Late Season Shore Lunch

I am going to keep writing about venison but today will be an interlude because yesterday while on the patio I saw sunnies and bass( largemouth) in the shallows.

There is only one reason that fish would be in the shallows this time of the year. They were feeding. Fishing it was, then, and we caught 4 northerns and 4 bass in 1 hr and had a great late season shore lunch for supper. Traditional in the sense of fried potatoes and baked beans, but we also had corn fritters with chives and jalapenos.

I floured and panfried the fish and finished it off with white wine, tarragon, parsley and butter.Exceptional.

Back to venison tomorrow.

Waxing and Waning

I did a venison roast recipe for Outdoor News which should be in this wk's issue. It involved a marinade w/ nearly equal amts of soy sauce and red wine and even more oil, plus the usual suspects of garlic and bay leaf and pepper and w/ the surprising addition( to me) of lemon juice. A 24 hr marinade.

I think the wine and lemon juice function as tenderizers. I found the recipe in the old farmhouse cupboard of my Great Aunt Sophia. She was a great cook. I got it shortly before dementia encouraged the removal of Clifford, her son and a mentor of mine, from his birthplace and lifelong home in Gowan near Floodwood.

A lifetime of fishing and hunting memories remain. Food too. Clifford had an easygoing facility in the kitchen and the smokehouse. He made the best venison I ever ate. His traditional first meals of the fresh shot deer were a neck roast and the ribs, which many of us discard as inedible because of the many inseparable layers of meat and tallow. He would chase the waxy ribs w/ real hot coffee to dissolve the wax and make it palatable. It works.

Ivan and Mule Deer

My daughter rides horse at Rolling Hills Arabians on the west side of Mille Lacs. Ruth does the horses. Ivan is the fishing guide( Ivan's Guide Service). He's quite a Ivan - if you fish w/ Ivan, you know that you've fished w/ Ivan. And you would have caught fish( walleyes) even in this tough season on Mille Lacs.

He just got back from Colorado and he fried up a snack of fresh ground mule deer seasoned simply w/ a seasoning salt. Excellent. Not a bit of wild taste.

We each got a bowl and sat at the table and ate the meat as we visited while the girls were riding horse. A beautiful late summer's eve.

If They Are So Smart, Why Were They So Dumb

I think more than a few have lost their appetite on Wall Street recently. Talk about choking on a donut.
Credit default swaps. You now own them( as a taxpayer), thanks to AIG. Do you know what they are?
If they were food on a plate you wouldn't eat them.

Bear Too

Why will a lot of rural America be voting for McCain/Palin? Moose stew.
Twice this wk while at work( bar and restaurant), I got to see a dead bear in a pickup truck, one shot by a 13 yr old boy, his first; the other by a 74 yr old guy, his 13th.

Rural America does this( hunts) and you don't have to punch out on a timeclock to check out a local trophy out front. We honor braggin rights. I know both people. That's rural America, which is probably half the country.

Bear stew, too. Could you see Biden eating bear stew?or Obama?

After a Long Day on The Trail

Like an independent voter, I changed my mind and added bacon to the moose stew( check yesterday's post). I also called it a ragout, a French word which derives from another French word which means, " to stimulate the appetite." A ragout is a "thick, rich, well seasoned stew of meat and sometimes vegetables" according to the Food Lover's Companion. That fits the bill.

And consider: moose( venison) stew just might end up on the new White House menu. Perfect after a long day on the ( campain) trail. Here's a photo of it served as a change-up over mashed potatoes.

An American Original

Moose meat stew and Sara Palin - each an American original.

I would like to get Sara's recipe, but in the absence of that, I would suggest that you make it like a beef stew w/ the substitution of any kind of venison for the beef.

Like Sara, we are shooting this game ourselves. Depending on where you get it, venison is likely to be somewhat to completely organic - it may be feeding in grain fields that are not organic - but those up north in Mn in the woods are certainly pure. That is a real plus these days.

Season the meat w/ salt, pepper and garlic(granulated), and brown in oil along w/ plenty of onions till those onions are carmelized( light brown and sweet), add flour( this will thicken the stew) and stir and scrape, deglaze the pan w/ red wine, cover w/ water, add bouillon or beef base, bayleaf and allspice, simmer for an hr or until meat is half tender, then add carrots and celery and simmer till they are tender. Add water throughout as necessary, stirring occasionally.

Serve over mashed potatoes.