Little bucks and Ducks

A friend just arrowed a little buck. I'm thinking of tenderloins on toast - sliced medallions done rare to med rare( seasoned w/ salt,pepper, garlic) with sautee`d onions and mushrooms( this is our 2nd and greatest mushroom season - perfect this yr w/plenty of rain, you can see them from your car), with fresh sage and the pan deglazed w/ brandy or cognac or red wine.
For an appetizer do them rare on little crostini's( toasts) and serve cold w/ wasabi.
Duck opener this wk end - I have not hunted ducks for some years now, but they remain my favorite game food. I'll do some recipes over the next wk or so.

Meatloaf Reconsidered

Meatloaf is fancier than you think. It is really a country pate` and if you should drink a Pinot Noir or a Burgundy along with it, it will change your meatloaf experience. Make a dipping sauce of 1 part dijon mustard to 3 parts catsup and add tabasco to taste - its like a spicy Heinz 57 only better.If you line up green stuffed olives like marbles in the center of your meatloaf mixture it is like a surprise inside and it tastes really good too.

The Perfect Storm

Catching the right fish in the right place at the right time with the right person is a perfect storm. I caught a steelhead like that once where the springtime Poplar river explodes into Lake Superior in front of Lutsen Resort. My oldest son was 19 and just back from his first year of college out east. I was on the lam from my business, my life and my wife, and Alex and I were having time together that we'd never had, the time of our lives. Some had accused me of having a nervous breakdown. $39 a night in the old cliffside motel at the resort was a bargain even back then. It was 4:30 Am. Fog was rolling in off the big lake. It was cold. On my third cast I caught a 5lb Coho. A half hour later I was the king of the world as I worked the steelhead out of a furious current which had enabled him to jump head high several times.I never thought I'd get him in until I did. Him turned out to be a her as a couple of oldtimers were on us fast and milking the eggs out of her lower belly.
" Bastard's. Don't let them do that," said the taxidermist bartender in the Polar Bear Lounge with disco lights in the black floor.I'll never know if that fresh caught steelhead would've been as good as the luscious flesh of the coho which we stuffed w/ rice and onions and peppers, zucchini and carrots and garlic and ginger and soy sauce and a sweet hot mustard and wrapped in foil and roasted in the dying embers of a fire on the beach. It was the best fish we ever ate, and we'll never duplicate the meal, nor the serendipitious events of that day. You cannot predict a perfect storm. Nor the predeliction of a bartender/taxidermist for fresh steelhead. The bastard. I did get the mount and it is a beautiful mount and it is above me as I write this. I can almost taste it.
I'm trying to get to the third salmon recipe, which is simply made from leftover salmon( hah -good luck) or a portion of the fillet that you have poached in water or white wine. The poaching liquid should be half way up the filet in the pan. Cover and cook real slow like you love the fish - a bare simmer. When you cook it real slow it's flesh will melt in your mouth like butter. Make an alfredo sauce to which you add green peas and the salmon which you have gently flaked w/ a fork; get hot( 1 min) and serve over any kind of pasta w/ fresh grated parmesan cheese.
Vivian says she loves cooking w/ wine and sometimes she'll put some in the food too.

,Slow Food, Outdoor Food, Gravlax recipe

All food, really, is outdoor food or at least used to be. It lives outside and grows outside. Except for chickens and pigs. I live in farm country and I never see a chicken or a pig outside any more. They spend their lives indoors in those long barns. Is that natural, as Golden Plump claims on their packaged chickens in the supermarket?
The Slow Food movement is a fast growing movement these days. When I think of slow food, I think of turtles. Salmon would be a fast food. Bacon should be cooked slowly, as should eggs unless you are doing an omelet, which should start fast and finish slow. I am a little confused about the slow food movement.
This gravlax recipe is adapted from Beard on Food, by James Beard. For a 1 1/2 lb salmon filet, use 1/8 cup salt( sea or pickling), 1/8 cup sugar, and 1 tablespoon coarse ground black pepper, and lots of fresh or dried dill. Mix together and sprinkle on both sides of the skinned fillet, cover w/ plastic film, and refrigerate for 36 to 48 hours, turning once. It is my suggestion that you should eat some about 15 minutes after seasoning or even right away.Let the rest cure as indicated. These are two distinctly different flavors and textures of salmon.

Burn wood, eat salmon, live longer

So if you want the salt cured gravlax( lox as in lox and bagels), I will be posting an accurate recipe that will safely cure the flesh of the fish. Salt curing is one of oldest methods of saving food in a safe way. Erich Christ, longtime owner of the Black Forest Inn in S Mpls claims that the vinegar cure is the oldest method of preserving meat, as in sauerbraten.
Use the second portion of salmon that you have sliced off the filet to cook on the outdoor gas grill or the weber. I always cook with wood on my weber - there is an abundance of oak and maple and other hardwoods in this area of Mn -and I've always thought why buy charcoal briquettes when they come from wood just burn your own wood you don't need much and it is free and not full of added poisons like bagged charcoal briquettes are. And it gives a real wood flavor. It takes a little longer, not much, and the result is ten times better. Rub the filet w/ olive or vegetable oil, season with lemon pepper and maybe dill or tarragon( subtle licorice essence) fresh or dried and grill two minutes on the first side, flip and grill 2 or 3 minutes on the other side. A general rule of thumb is 7 minutes per inch of fish. You do not want to do this w/ salmon you want to cook it medium rare to medium so it doesn't dry out and "taste too much like salmon." Place a pat of butter on top to serve. Stick w/ a dry white wine as previously recommended or beer.

It Worked! It Worked! Now What?

There is/was a glitch, definitely, because I now have public access and so should everyone. To the food quickly and briefly....
Get some line caught Copper River Sockeye Salmon from a friend, a friend of a friend, or from Lakes Meat and Market ten mi west of Onamia on hwy 27. Skin the filet and slice into 3 or four portions. Remember, this is sushi quality salmon.
First portion: precipitate the filet on both sides w/ a half teaspoon sea salt and a half teaspoon sugar and plenty of dill( fresh or dried), and place on plate in fridge.Immediately take out of fridge and slice as thinly as you can across the grain of the flesh and at an angle. Put cream cheese on a cracker of your choice, a slice of salmon, and top w/ any of the following to taste: wasabi or chinese hot mustard, and red or green onion. This is so good it doesn't taste like salmon if you know what I mean. Drink beer with it, or Champagne, or a white wine like Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc, or even lighter reds like Merlot or Pinot Noir. Salud! And ter`ve tu`loa ( come again).

Inside Outdoor Food

I tried this back in May, have six posts, but no public access to it so I am trying it again. I have been told that it is idiot proof, and that " anyone can do it," so if the previous attempt did not work, what does that say about me? That I know more about food than this? ( the" title"line above may have been the problem I surmise as I write). Well - in good food and good luck I sign off.