Slow Cooked Wild Venison Masala

So if you haven’t guessed already, I’m a super busy woman. I run the behind-the-scenes of my husband’s brick and block laying business, I’m a stay-at-home mum of a 2 year old boy (pregnant with another, due Christmas day, yeah yeah, laugh it up...), chase around after our two lively English Springer Spaniels allllllll day, have a part-time job, we own 22 acres which requires daily attention, all while trying to build my own empire with ‘Hunter &Wife Homeware’, ‘Hunter & Baby Babygear’ and ‘www.howtobeahunterswife.com’. And in between all of that, I keep the house in some kind of order!

So basically, rule number one when it comes to prepping and cooking dinner for the team is – Must be simple and versatile. That’s why the slow cooker is pretty much my best friend.

The following recipe is a goodie that’s super adaptable, use any red meat (works particularly well with goat), no biggie if you don’t have one of the spices, you can use cream or sour cream if you don’t have yogurt, use fresh tomatoes if you don’t have a can. Don’t be too fussy about quantities, except maybe the cayenne... unless you like it HOT!

Ingredients

 

500gm Cubed Venison

1 tsp Turmeric powder

1 tsp Garam Masala

1 tsp Coriander powder

1 tsp Cumin powder

1 tsp Fenugreek

1 tsp Cayenne Pepper

1 tsp Paprika

3 garlic cloves (or 3 tsp of minced garlic)

2 tsp minced ginger

1-2 cups plain yogurt

1 can diced tomatoes

1 diced white Onion

Oil

Method

Combine cubed meat with spices, garlic, ginger and 1 cup of yogurt and place covered in the fridge for as long as possible – anything from a couple of hours to overnight would do!

Preheat a good slug of oil in a large pan, add marinated meat and brown quickly. Transfer to warming slow cooker (or casserole dish with lid if going to cook in the oven).

Add diced onion to pan and sauté till softened. Add can of tomatoes, cook to combine. Use a wooden spoon to get all the yummy bits off the bottom of the pan.

Carefully pour over the browned meat and stir to combine. Meat should be just covered in liquid, if not, add a small amount of liquid beef stock.

Allow to cook on low for 6 hours +. If cooking in the oven, cook at 100 deg Celsius for 3 hours.

Add remaining yogurt before serving, on fluffy white rice.

Bacon Wrapped Quail

Californian Quail are small, fast and often elusive birds. They thrive in the semi-arid conditions of Central Otago, and can be found roosting in Matagouri, Broom, Manuka and Gorse. A good bird dog is essential for flushing and retrieving these small birds, especially one who is willing to jump at/into bushes.

Guess who does most of the work!?

Quail hunting is a favourite for my hunter. It's exciting, fast but sneaky hunting that makes best use of our two English Springer Spaniels. It can however be frustrating as Quail numbers in our region have been rather unpredictable this season. So, there's not a lot of Quail in the freezer this year. Having said that, it rarely makes it to the freezer as it's far too yummy to not eat straight away!
It's best not to do too much to Quail meat, as you don't want to over power it's delicate flavour. If you have the patience and steady hand you can de-bone the small birds... but bugger that. Just eat it off the bone like you were born to!

Ingredients:
Quail birds (plucked, beheaded, gutted and checked for shot pellets)
Streaky Bacon
Cranberry Sauce

Method:
Thoroughly check your birds for any shot, nothing ruins a beautiful meal like breaking a tooth on a bit of shot!.
Rinse the cavity after gutting.
Wrap each bird in about 3 strips of streaky bacon.
Glaze with Cranberry Sauce
Roast in an oven preheated to about 180 deg Celsius.
Serve with - roast veges or new potatoes & salad or risotto (I served it with pumpkin & parmesan risotto)

'What's in the fridge' Venison Roast

Despite us having a new addition to the family, I've been insisting that the Hunter continue to have his 'man time' in the mountains. Not only is it vital to his mental health (and mine in a way!), but it keeps the freezer full! Unfortunately, I have less time to get creative in the way I used to, and instead have to get creative in a whole new way. A way in which I am bound by the ingredients that are in the fridge. Gone is the luxury of being able to whip in to town to grab some vital ingredient from the super market. Now I have to make do with what I have. Hence, 'What's in the fridge Venison Roast' was born!

Ingredients:
1x Lump of Venison meat (Pretty sure this was shoulder? Not really important)

Photo was taken before I added the stock, oops

1x small jar of basil pesto
Cranberry sauce
Minced garlic
Beef Stock
S & P

Method:
Sear the meat on all sides in a hot frying pan with a little olive oil to seal the meat.
Place in a roasting dish and baste with a sauce made with the pesto, cranberry sauce, minced garlic and S & P.
Pour approx 1 cup of beef stock into the dish, this will help keep the meat moist.
Cover in foil and roast for about an hour at 100 deg Celsius. Continue to baste in any leftover sauce and the juices throughout cooking.
Serve with creamy mashed spuds, or new potatoes and salad. I made a quick jus from the juices in the dish too.

This time and temperature is very approximate, it totally depends on the size of your piece of meat. I recommend using a meat thermometer if you have one. If you don't have one, pierce the meat with a thick skewer, if it the blood oozes out on it's own very quickly it may be too rare, if you have to apply pressure to the meat to get blood out it'll probably be about medium. We like ours medium/rare so cooked ours for about 30-45 minutes, and let it rest wrapped for about 15 minutes. This photo is kind of deceiving, it wasn't actually that bloody, I'd just poured some of the cranberry sauce jus over it.

Rabbit Burgers

My hunter has been carrying out a bit of pest control for a local organic farmer friend of ours lately, and each time he goes out he brings home a few of the good 'eaters'. Rabbit has to be one of the most versatile meats, anything you could do with chicken you can do even better with rabbit. It's juicer and tastier. This is one of my favourite rabbit recipes, SUPER fast, no mess, huge success.

One man's pest is another man's dinner...

Ingredients

2 whole rabbits (meat removed from the bone - about 500gm meat)

1 Egg

1/2 onion (white or red)

1 clove of garlic

The leaves from a sprig of rosemary about 10cm long

Salt & Pepper

Thai Style (omit rosemary)

Handful of fresh coriander

1 teaspoon of minced ginger

1 teaspoon of lemon-grass

A good 'glug' of sweet chilli

Juice of one lime

Truly the easiest burger patty recipe!

Put all the ingredients into the blender and pulse till combined.

Bingo  - rabbit mince!

The mince can be used for burger patties, or meatballs served as a nibble with a dipping sauce, try putting meatballs on kebab sticks and barbecuing for something different. Or even bake it as a meatloaf.

When my hunter brings home a bag of bunnies, I make a couple of batches of rabbit mince and put it in the freezer. It's a great thing to get out for BBQs. Guests are always surprised how much it tastes like chicken, but is so much more juicy! 

A wee tip, we always soak our rabbits overnight in salt water, it gets the gaminess out a bit.

Duck Shooter's Bacon & Egg Pie

Every May, kiwi hunter's wives are assigned the task of creating the ultimate Bacon & Egg pie, for a 'Duck Shooter's Pie-off'. There is much prestige bestowed upon the hunter who's wife makes the best pie. It should be crisp on top, not have a soggy bottom (heaven forbid!), be juicy but not messy to devour, and nourishing, as it may be the only thing he gets to eat till they get to the pub for dinner later that evening. Also, it must have a happy balance of two vital ingredients - bacon and eggs!

Here's my fool proof recipe (totally adaptable & dependent on the size of your dish…)

Ingredients:

500 gms streaky bacon, cut into 3cm pieces (preferably free farmed)

6-8 eggs (depending on size, but always free range!)

2-3 sheets of pre-rolled savoury pastry, (not puff, tends to go soggy. Make your own if you're really going for brownie points)

1 cup frozen Peas

Onion (or shallots or spring onion)

Grated Cheese

Mushrooms

Salt & Pepper

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 deg Celsius.

Line a greased baking dish with pastry.

Sprinkle grated cheese on the bottom of the pie (this helps to prevent the soggy bottom!)

Meanwhile, fry the bacon, onion & mushrooms till the onions are softened. Turn the heat off and stir through the peas, not trying to cook them, just combining.

Half fill the pastry lined dish with the bacon/onion/mushroom/pea mix.

Crack in 3-4 eggs. My hunter prefers the yolks left unbroken, but break them if you'd rather.

Pour in the rest of the filling mix, and crack in the remaining eggs, salt and pepper the top (easy on the salt, the bacon should take care of that for you).

Top with more grated cheese, and/or a pastry lid. For extra brownie points do a lattice, but avoid getting too fancy, love hearts and messages will only embarrass him in front of his fellow hunters.
Place on a rack in the middle of the oven, and cook till golden brown!

Bacon & Egg pie is made to be shared among men and as much as I'd love to tell you how many it will serve, it's entirely dependant on the size of your dish and the hunger of your man/men!

Rugged Duck Casserole

This opening weekend was a boomer! We were left with so many ducks we ended up just 'breasting' the majority of them. And after vacuum packing what seemed like the entire bird population of Central Otago, somehow I still wanted more. So I decided to cook a duck casserole for dinner! I was in a bit of a hurry so this was prepped in under 20 minutes, and left in the slow cooker for 4 hours, but you could easily give it a bit more love and do it in a casserole in the oven. This recipe is about as adaptable as they come, see final notes for options!

Ingredients:
6x Duck Breasts, leave them whole (skin on or off)
4x Bacon slices (roughly chopped)
2x Carrots (roughly chopped)
2x Parsnip (roughly chopped)
6x Shallots (1/2'd or 1/4'd (or 2 med onions chopped)
1x Celery (roughly chopped)
2x Handful of chunky chopped mushrooms (flat or button)
2x cloves of garlic, crushed or roughly chopped
Rind of 1 orange (or spoon of marmalade!)
1-2 cups of Red Wine (plus 1-2 for you!)
Juice of 1 orange or 1 cup of Orange Juice
Couple of sprigs of rosemary (or a teaspoon of dried)
1x Bay leaf
Flour
Salt and Pepper

I always start by giving my duck breasts a thorough looking over, checking for any shot that you can easily pick out (saves your teeth later!) and any damaged bits that you'd want to cut off.

Then, chop all your veges (carrot, parsnip, shallots, celery, mushys, garlic) and the bacon,  throw them in a frying pan and sautee for a few minutes. Remove to the slow cooker or your casserole dish.

Our duck breasts were 'naked' (skin off) so I coated ours in flour, S&P, but if you've got skin on I wouldn't bother. Quickly brown the breasts in the same frying pan, just a minute each side, then add to the veges in the pot.

De-glaze the pan with a cup of red wine, the oj and the orange rind. Pour over the veges and duck. Place your rosemary and bay leaf on top, lid on, set to low, and see you in 4 hours!

You shouldn't need to add any salt, the bacon should take care of that, but have a taste of the sauce after a few hours, you might like to add some pepper.
You can add a handful of frozen or fresh beans, or some spinach in the last few minutes for a complete meal!

I served ours with mashed potato & kumara (sweet potato for you lot on the other side of the world), and some chunky crispy bread.

Adaptations:
No oranges? Use marmalade
Works with whole duck too! Or quartered.
Add whichever veges you like, try to stick to ones that can stand long, slow cooking - potato, kumara, pumpkin, yams etc
No celery? Spring onion is good too.
Don't want to use red wine? Use a bit of balsamic vinegar (about 1/4 cup max), some vege stock to make up the liquid and maybe a spoon of berry jam/jelly or quince paste if you want to be super fancy!

Moroccan Goat Tagine

This works really well with almost any meat - goat, lamb, beef, venison, chamois. And you don't have to cook it in a tagine, a casserole works just as well.

From vegetarian to top of the food chain!

How ironic that my first “follower” is about as vegetarian as they come! I wonder if she realizes the graphic nature of the information I plan on providing you all, she may be in for a shock. Maybe I’ll even be able to turn her to the dark side… But hey, stranger things have happened.