A quick message to my friend Hank Shaw who points me to a recent blog post he did on Plucking Game Birds and I was feeling better about it and I soon found myself stripping the birds of their plumage with paraffin wax.

Next came gutting the birds. I figured it couldn’t be too difficult I’ve gutted plenty of fish in my life, surely this couldn’t be too different. And it wasn’t. I cut open just under the breast bone and pulled down to open each birds cavity and most of their fun middle bits fell out neatly. I then cut open the neck and pulled out the thorax from the top end. With all the entrails and fun stuff out of the way I just had to fish around a bit for the liver, heart, and lungs. Easy.

As you can see one of the ducks looks quite handsome with nice white fat under the skin, the other though had orange fat and was a bit manky with a bunch of pellet holes. I did some reading and I’m guessing the manky one is a Gadwall, Hank suggested it would be good for soup. I struck on the idea of gumbo which I’ve made a few times before and is a good way to use sub-par meat.

Hank has a recipe for Wild Game Gumbo so I figured it would be a good yardstick and used his basic ingredient set, but went my own way on the preparation.

Spice Mix
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 tablespoons sweet paprika
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon dried thyme
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon celery seed

Roux
• 250g (1 cup) butter
• 125g (1 cup) flour

Main Ingredients
• 2 kg (4 pounds) of meats ( I used the smaller duck, andouille sausage, beef cubes, and some bbq pork ribs and confit pork belly from my freezer )
• 250g ( 1/2 pound ) bacon cut into lardons ( home cured of course )
• 2 finely diced green peppers
• 2 finely diced medium onions
• 5-6 finely diced celery stalks
• 6 finely diced cloves garlic
• 1 Litre home made chicken stock ( don’t use bought stock, just use water if you don’t make your own stock )
• 1 Litre of water
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 lb okra, sliced crossways
• A small bunch of thinly sliced green onions
• A bunch of chopped parsley leaves
• Finely chopped parsley stalks from above.
• 2 tablespoons file powder

Preparation

First make your roux. Melt the butter in a pan ( cast iron is great for this ) and when it stops foaming add the flour. Whisk the mixture until it becomes a paste and then let the flour brown whisking it just enough to stop it burning. It’s a bit of a game of chicken the darker the roux the better, but you don’t want to burn it. Cook it for as long as your nerves can handle and then pour it off into a container to cool off.

Next cook off your bacon over low heat until it has released enough fat to cook on. Put the bacon aside and start browning your meats in batches. Between batches of meat you may need to cook the bacon some more to render more fat out to cook in. Eventually all your meats will be nicely browned and you’ll finish off the bacon if its not already nicely crispy.

With your meat cooked you now want to start building the flavours of the dish. First cook off your Peppers, Onion, Celery and garlic in batches. You want to bring them right to the edge of burning… Again its a battle of nerves. The closer to burnt the better the final flavour but you don’t want to actually burn them.

Once that is done you’ll want to to mix your roux and your vegetables with the tomato paste and half the spice mix in a large pot ( I initially started using my electric pressure cooker which has a simmer feature, but it didn’t really get hot enough so I had to transfer back to a normal pot ). Stir it until hot and then slow add in the stock and water while constantly stirring to avoid clumping.

Once this starts to simmer add your meats in and continue to simmer for at least 90 minutes, but preferably 3 or 4 hours. If any of your meat had bones in it you’ll want to pull it out towards the end and remove the bones. The flesh should fall off them easily. Through this cooking process you’ll want to frequently skim off any scum or froth that forms. You’ll also want to taste it regularly and adjust with more of the spice mix, some hot sauce, and salt.

With about 15 minutes to go add in your Okra and Parsley stalks. And then just before serving stir through the chopped Parsley, Green Onions and File Powder. Serve with rice or by itself. Don’t feel the need to build a silly rice tower.

It’s also a remarkably simple recipe. The Ragu itself is just a few ingredients and if you use quick cook polenta it can come together in about 25 minutes. I jazzed it up with a sparking Vino Verde Gelee, but don’t feel obliged to go that far.

Vino Verde Gelee
* 200 ml Vino Verde
* 20g Sugar
* 1.5g agar

Bring half the wine to the boil and add in the sugar and agar. Stir for a minute and take off the heat. Add in the rest of the wine and pour into shallow dishes to set. It will set out of the fridge, but feel free to throw it in. When ready to serve take it out of the dish and slice into cubes.

Creamy Polenta
* 400 ml milk
* 1 bay leaf
* a sprig of thyme
* 2 whole cloves garlic
* half a dozen white peppercorns
* 150g quick cook polenta
* 20g butter
* 20g parmesan

Bring the milk to the boil and immediately turn off the heat. Add the bay, thyme, garlic and peppercorns and let steep for 20 mins. strain out the milk and bring it back to boil. Take it off the heat and stir through the polenta, butter, and parmesan and cover.

Mushroom Ragu
* Olive oil
* knob of butter
* 500g sliced mixed mushrooms ( the more varieties the better )
* small bag of dried chantrelles
* 1 garlic clove ( grated over microplane )
* 2 Shallots, finely chopped.
* leaves from a sprig of thyme
* 150 ml red wine

Pour a cup of boiling water over the Chantrelles and allow to steep about 30 minutes before starting then chop them and add to the mushrooms. Bring a pan to heat and add in half the oil and butter. Cook half of the mushrooms and thyme until browned, put aside and cook the other half.

Saute the shallots and garlic in a dash of olive oil until fragrant. Add in the mushrooms and the red wine. Pour in about 150ml of the mushroom stock ( the soaking water from the Chantrelles ) and bring to the simmer.

Taste and season when the liquid has reduced by about half and take off the heat.

Spoon the polenta into a bowl and then the mushroom ragu on top. Grate some Parmesan over the top and then place cubes of the gelee around the plate.

Well after seeing a write up on the ‘science’ of risotto on SeriousEats I decided to give it a shot. I read through the information and it all did seem to make sense. Of course the proof was in the pudding and after making a risotto roughly following their recipe I gotta say … It was pretty damn good.

* 380g Risotto rice
* 1L chicken stock (cold)
* 1 cup white wine
* 2 tablespoons butter
* 2 tablespoons olive oil
* 2 cloves garlic grated on a microplane
* 2 small shallots
* 1/2 cup cream, whipped to soft peaks
* 60g Parmesan
* 500g Mushrooms
* a few sprigs of Thyme

Combine the rice, stock and wine in a bowl and agitate for a few minutes. strain the stock out and allow rice to drain. This extracts starch from the rice which helps to thicken the risotto later.

Saute off the mushrooms and thyme in some butter and oil until browned. Set aside.

Heat the rest of the butter and oil and when really hot add in the rice, tossing frequently until all the liquid is evaporated and rice is starting to give off a nutty aroma.

Add the Shallots and Garlic and cook while stirring for a few minutes. Reserve a cup of stock and add the rest and the mushrooms to the rice and bring up to a simmer. Stir the rice, cover it, and reduce heat down as low as possible.

Cook the rice for about 20 minutes or until the liquid is absorbed and rice is almost tender, shake or stir once halfway through.

Remove lid and add the rest of the stock liquid. Bring heat up to high and shake or stir constantly until thick and creamy. Take it off the heat and add in the parmesan. Season with salt and pepper. Now add just enough of the cream to loosen the rice up a bit.

Serve with a few tender stalks of Asparagus and a shaking of Togarashi to give it some colour.

Ingredients

Moussaka

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 kg ground meat ( Lamb, Beef, Pork or any combination of the three )
• 2 finely chopped onions
• 2 minced garlic cloves
• 2 x 400g cans crushed tomatoes
• 2 x eggplants, cut into 5mm slices lengthways ( use a mandolin if you have one )
• 2 red capsicums
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ground
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 2 green cardamon pods
• 2 tablespoons sage, finely chopped
• 200g grated soft sheeps cheese.

Béchamel

• 3 cups milk
• 1 onion
• 4 cloves
• 1 bay leaf
• 100g unsalted butter
• ½ cup plain flour*

can  use conflour to make this gluten free … or mix Tzatziki with eggs and use this instead for low carb.

Method

Heat your oven to 200c ( 400f ).    cut a few slits in your capsicums and put them in the hot oven turning every ten minutes or so.  remove them and wrap in foil to rest when the skins are all black and blistered.

Meanwhile heat a large pan and brown off the meat with a generous sprinkle of salt.   Feel free to do this in batches to make sure it browns well.    Add the Cumin, Cinnamon, Cardamon and Oregano and cook for another 5 minutes or so. Remove the meat from the pan.

Add some olive oil to the pan and throw in the onions and garlic and Saute until soft.  Add the tomatoes and simmer for 20 minutes. While this is simmering unwrap your capsicums.  The skin should peel off easily, remove the seeds and chop finely.  Add it into the pan.    Add the meat back into the pan along with the sage.  Cover and simmer on the lowest setting.

Next fire up your grill and get it smoking hot.  layer your eggplant on a platter with a sprinking of salt between layers.   Oil the grill and char the eggplant in batches, re-oiling the grill between batches.

Next the béchamel.  Stud the onion with the cloves and add to a pan with the milk and the bay.   Bring it to a boil and remove from the heat.  Melt the butter in a pan and add in the flour and cook over low heat.   Add in the milk 1/4 cup at a time whisking the whole time.   Cook over low heat for about 15 minutes stirring regularly.

Now to assemble.  Put a layer of eggplant at the bottom of a baking dish.  Add a layer of the sauce and repeat.  Once the dish is almost full add a layer of the béchamel and sprinkle with cheese.

Bake this for about 40 minutes until cheese is nice and browned.    Serve with a nice salad and  a dollop of Tzatziki.

I’ve been experimenting recently with using a Water Roux (Tang Zhong) a Japanese method of heating a flour/water combo to 65C  where it forms a paste and adding it to the dough.  This helps create a fluffy texture to the bread.  Using this technique I started with a fairly traditional Brioche recipe, added the Water Roux and some Cocoa Powder and then substituted chocolate milk for milk.

I tried to keep the sugar content fairly low as I didn’t want the bread itself to be super sweet,  but to instead lend a chocolately undertone to whatever is spread on it.     To add some extra interest to it I added some milk chocolate chips and dollops of Bourbon spiked Dulce de Leche.

Ingredients

• 150g Water Roux ( 50g flour, 250g water )
• 350g Bread Flour
• 50g Sugar
• 5g Salt
• 1 Egg
• 175g Chocolate Milk
• 6g Yeast
• 30g Butter
• 1 shot espresso
• 50g Cocoa Powder

To make the water roux simply whisk flour and water together and heat while stirring until it reaches 65C.   This is about the point where it forms a gluggy paste consistency.

Bring off the heat and add the espresso shot and the butter to the roux, stirring until butter has melted.   add the rest of the liquid ingredients and whisk together.

Now add the dry ingredients to a stand mixer with the paddle attachment.   turn it onto slow and pour in the liquid ingredients.

Once it’s mixed turn up the speed to 6 and let the paddle bash the dough around to get the gluten forming.   Then switch to the dough hook and knead until ready.   The kitchenaid isn’t very good with wet doughs,  but you can persevere through.

Once the dough is kneaded put it in an oiled bowl and cover for about an hour for the first proof.    Once it has doubled in size knock it back down and seperate into four even pieces.    Roll these out thin and then add chocolate chips and dollops of dulce de leche and roll it up sealing the ends and the seams.

Once all four are rolled up put them into a bread pan like so.

Cover and allow dough to proof again before baking at 350F/175C  for about 30 minutes.  Then remove from the pan and rest on a rack to cool.

While it’s warm it can be eaten as is … but when cool is best eaten spread with more Dulce de Leche or your favourite Jam.    It would probably also work great in a bread pudding.

The ingredients are simple,  the only thing you really have to know is a general rule of 9 cups water per 1 cup rice.   The rest you can make up as you go along, don’t even need to keep the flavors asian.

• 9 cups water
• 1 cup rice ( I used a mix of Wild Rice and Aborio )
• chicken bones and meat from last night’s dinner
• 1 carrot roughly chopped
• a bunch of green onions roughly chopped
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• handful of raw peanuts (unsalted)
• soy sauce to taste
• salt and pepper to taste
• Schichimi Togarashi for garnish

Put all the ingredients in a slow cooker with a good slug of soy sauce and cook for 8 hours on low.   When cooked season to taste with salt, pepper, and soy sauce.   Garnish with a sprinkle of Schichimi Togarashi.

Usually I spend a lot of time thinking about what I want to do for a rub, adding all sorts of spices and other oddments like Cocoa and Coffee,   this time I decided to go minimalist and just get good quality meat.   A trip to wholefoods got me a small grass fed brisket and a pasture raised chicken ( which despite my skepticism seems to be a genuine claim not a marketing loophole ).

This turned out to be quite the epiphany as the brisket was without a doubt the best brisket I’ve ever cooked,  and not far off the best brisket I’ve ever tasted ( I’m talking to you Franklin).    So from now on quality meat, simple rub,  add flavors with interesting sauces on the side.  ( which actually thinking about it, is exactly what Franklin does. )

I also wanted to make a BBQ sauce and decided on one that I’ve been eyeing off for a while, which is Hank Shaw‘s recipe for Dr Pepper BBQ Sauce.   I was going to get Dublin Dr Pepper which is made with real sugar but couldn’t find any, instead I grabbed a Dr B   which is the HEB branded version.    I had thought that it was also real sugar, but when I checked, dammit HFCS, apparently they have a sugar version but I picked up the wrong bottle.

The chicken went into a bag with a brine ( 5% salt ) containing water, salt, a few lemon wedges and a handful of pickling spices in the fridge.   The Brisket got a liberal coating of salt and pepper ( equal amounts by eye ) and both were refrigerated overnight.

4am the following morning my alarm started yelling at me to go and get the BBQ started.   Stumbling out of bed I managed to light some charcoal without burning the house down and soon had the BBQ at a balmy 225F/107C.   I put the brisket directly onto the grate and then went back to bed.   6:30am and my alarm starts screaming again,  I check the BBQ, add a few chunks and go for a run.   Thus passes my day,  every second hour I’m adding charcoal and mesquite chunks.

Around breakfast time I pulled the chicken out of brine, patted it dry and returned to the fridge uncovered to finish drying off.   Shortly after lunch I added some onion powder, garlic powder, and Paprika to the left over salt/pepper from last night and liberally brushed down the bird with it and put it back in the fridge.

Now I started on the BBQ sauce.   I heated up the oil in a saucepan and then added a chopped onion and two chopped garlic cloves and cooked them down on low heat for about 15 minutes adding the Cayenne Pepper for the last minute.   I then added the can of Crushed Tomatoes, Dr B, Orange Juice, Cider Vinegar, Honey, Salt and Pepper.

I cooked this down for about 30 minutes and then wazzed it up in the blender until it was smooth.   Went back on the heat and simmered for a few hours.

Back to the chicken I poured the rest of the Dr B into the tomato can and added the remaining rub.    I then took the chicken and bit her on the ear to distract her from the pain as I jammed the can right up her butt. I put the chicken on a pan and into the BBQ.

As the afternoon passes and I’m checking on the fire and tending to the BBQ I remove the sauce from the heat, let it cool down, and bottle it. I also bake some fresh sourdough bread and wrap the brisket in parchment paper to help keep it moist.

6pm comes along, guests arrive, food is served.

The meat was fantastic,   the brisket was an absolute knockout!  The sauce was great.    I’ve labored over some really fancy high end recipes with high end ingredients and tons of technique ….   This simple brisket with nothing more than a bit of salt,pepper, smoke and time was just as good as any of them.

Roasted Hatch Green Chile courtesy of Foodie is the New Forty

Many supermarkets have a hatch chile roaster which is a big rotating mesh barrel with a blowtorch and you can buy them freshly roasted in a bag. All you have to do is scrape off the blackened skin and it’s ready to go.

With a bag of roasted Hatch Chilis and a handful of Tomatillos in my grocery bags it was time to make something with them.   Tomatillo Salsa was an obvious choice.   I remember seeing a bunch of cans of Green Salsa in Hank Shaw’s pantry when I was visiting with him so I went to his blog and sure enough there was a recipe.

Strangely I was totally out of Cider Vinegar, and only had a small splash of white vinegar,  so in order to make the salsa acidic enough to can I added some Citric Acid having some left over from canning Tomatoes.   I was also Barbequing so decided to smoke half of the Tomatillos and the Garlic to bolster the roasted flavours in the Hatch.

To my friends back home in Australia,  you should be able to find canned tomatillos in specialty stores ( and any green chiles will do ).   If not,  then do something crazy and use Tomatoes and red chiles and call it Tomato Salsa.

• 500g Tomatillos ( smoke half of them,  remove husks after )
• 4-5 jalapenos, seeded ( these came from the backyard courtesy of Farmer Kelly )
• 4 roasted hatch green chiles ( skin and seeds removed )
• 1 medium onion
• half a head of smoked garlic
• 2 bunches of coriander/cilantro
• 8 tablespoons of Cider Vinegar ( half if not canning ) [substituted 1 tsp citric acid )
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

Ready for chopping and blending.

First step is to boil a very large pot of water and sterilize some canning jars in it.

Chop all vegetables roughly.   If you’re like me and have a shitty blender you’ll want to blend the smoked tomatillos and the vinegar first,  then add the rest of the ingredients.

Pour the blender out into a saucepan and simmer for about 15 minutes.    Taste for seasoning and acidity,  it should be slighty over seasoned as it will soften when cooled.

Pour back into blender and blend.  I like my salsa to still have texture ( and did I mention I have a shitty blender, I won’t be blending Apples any time soon….) so I don’t puree it too far.

Pour into jars, wipe mouths clean,  put lids on and process in boiling water for 15 minutes.   Make sure you’re a jar short so you can eat some right away with corn chips.   I really dig the red flecks through it from the ripened Jalapenos.

Tomatillo Salsa

Just a few short weeks ago my attention was drawn to a sandwich known as the Shooter’s Sandwich.   It’s a very old British recipe from the Edwardian era designed to be carried by the gentleman hunter to have a good wholesome portable meal while hunting.   In fact it’s almost a portable Beef Wellington.

The sandwich is made up of several layers of steak, mushrooms and onions with mustard and horseradish stuffed into a hollowed out loaf of bread and then pressed down with something heavy to flatten it out.

Making this was quite simple …  so simple I think a full blown recipe would be unecessary, so I’ll just list out the steps and rough ingredients.

I started by cooking a couple of grass fed rump steaks sous vide @ 55C (130F) for two days.   Of course you could happily cook the steak in a pan, or in the grill but I wanted to ensure it was super tender with no gristle.

I also baked a fresh round loaf of sourdough,  but store bought would be fine.    You want the steak to be roughly the same diameter as your loaf of bread.

Next I cooked off some diced ( home cured of course ) bacon, diced garlic, a large diced onion and a large handful of roughly diced cremini mushrooms.   Once the onion was sweated down and the mushrooms have release all of their moisture and started to stick to the pan I added a splash of Worcestershire and a splash of white wine.

Next I wilted down some fresh swiss chard and betreet tops from the garden in some butter and a splash of water.

I then brought my cast iron pan up to temperature and seared the steaks.

Then it was just a matter of assembling the sandwich..      First off I cut the top of of loaf off and scooped out most of the soft bread inside.   I then spread the top and bottom with a good layer of mustard ( made by the folks @ The Noble Pig ).   In went the first steak, a layer of the mushroom mix,  the wilted greens, grated horseradish, the rest of the mushroom mix, the last steak, and then sealed back up with the lid.

The whole thing was then wrapped in parchment paper, tied off and the weighted down with a bunch of heavy books for several hours.

Once flattened I refrigerated it overnight and ate it for lunch the following day.

Home made chicken stock is the polar opposite of store bought stock.  It has a strong chicken flavour, very little salt and full body.

There are as many different ways of making stock as there are people who make it.  This stock is a very basic stock made from cheap cuts of chicken, a few cheap vegetables and some basic herbs and spices.

Using the pressure cooker greatly reduces the necessary cooking time,  in fact you can get a decent stock with only 30 minutes under pressure.   If you don’t have a pressure cooker you can do it on the stove or even in the oven  ( if so cook just the chicken for about 4 hours, then add the vegetables for another 60 minutes ) …  just don’t let it boil, a gentle simmer will give best results.

I used chicken drumsticks and thighs,  but you can use almost any piece of bone in chicken.   I’ll often make it with a chicken carcass and a bunch of chicken feet ( great for thick collagen rich body ).   Wing tips are also great.

• 1Kg (2 pounds) of mixed bone in thighs and drumsticks
• 1 whole peeled onion studded with two cloves
• 2 peeled carrot
• 2 stalks celery
• 1 clove garlic
• a few springs of thyme
• a few whole black peppercorns

The first step is to blanch your chicken.   This will help reduce scum and impurities and give you a clearer stock.  This is very important for pressure cooker stock where you can’t skim it during cooking.     Add your chicken to the pressure cooker and fill with cold water until covered.    Put this over heat (uncovered) until it just starts to boil and then drain off the water,  giving the chicken a quick rinse.

Add the chicken back into the pressure cooker along with all the other ingredients.    Add water to cover ( make sure you don’t go above the maximum water line indicated in the pressure cooker ).

Bring the stock up to pressure and cook for between 60 and 90 minutes.      I use an electric pressure cooker with a built in timer.

Turn off the heat after the appropriate amount of time has elapsed and allow pressure to gradually disperse until the lid unlocks.   Take off the lid and you should have a nice clear looking broth.     Remove the vegetables and discard.   Remove the chicken and discard the bones,  keeping any flesh ( don’t waste good meat! )

Pour your stock through a fine mesh strainer ( can use cloth, or coffee filter if you want to be fancy ) to filter out any of the remaining particulates.   Put aside ( under an AC vent works, or in a cooler with ice ) until it cools and then refrigerate and use within a few days,  or freeze and keep for months.    I got about 10 cups of stock out of this.   not bad!

Now what to do with the left over cooked chicken flesh ?     Chop it up and while still hot mix in some salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder.    Add a couple of finely diced pickled jalapenos, a splash of the pickle juice and a good helping of mayonnaise.    If you have any left over add in some finely sliced celery and some walnuts.      Instand chicken salad …  great as is or on a sandwhich.