to steam without over cooking it. At this point make sure the burner is
off. Salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with chopped green onions as a garnish.
