Coffee Crusted Elk Steak

This coffee crusted elk backstrap steak is a meal to write home about. The steak is crusted in an acidic and rustic dry rub of coffee and mushrooms and then drizzled with a rich stout glaze. The shoestring onions add a crunchy balance against the juicy elk backstrap steak.

The recipe was originally featured on Harvesting Nature, and a link to that recipe can be found here: Harvesting Nature Coffee Crusted Steak.

I have included a recipe card here as well! Enjoy!

Yield: 4

Author: a 12 Gauge Girl

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Coffee Crusted Elk Backstrap Steak

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Coated in a light crust of coffee and mushrooms that seals in and adds flavor, this coffee crusted elk backstrap meal is perfect for date night. The steak is topped with crunchy onion shoestrings and drizzled in a rich stout glaze.

Prep time: 30 MinCook time: 40 MinTotal time: 1 H & 10 M

Ingredients

Ingredients for Fried Onion Shoestrings

• 2 onions, thinly sliced
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 1 cup flour
• Tablespoon salt
• ½ Tablespoon cayenne
• Black pepper to taste
• 3 cups frying oil (vegetable, avocado, canola)

Ingredients for Stout Sauce

• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 1 medium shallot, minced
• 12oz stout beer
• 2 Tablespoons honey
• 1 Tablespoon molasses
• 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Ingredients for Coffee Crusted Steaks

• 4 elk backstrap steaks, about 2 inches thick each
• 2 ounces dried porcini mushrooms
• 2 ounces ground coffee
• 1 Tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
• 1 Tablespoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon oregano
• 2 -3 Tablespoons fresh sage, minced

Instructions

1. Start with preparing your fried onion shoestrings. Thinly slice the onions. If you can use a mandolin to get a fine slice that is easiest, but you can just cut thinly with a sharp knife.
2. Be sure to pull the onion slices apart and submerge completely in buttermilk. Let sit for at least one hour.
3. In a large ceramic Dutch oven or deep fryer, heat a couple cups of a high temperature frying oil, such as avocado, canola, or vegetable, to 375 degrees.
4. In a shallow bowl, mix a cup of flour, tablespoon of salt, fresh cracked black pepper, and ½ tablespoon of cayenne.
5. Shake the excess buttermilk from the onion strings and coat completely in flour mixture. Shake excess flour from onion strings and immediately add to hot oil. Work in small batches to keep the oil temperature from dropping.
6. Fry the onion shoestrings for one to two minutes, until the onions are a golden brown. Keep the onions separated from each other for optimal crispiness.
7. Remove onion batch from oil and place on paper-towels to drain some of the oil off. Repeat with rest of onions.
8. In a medium saucepan over medium low heat, add two tablespoons of butter. Once the butter is melted add a finely diced medium sized shallot. Cook for five minutes, until the shallot is soft.
9. Add a bottle of stout beer, two tablespoons of honey, a tablespoon of molasses, and a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce. Allow the mixture to simmer and reduce the liquid down by half, which should take fifteen to twenty minutes.
10. Cut your wild game backstrap into two-inch-thick steaks. Let the steaks sit out at room temperature for about thirty minutes before cooking.
11. While the steaks are coming to room temperature, prepare the coffee coating. In a spice blender or coffee grinder, mince up the one ounce of dried porcini mushrooms.
12. Add the ground porcini mushrooms to a bowl along with 2 ounces of ground coffee, one tablespoon of cocoa powder, 1 tablespoon of cinnamon, a tablespoon of salt, and the dried oregano. Mix everything together.
13. Coat the wild game back strap steaks completely in the coffee and mushroom mixture.
14. Heat a large cast iron pan over medium high heat. Once the pan is heated, about two minutes, add the steaks to the hot pan.
15. For a medium rare steak, cook the steak for six to seven minutes per side to an internal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit.
16. Let the steaks rest for five minutes before serving. To plate, pile a heaping serving of fried onion shoestrings on top of the coffee and mushroom crusted steak. Drizzle with the stout sauce and top with minced fresh sage.

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Wild Game Bone Broth French Onion Soup

Wild Game Bone Broth French Onion Soup. After the sun has pulled the covers up and tucked itself in for the nigh and the cold starts to set in, does anything sound better than warm soup? I don’t think I feel happier and cozier than when I have my hands wrapped around a steaming bowl of French onion soup topped with gooey, melty gruyere cheese and homemade wild game bone broth.

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Wild Game Bone Broth French Onion Soup

French onion soup is an OLD dish. Like think 8,000 years old. There are many different versions of how it first came around, but my favorite is the one where King Louis XV returns from deer hunting to bare cupboards. He rounds up some onions, butter, and champagne (which seems odd that his cupboards are bare, but champagne is around, but anyway), throws it all in a pot, and voila, French onion soup is born.

French onion soup was commonly considered the food of the poor because onions were cheap, easy to grow, and plentiful throughout Europe. The soup became popular in the 1960s in America along with the nation-wide trend of French cuisine in general.

To me, if French onion soup is the food of the poor, I don’t want to be rich. It’s one of my favorite meals. The ingredients are simple and easy to find, but the flavor developed from simply simmering caramelized onions in silky bone broth is downright amazing!

So, without wasting more time, let’s make Wild Game Bone Both French Onion Soup!

The Wild Game Bone Broth

You can make this recipe with store-bought beef broth, which is fine, but this is a wild game website, so I am going to share really quick (like the condensed, superfast version) how I make homemade wild game bone broth. I make a huge batch at one time from any of the bones I have in the freezer. Many times, the broth will be a combination of elk, deer, and pronghorn bones.

I roast the bones in a 400-degree Fahrenheit oven for one hour. I also do two or three onions, just cut in half and you don’t even have to remove the skin, and a couple of big chunks of ginger, I don’t even peel it.

After the bones are roasted, I put them, the onions, ginger, about six carrots, a bunch of celery, a couple of star anise pods, and a handful of whole cloves into a large stock pot. I cover everything with water, so this could end up being up to 24 cups of water if the pot is large like mine, and let it start simmering for hours. When I say hours, I mean like six. I reduce the liquid by about three quarters. Pour through a fine mesh sieve and scrape any fat from the top.

I don’t add salt to my bone broth. I just salt it when I use it so I can get it the way I like. Also, because it is so concentrated after hours of simmering, it doesn’t take up much room in the freezer. I freeze it in little pint-sized containers and then when I use for a recipe later, I add back in the water. So, for a pint of broth, I would add eight to twelve cups of water back in, depending on what I am doing.

Let’s Make French Onion Soup

Now that the broth is ready, it is time to start the onions. To a large skillet over medium heat, add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, enough to coat the entire base of a ceramic dutch oven, and a tablespoon of butter. Once the butter is melted, add the onions. I slice the onion into long strips for this soup.

Spread the onions out and make sure they are coated in the oil. Let them cook for ten minutes, stirring often to keep them from sticking to the pan or burning. If they are cooking too quickly, you may need to reduce the heat a little. You are looking for a slow caramelization here.

After ten minutes, sprinkle a tablespoon of salt over the onions to develop even more flavor. I also add a teaspoon of sugar. It helps with caramelizing. Cook for twenty minutes more.

Once the onions are golden, and caramel-y, and smell like heaven, they are ready. Deglaze the pan with a cup of wine, red or white will work here, and be sure to scrape all that flavorful goodness from the bottom of the pot.

Add the pint of reduce wild game bone broth and eight to twelve cups of water. Bring to a gentle boil, and we will add even more flavor to this dish! Add two tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, a tablespoon of Italian seasoning, and salt and pepper to taste.

Reduce the mixture for thirty minutes on a simmer. Add a quarter cup of sherry.

While your soup is doing its thing, toast sliced pieces of French baguette in the oven. I toast them under the broiler for five minutes. If you brush them with a little butter or olive oil first, you will get a beautiful, crunchy golden crust.

It’s time for the fun part: melting the cheese. Fill an oven safe ramekin with a cup or two of the French onion soup base. Nestle a few pieces of the toasted French bread into the soup, and then top it with shredded gruyere cheese. I do a ramekin per person.

Place the ramekins in the oven at 350 degrees for about ten minutes. The cheese should be melted and slightly browned (cue drool), and the broth slightly boiling. Aaaannnndddd…it’s time to eat!

Happy Hunting!

If You Like This Recipe, You Might Also Like…

Pronghorn Pumpkin Ale Chili

Venison Real Texas Chili

Elk Guinness Stew

Elk Reaper Summer Sausage

My favorite boating snack is definitely summer sausage, Ritz cracker, and a slice of cheddar cheese. It’s actually my favorite hiking snack. And fishing snack. And hunting snack. And sitting on the porch at the end of the day snack. And bored at home snack. It’s just the best snack. It’s even better when it’s made from your own harvested wild game too! And it’s even better than that when you add home grown Carolina Reaper peppers for Reaper Elk Summer Sausage.

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I started making my own summer sausage about a year ago. Store bought is okay. Getting it from a butcher is better than store bought. Having a butcher that processes wild game make you some from your own meat is even better than that. But the best is absolutely making it yourself. You get to control the salt level, the cuts of meat that go into it, the fat content, and the spices.

I feared the summer sausage process to begin. It seemed daunting. I also had a really difficult time finding a solid recipe online. And smoke times and temperatures? Almost impossible to find. I got incredibly lucky that a person on Instagram reached out to me and shared smoke times and temperatures.

So, after a few practice runs and some recipe perfecting, I am ready to share my Reaper Elk Summer Sausage recipe.

Homemade summer sausage is pretty easy to pull off, but there are a few tricks that make it turn out fantastic instead of just good. First tip: keep your meat and fat very cold! This is one of the most important steps for making summer sausage. If things get to warm while you are working the fat will separate and ruin the texture of your final product. So, between each step of mixing and grinding I stick the meat into the fridge for about thirty minutes.

Okay, let’s start making some Reaper Elk Summer Sausage. Following the first tip of summer sausage making, start with cold meat and cold fat. This recipe will make four summer sausage sticks that are two and a half pounds each. I do a ratio of 20% fat to 80% meat. So, for this recipe you need eight pounds of wild game meat of your choosing and 2 pounds of fat.

For the fat, most people prefer pork fat. I have never had the opportunity to work with pork fat as it seems nearly impossible to acquire. I have asked the local supermarkets and butcher, and all that is ever available is beef fat. So, I have only used beef fat, but it works great in my opinion.

For this recipe, I used elk for the meat. I have also done deer, bear, and pronghorn. They all turned out amazing. So, use whatever is in your freezer and you won’t be disappointed.

Run your meat and fat through a grinder using a coarse plate first. I used an 8mm grind plate. I also have a very inexpensive meat grinder. I love it. It didn’t break the bank, doesn’t take up much space, and is convenient enough to use I can just pull it off the shelf and grind up fresh burger meat at a moment’s notice. The grinder I am currently using, and have for quite a few years, is just this one: Cabelas Deluxe Meat Grinder.

Give the meat a quick mix to get the fat and meat incorporated. It is also time to add the spices now! I love the spice mixture for this Reaper Elk Summer Sausage. It obviously is spicy. The Carolina Reapers add a slow building heat to sausage that definitely lights your mouth up for a bit, but if you like a little kick you will thoroughly enjoy the reapers.

The allspice and cloves add a little sweetness and a slight touch of bitter, which pairs wonderfully with the heat from the Carolina Reapers. Pair that heat, sweet, and touch of bitter with the tang from the fermenting agent for summer sausage and you have one tasty snack on your hands.

Continuing on, to your meat and fat mixture add six tablespoons of kosher salt, 4 tablespoons of dextrose, and two teaspoons of pink salt #1. The pink salt extends the shelf life of cured meats, gives everything that pretty red hue, and assists in the prevention of spoilage from bacteria. Dextrose is added to cured meats to feed the lactic acid organisms that create that wonderfully tangy fermented flavor.

Once you have your salts and dextrose mixed in add your seasoning agents: 1 tablespoon of dry yellow mustard, 3 teaspoons of garlic powder, two teaspoons of ground ginger, 2 teaspoons of coriander, one tablespoon of allspice, and two teaspoons of ground cloves.

Next add your mustard seeds. Most people put in about two tablespoons. I eyeball it because I love the texture the seeds add to the summer sausage. I do more like three tablespoons. I also add more freshly cracked black pepper for the same reason. You don’t want to completely over-do it with the pepper because it can change the flavor of the summer sausage, but I do more like a tablespoon while others recommend less.  

Finally, it’s time to add your heat! The Carolina Reapers I used for this recipe were from my home garden. I dried them in a window for two months and then ground them into a powder. This recipe used three dried Carolina Reapers, which worked out to one pepper per 3.33 pounds of meat. This is equated to a teaspoon of powder for the entire recipe.  I would recommend some gloves at this point.

This recipe is for lovers of the heat! You can adjust the level of heat to fit your personal preference. To drop the heat level, you could add less of the Carolina reapers or use a different type of pepper, such as a habanero, serrano, or jalapeno. If you aren’t a fan of heat at all you can omit the pepper completely.

Get everything mixed really well. If you use your hands, I suggest wearing gloves because of the peppers.

Alright, time for the final steps before we place our meat back in the fridge: the fermenter. There are lots of different types of fermenting agents available. One of the more popular ones is Fermento. I used pediococcus culture. I ordered it online. It is a little spendy, but you can make pounds and pounds of summer sausage from one bag.

There are lots of different options for pediococcus culture. All of them provide protection against listeria and such; however, they all produce different results as far as the sourness of your finished product. There are some that will make your summer sausage very sour and tangy, and others that are much less so. I used a one that created a little less sour flavor since I was adding so many other spices to this summer sausage.

The pediococcus culture needs to be kept in the freezer to survive. You also shouldn’t handle it with bare hands. For ten pounds of summer sausage, I mixed ¾ cup of water with 3 teaspoons of dextrose. I then mixed in 3/8 a teaspoon of the pediococcus culture. Stir until the dextrose is dissolved and then pour over your meat mixture. Mix everything together.

Now that the spices have been added and the fermenting agent, place the meat mixture back in the fridge for thirty minutes to cool the meat back down.

After the meat has cooled, run the entire batch through the grinder a second time on a smaller grind plate. I used a 4.5mm plate. Place the meat back in the fridge to cool once again. I let it sit another thirty minutes even though the meat hadn’t warmed up too much this time. I wanted everything to be nice and cool for packaging the summer sausage.

Switch the grinding plate out for the stuffing accessories. You also need to let your summer sausage casing soak for ten minutes in the sink. This recipe makes basically logs of summer sausage and I then cut them down into smaller blocks before vacuum packing, but the actual casings are quite large. I used the 2 and ½ by 18-inch collagen casings.

It’s time to stuff casings, which leads us to our second tip: pack the casing very tight. Like as tight as you possibly can! The tighter the better.

Once all the summer sausage is packaged, place the logs in the fridge to relax overnight. I didn’t want overly sour summer sausage, so I let mine sit for one evening. If you like sourer flavor, let them sit for two nights before smoking.

So, once you have let the summer sausage ferment and do its thing, it’s time to smoke! Finally!

Preheat the smoker to 135 to 145 Fahrenheit and add your wood of choice. I have a pellet smoker and used applewood to smoke the summer sausage. The third tip for summer sausage success is to use a meat thermometer throughout the smoking process. You want to know the internal temperature of your sausage, so you know when you increase the heat of the smoker and when to pull the meat.

This is a cool temperature smoke for a pellet smoker.   I ended up placing tin foil on the rack to direct all the smoke directly at the temperature control probe and then added a rack about an inch off of the tinfoil to create an insulating air layer to prevent the heat from the fire box directly going at the sausage.  I then used the probes to monitor the air temperature at each end of the sausage.  This ended up working perfect as the control probe is at the opposite end of the stack, so it ended up blowing the smoke across the sausage lengthwise.  I know this is confusing.  If you need help, email me and I can walk you through it.  This was also done in the winter.  I do not know that a pellet grill would work in the summer.

Keep the smoker at 140 degrees Fahrenheit for about an hour. This is essentially the “drying” stage of summer sausage. The meat temperature should not raise a lot during this stage of cooking.  Keep at this until the internal sausage temp is 80 to 85 degrees.

After about an hour, kick the heat up to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. This is when you will start to get a lot more of the smoke saturation. I let the sausage smoke at 160 degrees for about an hour.  The internal temperature should be 140 at the end of this cycle.

Finally, kick the heat up to 180 degrees Fahrenheit and finish cooking the summer sausage. This is where watching the internal temperature is most important. Pull the sausages from the cooker once the internal temperature reaches 154 degrees. This step can take a few hours, anywhere from two to three. A lot of factors affect the cooking time, such as how tightly packed the casing are, the type of meat used, moisture content of the meat, and I’m sure so many other things we don’t even realize. That is why it is important to pull the summer sausage by internal temperature and not cooking time.

Alright, time for the final tip! Immediately upon removing the summer sausage from the smoker, plunge the sausages into cold water. This will help set the meat, resulting in a much better final texture, and makes removing the casings easier.

You don’t have to keep the sausages in the water long, a few minutes is good enough. Before packaging the sausage for storage, let them cool completely, which takes about an hour. To store, I cut them into chunks that I would use for taking on a hike or serving at a party, which is about six-inch-long pieces. I then vacuum package the chunks for freezing. I started vacuum packing the sausage because the first time I made them I just loosely wrapped them in plastic wrap and stuck them in the freezer and they freezer burned after a month. I didn’t take into consideration that the casings are permeable, which I felt I should have thought about because I knew the sausage absorbed smoke so well during the cooking process. Anyway, they freezer burned, which I hate, so I started vacuum packing them after that experience.

Anyway, that is my recipe and process for creating this Reaper Elk Summer Sausage.

Happy Hunting!

Deer Liver Whiskey Apple Pate

So, I did an offal thing. It was completely out of character for me. I made deer liver pate. Every year while people are cleaning their deer I comment how “someday” I am going to use the organs from a harvest and make…something.

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“When the blood in your veins returns to the sea, and the earth in your bones returns to the ground, perhaps then you will remember that this land does not belong to you, it is you who belongs to this land.” ~ Native American quote

I have had deer heart once before. But it wasn’t mine. And I didn’t prepare it. It was surprisingly good. That is about all of the adventure I have embarked on when it comes to organ meat, but I have read a lot about keeping organs and the benefits of their consumption.

Traditionally, hunters never discarded the organs. Organs were harvested and prepared for their nutritional benefits. They are excellent sources of minerals and vitamins. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s an article with lots of information about the benefits of organs.

I heard this thing recently, and this could all be rumor but I am going to share it anyway, that James Blunt, you know the celebrity, went on an all meat diet and ended up developing scurvy, the “sailor’s disease.” Scurvy is incredibly rare, but one way to develop it is to become a carnivore.

Scurvy is basically when your body becomes depleted of Vitamin C and you develop a vast collection of issues such as weakness, fatigue, wounds that don’t heal up properly, and other stuff. It doesn’t sound fun. James Blunt cured his scurvy by consuming orange juice until he developed acid reflux.

So, the moral of the story seems to be that being a carnivore doesn’t work if you’re a human. Or does it? Historically, there are groups of humans who survived solely eating meat. The best example is the Arctic Native American tribes the Inuit. The arctic tundra is not a suitable landscape for growing crops, so the Inuit diet consisted of fish and the mammals they hunt, including seals, walruses, and whales.

Obviously they do not develop scurvy or the other illnesses associated with being a carnivore. How is this possible? While many things most likely factor into the equation, there are two habits the Inuit engage in that researchers believe keep them healthy and able to survive of a solely meat-based diet.

First, the Inuit eat most of their meat raw, both mammals and fish, and this is thought to sustain more of the vitamins and minerals contained within the meat. Second, they eat the organs.  If you want to know more about the Inuit and their all meat diet, this is a great book: My Life with the Eskimo.

So, in conclusion, I would like to send a message out to James Blunt. Next time you go full carnivore eat your organs!

Now that’s out of the way, let’s make this venison liver pate.

Pate was much easier to make than I initially thought. There are lots of different ways to make your liver concoction. You can vary which type of liver you use, what type of spices or vegetables you mix in, and even the fat you add at the end can be different. It’s basically a choose your own adventure with pate.

The key to a successful pate is to remove some of the rich “bloody” taste that liver is known for. Just to give you an idea if you haven’t tried liver, it has a strong iron taste.  It is very distinct and lies somewhere between metal and blood.  It is so distinct, you will always recognize it in a dish no matter how little is used.  If you asked me what iron tasted like, I don’t know that I could find the words to accurately describe it, but if you had me taste something that is rich in iron, like liver, I could immediately pick that flavor out. While you can’t fully remove this definable characteristic of liver, you can lighten it. You want a pate that is reminiscent of the liver flavor. Achieving this is quite easy. I soaked the liver overnight in a mixture of salt and water. I used four cups of water and two tablespoons of salt.

In the morning, the liver had a more muted color. I thoroughly washed the liver, removing any access blood from it, and then cleaned off any thing that didn’t look edible, such as arteries or connective tissues. Just make it pretty.

Heat up a large, heavy bottomed skillet or a dutch oven. I used a very large cast iron skillet for my pate. Cook up five or six slices of bacon until crispy. Pull the bacon and set aside, but reserve the fat in the pan to use for sautéing your vegetables.

To your hot bacon grease, add one diced onion, four diced carrots, and 4 diced celery stalks. Also add in one chopped apple. It isn’t important the size you dice up your vegetables to, since you will ultimately puree everything, but try to keep the size uniform so your vegetables will cook evenly.

Cook the vegetables for about five minutes and then add the chopped liver. Season with salt, pepper, and oregano. Cook until the liver is cooked through, about ten to fifteen more minutes.

Drizzle in the cup of whiskey at this point and let things reduce for five to ten minutes. The mixture should be thick and the wine along with the starches from the vegetables should create a creamy coating over everything.

Alright, it’s time to turn this pile of vegetables and liver into pate! Be careful with this next step, as things tend to be hot and steamy. Fill a food processor with the liver mixture. I had to add about half the mixture, blend until it broke down into a paste, and then add the second half. If you have a larger food processor you may be able to fit the entire pan in one large batch.

Don’t forget to add your bacon back into the pate mixture at this point. I just dropped the pieces in whole and let them blend down, much to the dismay of the dogs who were very certain the bacon was going to be theirs’.

Grind until things are smooth. Slowly drizzle in your cup of heavy cream. If you are looking for a dairy free option you can use a can of coconut cream and it works nicely too. The cream really changes the consistency of the entire dish. It creates a beautifully smooth, creamy texture that almost melts in your mouth.

Afterwards, put the pate in the fridge to cool for at least two hours. It tastes best cold. You can preserve it if you aren’t going to use it immediately, like say you are making it for your party tomorrow, by pouring melted butter over the top. This creates a nice seal on top.

Alright, let’s serve this pate up! This was my first time eating pate. It was actually my first time eating liver ever. I will admit, it took me a few bites to wrap my head around it. It is rich! It is earthy! It is…a lot.

One thing I learned is how you serve pate can change everything. Just pate on a little slice of bread isn’t my most favorite presentation. It just tasted like liver. Which isn’t a bad thing if you are a liver fan. My parents, having grown up on liver and onions, loved it just plain. I needed a little more bling for my pate.

So, to plate up your pate, first toast a thin slice of baguette. Add a little butter to your slice. Smother some pate on top. Finally, garnish with a pickled vegetable of your choice. The most popular is a cornichon pickle. My favorite was pickled red onion. Other options are pickled jalapenos, capers, cucumbers, pickled beets, or radish slices.  Another item that made it that much better was to add a drop of a mustard based hot sauce like my all-time favorite from the Caribbean island of Grenada.

I am curious, what do you like to top your pate with? And what is your favorite liver to use?

Anyway,

Happy Hunting! 

Asian Style Elk Meatballs: A Perfect Party Appetizer

I am not always the best pre-planner. If I am headed on vacation, I am the one packing my bags thirty minutes before we are scheduled to leave.  I tend to forget essentials, you know, like my tooth brush.  I do not know why I have to wait until thirty minutes before our scheduled departure to start preparing for my trip, but I do it every time.  And every time, as I am realizing I don't have any clean socks to pack, because that would require a pre-check of my dresser drawers to ensure there are socks available for my trip, I curse myself for procrastinating.  You would think I would learn my lesson.  Arriving at your destination without pants to wear can be quite unfortunate.  But every vacation, no matter what, I still find myself packing that bag thirty minutes before jumping in the car and hastily roaring away, most likely with a pair of dirty socks, no toothbrush, and pant-less.

"I wanted to be a skinny little ballerina but I was a voluptuous little Italian girl whose dad had meatballs on the table every night." ~ Lady Gaga

This incredible skill of procrastination is also useful in other situations.  This past New Year's Eve, I was invited to a late night celebration.  I was invited well over a week in advance, and was told to bring three simple things: myself, a drink to share, and an appetizer dish to share.  Guess what was ready with an hour before party time?  Nothing. Not my drink to share, not my appetizer dish, and certainly not myself.

Realizing people would probably not care if I stopped at the store and grabbed a bottle of some drink to share and that I was dressed like a slob (with dirty socks of course), I did think people would notice if I arrived with no appetizer in hand.  I contemplated buying one of those pre-made vegetable or meat and cheese trays, but I figured my fellow procrastinators would also devise this plan and arrive with the same appetizer.

I opened my refrigerator in search of something to throw together, and luck would have it, there was a pack of elk chunk waiting to become my quick, throw together New Year's Eve appetizer.  I quickly ran the chunk through my meat grinder.  It resulted in about a pound of ground elk.  To the ground elk, I added a cup of panko bread crumbs, some fresh chopped parsley, and a little nutmeg.  I also seasoned generously with salt and pepper.  I also added in one beaten egg and two tablespoons of milk.

I find the best tactic for mixing meatballs is to just dig right in with your hands.  This gets everything incorporated really thoroughly.  Also, it allows you to test the consistency of the meatballs.  If the meatballs feel too wet and things aren't really sticking together, add more panko bread crumbs.  If things feel to dry, add in more milk.

Since this was a quick throw together appetizer, I used what was available in my pantry to make my meatballs.  If you don't have, or maybe you don't like, panko bread crumbs, traditional bread crumbs will also work.  Also, I don't always have fresh parsley on hand.  I actually never have it on hand, but for some reason on this particular evening I did.  If you don't have fresh parsley, dried would also work.  You would only need a tablespoon of dried parsley instead of a quarter cup like with the fresh.

Roll the meatballs into balls using about a tablespoon of the meat mixture.  Place them on an ungreased baking sheet.  For easier clean-up, line the sheet with aluminum foil.  Bake the meatballs in a 400 degree oven for about 12 minutes.  The meatballs should be slightly browned and your kitchen should smell delicious!

While the meatballs are roasting away, pull out a crockpot.  Set the crockpot on low heat.

To the pot, add 3/4 to 1 cup of hoisin sauce.  I started with 3/4 of a cup and then added more at the end of I wanted more of the hoisin flavor to stand out.  A beautiful dark amber color, hoisin is a sweet and salty sauce commonly used in Chinese cuisine.  It is a pungent sauce packed with a ton of flavor, so start with less and you can always add more.

To the hoisin, add one tablespoon of soy sauce, a teaspoon of sesame seed oil, two cloves of minced garlic, and a teaspoon of ground ginger. To help liven up the flavor of the spices in the hoisin sauce, add a tablespoon or two of rice wine vinegar.  Give everything a stir and a quick taste.  The sauce should taste salty and a bit spicy.  Now it is time develop the sweetness of this sauce.  I always taste things before I start adding my sweetener to see where things are at.  This is important with the hoisin because it also adds sweetness to the dish, and you don't want the meatballs tasting like lollipops!  Anyway, slowly add the honey in a drizzle at a time, tasting as you go, until the sauce is where you want it.  If you desire a bit more salt, add a little more soy sauce.  If you want more hoisin flavor, drizzle some more of that in.  I ended up with about a tablespoon of honey at the end.

After the meatballs are done cooking, add them to the hoisin sauce, making sure to coat all the meatballs with the sauce, and you are ready to party!  I took the entire crockpot to the gathering with me, this way everything stayed nice and warm.  To serve the meatballs, sprinkle a few sesame seeds on top.

Meatballs are a great party appetizer.  A pound of meat and a few simple ingredients make a deliciously quick treat.  They can be served using only toothpicks, so there is no need for utensils or plates.  They can also be made in advance and then just added to the crock-pot to heat back up.

These salty and sweet Asian-style meatballs received lots of praise at the party, and no one suspected they were a product of procrastination.

Happy Hunting!

Parmesan Horseradish Crusted Elk Filets

"My favorite animal to hunt is probably elk. There's nothing like the sound of a bugling bull splitting the cold air at first light. And that smell is unmistakable. Once you experience their musk in the wild there's no going back! A close second would be a varmint hunt." - Chris Pratt

If I could only have one meal for the rest of my life, this meal would be it. That is a very bold statement, but horseradish and elk are that good together. Like the deer for the gorgonzola topped tenderloin recipe I posted back in February, I did not harvest this elk. My husband did. I am getting sick of sharing his stories, and not my own. However, he ended up with the elk tag, and I, once again, did not. BUT I helped a lot.

I scouted and hiked with him for this bull, and I helped clean it after he shot it. That was my first cleaning experience, and it was very educational to say they least. I have a new respect for dad and the amount of work he put in during his elk hunts when I was little. It is easy to sit down to the table and gobble down elk steak and eggs with little appreciation for the amount of effort, sweat, and hard work someone puts in to harvesting such a large and intelligent animal.

Before you start preparing the meat for the meal, you need put together your horseradish crusts. The crusts need about thirty minutes in the fridge, so you want to make them at the beginning. The players for this crust are horseradish, fresh or prepared, grated parmesan cheese, panko bread crumbs, and an entire stick of unsalted butter. You can also use salted butter, but I use the unsalted because then you can control the amount of salt that you add to the mixture. In a medium size bowl, drop in all the ingredients. If you are using the fresh horseradish, you will need to grate it before adding.

I would start with a cup of the panko bread crumbs and then you can add more if you think you want more crunch once you have mixed everything together. I use about a cup of the parmesan cheese, a cup of the bread crumbs, and a couple of tablespoons of the horseradish. Like with the bread crumbs, I would start with a smaller amount, like two tablespoons, and then add more if you want more heat. I am a big fan of the heat from horseradish, so I end up with about three and half tablespoons in this mixture. It is much easier to mix up the crust ingredients if you let the butter sit at room temperature before you start, but I always forget to do that. I wouldn't recommend microwaving the butter in this case because you don't want your butter melted, just soft. You can use a spoon to mix all this together, which is what most people would probably say, but let's be honest here: mixing butter with a spoon never works and you just end up crushing your panko bread crumbs into dust. Use your hands! It is much easier.

Once you have the amount of panko, horseradish, and salt you want, it is time to start forming the crust patties. Line a cookie sheet with a piece of wax or parchment paper and make some room in your fridge where the sheet can sit flat.

I make my crust patties about a quarter inch thick and the diameter of the steak you are going to use. Stick the patties in the fridge for about thirty minutes so they can set, and now it is time to get started on preparing the steaks! Usually when I prepare elk steak, I cut the tenderloin or back strap in thin, butterflied steaks. I do this for two reasons: first, it is a force of habit because that is how my dad cooked his elk the entire time I was growing up. Second, you get a WHOLE lot more meals from the limited amount of meat. While I still do a lot of meals with the thinner cuts, I decided to try something new with this bull, which was to cut the tenderloin into much thicker steaks, and it made for some amazing steaks.

For this recipe, I cut the tenderloin steaks about two or two and a half inches thick. Another way to quickly measure is cut the meat the thickness of a slice of bacon, since that is what you are going to wrap the meat in. You could use either tenderloin or back strap for this recipe. I think this would also be great with deer.

After I cut the steaks, I wrap them with a slice of bacon, using two toothpicks to hold the bacon in place, and season them with a little salt and pepper. I let the meat sit out for about fifteen minutes, however thirty is the recommended amount of time to take the chill off them. Taking the chill off helps the meat to cook more thoroughly than when you just throw a piece of cold meat into a hot pan.

While the meat is coming to room temperature, I make the sauce. I LOVE this sauce, and would probably dunk any steak in it, but it is especially great with this recipe because it just adds to the heat of the horseradish in the panko crust. The ingredients for the sauce are very simple: sour cream, mayonnaise, and prepared wasabi horseradish. I put equal portions of sour cream and mayonnaise, which for two people is about half a cup of each, into the bowl and then add the wasabi horseradish to taste. Like the crust, I like it HOT! In this case it works out to about a tablespoon plus a little extra. A good starting point would be two teaspoons and add more from there. If you can't find the wasabi horseradish, you could also substitute prepared horseradish, plain wasabi, a wasabi sauce, or even the hot oriental mustard. Anything with a little heat will work, but if you can find the wasabi horseradish I would recommend giving it a try. It is delicious.

With the sauce ready and crusts chilling in the fridge, there is only one thing left to do: start cooking those steaks! Okay, so the process for cooking these steaks is a little different from what I am used to, but it works really well. For this, you need a stovetop pan that you can also put into the oven. For the most part, you are going to be safe if your pan has a metal handle. You might need to check if your pan can do both the stove top and the oven, because you don't want to ruin your pan. To get started, heat your broiler on high. Also, preheat your pan on the stove top on medium-high. Once you can feel the heat coming off the pan you are ready to start cooking some steak. So, I actually get out a timer for this, and it has resulted in perfectly cooked meat for me. If you don't have a timer you could guess on the times, but a timer really does help. So, to start you want to cook the bacon along the outside of the steaks. I rotate the steak FOUR times in order to cook the bacon. I cook each rotation for 30 seconds. Since the steaks are a bit thicker, you can get them to balance on their side during cooking. I use tongs when I do this, because there is a lot of hot grease bouncing around from the bacon. Once you have cooked all the bacon, you can start to sear the steak itself. I do the first side for three minutes, and then flip it and do the second side for another three minutes. Remember, once the steak has touched the pan do not mess with it until you are ready to flip it. You don't want to tear your meat. Three minutes per side will give you a medium rare finish on this thick of a steak. Elk tastes MUCH better if you don't over cook it. A well-done elk steak will be tough and it really exacerbates the "gamey" flavor of the meat. If you want your steak cooked more, you can increase the time to four or even five minutes per side. If you like things a little more on the rare side, drop the cooking time to two minutes per side. After you have seared both sides of the steak, drop your horseradish crusts on top of the steak and stick the entire pan in the oven under the broiler.

You are only trying to brown your horseradish crust and melt the butter and cheese in the crust, so you don't want to walk away during this part of the process. Things can change VERY quickly under the broiler. I find that it takes about a minute and half in my oven for the crusts to start looking a beautiful, and very delicious, golden brown. This is with the pan on the middle rack of the oven. I would expect this to last anywhere from thirty seconds to two minutes, depending on your oven's personal temperament. Keep on eye on things is the best advice. Once the crust is bubbly and perfect, pull your pan and it is time to start plating! I served the steak with a side of asparagus I grilled on the stove with olive oil, a little garlic, and some salt and pepper. I dropped a bit of parmesan cheese over the top at the end. I also poured a glass of cabernet sauvignon, which pairs really wonderfully with a dark, red meat like elk. And don't forget to get yourself a serving of that sauce for dipping your meat in! Seriously, like I said before, if there was only one meal I could have for the rest of my life this would be it!

Recipe

Steaks
*tenderloin or back strap cut into two inch thick steaks (one per person)
*bacon (one slice per steak)
*salt and pepper to taste

Horseradish Crust
*one stick unsalted butter
*two tablespoons horseradish, prepared or fresh
*3/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated *one cup panko bread crumbs
*salt to taste

Horseradish Sauce*
*half cup sour cream
*half cup mayonnaise
*tablespoon wasabi horseradish

Begin by preparing horseradish crusts. Combine softened butter, horseradish, parmesan cheese, panko bread crumbs, and salt. Form into 1/4 inch disks and refrigerate for thirty minutes. Prepare steaks by seasoning with salt and pepper and wrapping in bacon. Let rest at room temperature for up to thirty minutes. Prepare the dipping sauce by combining sour cream, mayonnaise, and wasabi horseradish. Preheat broiler on high and a pan on the stove top on medium high heat. Once pan is preheated, place steak on side in order to cook bacon. Cook bacon for thirty seconds, and then rotate meat. Perform this three more times, for a total cook time of two minutes. Sear steak for three minutes and flip to second side for additional three minutes. Place chilled horseradish crust on top of steaks and place entire pan in oven broiler for up to two minutes, or until crust is bubbly and golden brown. Serve with horseradish dipping sauce.