Summer is not typically when I make foods like Chili; it's often too hot and the last thing I want is to be cooking over a stove in our very warm kitchen. But this has been a chilly summer here in the Northwest with only a few really hot days and even out anemic window-mounted air conditioner has been adequate. So in this case a chilly summer makes this a perfect Chili summer.
One of the packages of elk-meat that we received (TY again Glenn and Astrid!) was labelled 'Hamburger.' I defrosted that today and discovered it was not in fact ground elk. Either it was mislabeled or it was chunks intended to be ground into hamburger; whatever the case it made good meat for Chili. The meat was deep red and virtually devoid of fat. Aside from venison I have never had meat this lean so as I have done in the past with venison I cooked it in a generous amount of bacon grease to prevent it becoming too dry. The chili turned out very well (I could not resist going back for seconds) and if the meat started out gamy there was no trace of this flavor in the finished chili. Since most remedies for gaminess in meats seem to revolve around acidity I suppose this was no surprise given the amount of onions and such used in the recipe.
Here's the recipe I came up with:
Tinker's Elk Chili
This recipe makes a medium-hot chili.
2lbs of boneless Elk meat
3 yellow onions
2-3 poblano peppers
2 anaheim peppers
3 large tomatoes
3 heaping Tbs. chili powder
2 tsp. Black pepper
2 Tbs. crushed garlic
4 Tbs. bacon grease
2 tsp. Sea Salt
Cut elk meat into bite-sized pieces. Dice onion. Heat bacon grease in a skillet over medium heat. When bacon grease is melted add meat, onions, chili powder and garlic. Brown the meat and cook until onions are translucent. While meat and onions are cooking dice peppers and tomatoes. When meat and onions are cooked combine with remaining ingredients in a medium stock-pot and simmer over low heat, stirring frequently, until ingredients are thoroughly cooked, meat is tender and liquid is reduced (approximately 1-1/2 to 2 hours)
Salt to taste and serve with a generous portion of crumbled fresh goat cheese.
Serves 4-6
You can substitute venison, beef, goat or pork for the elk. If you use beef or pork you can substitute a little olive oil for the bacon grease but venison and elk are lean enough that the bacon grease really helps.
Tinker,
ReplyDelete"Hamburger" is what we labelled the stuff we were going to grind later, but didn't have time to during butchering. The steaks that were so gamy were actually grass fed beef from Aster's parents freezer. So you might try some of the elk "straight", I didn't find it gamy, but as you say, it can be dry. I think that's what was up with the beef, it was from a client of my brother's wife, and was entirely fed on grass and hay, no grain, little fat.