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.

Baked Spanish Meatballs

Baked Spanish Meatballs

This recipe is easily adapted to pretty much any mince or meat you like, just be sure to brown it first. You could also use chicken pieces (wings, drums, thighs, breasts) or rabbit pieces.

In this case I used rabbit mince, see rabbit burgers recipe for instructions for the mince.
This could also be made in a slow cooker.

Ingredients

Rabbit Mince

3-4 chorizo sticks, sliced about 1cm thick

olive oil

2 peppers, (red, yellow or green mix, not fussy!), chopped chunky

2 red onions, chopped chunky

8 cloves of garlic, peeled and halved

1 can of tomatoes, bash them up a bit with a fork

1 cup of chicken stock, make it in the can the tomatoes were in if you're using powdered

big handful of green or black olives, roughly chopped or whole (pitted ideally)

couple of tablespoons of capers, roughly chopped or whole

1 teaspoon of smoky paprika

1 teaspoon of turmeric

Method 

Preheat the oven to 180 deg Celsius.

Fry the sliced chorizo in a large non stick fry pan until browning and fragrant and set aside.

Form the mince into golf ball sized balls, roll in flour and brown in the same pan with a splash of olive oil. Place them into your roasting dish.

Return the chorizo to the fry pan and add the red onion, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, stock, capers, paprika & turmeric. Bring to the boil and pour over the meat balls.

Bake in the oven for 30-45 minutes (check the meat is cooked).

Sprinkle with the olives and serve with rice, pasta, mashed spud or couscous!

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.