Cooking recipes

This is a very old Icelandic dish. Since it is made in pretty much the same way as liver sausage, except using fish products, I suppose you could call it fish-liver sausage in English.  

• Fish stomachs may be cooked without a filling and eaten straight away or pickled in whey.
• I am told that they can be used as a substitute for squid in various dishes.
• If you want more ways of cooking them, they seem to be widely used in east Asian cookery. I get over 6 million hits when I google "fish stomach" and recipes together, so there is plenty to choose from.

This week, we bring you deer meat, still drenched in its own blood-- just kidding! Certainly does look like it, doesnt it? Actually, its just venison tenderloin, rubbed with juniper berry and served with a savory blackberry-rosemary sauce, sweetened with a touch of local honey. The sauce did take a bit of time to make, but what takes a long time is usually worth the effort. This is one of those times.
Can you believe that this is our first wild game recipe using juniper berry? We have a hard time believing it ourselves. As many of you may know, juniper and wild game make a classic pairing. Hunters from the Rocky Mountains to the Cascades and throughout the Great Lakes and eastern woodlands have long prepared their game birds and venison with juniper. Its that sweet, peppery taste that stands up perfectly to the robust flavors of wild game. 

People often ask us for elk recipes. But elk and venison are very similar. You can pretty much interchange all our venison recipes for elk.

Juniper Berries

Servings: 2
Prep Time: 4 hours
Cooking Time: about 1 hour
Ingredients:
- 1 lb. venison tenderloin
- 3 tbs. corn oil
- 2 tbs. olive oil
- 1 tbs. juniper berries, crushed
- 1 small tomato, chopped
- 1 sprig of rosemary
- 1/4 cup of onion, finely chopped
- 2 tbs. of carrot, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup of red wine
- 2 cups of beef stock (or venison stock)
- 5 tbs. of honey
- 1 tbs. apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 cup of fresh blackberries 
- sea salt, to taste

1. Crush 1 tbs. of juniper berries in a mortar and pestle, or in a food processor.
Evenly rub crushed juniper berry over venison tenderloin, along with sea salt (to taste) and 3 tbs. of corn oil. Marinate in fridge for 4 hours.

*Remember to remove all fat and silver skin from venison.
2. To prepare the sauce, combine 2 tbs. of olive oil, chopped tomato, onion and carrot  in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Add a pinch of salt. Stir frequently and cook for about 10 minutes. 
It should look like this. Be careful not to burn the vegetables. 
3. Next, add 1/2 cup of red wine. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium. Cook for about 10 to 12 minutes, until reduced by half. 
4. After the wine has reduced, increase heat to high. Add stock and a sprig of rosemary. Return to a boil, then decrease heat to medium-low to gently simmer. 
5. In a separate saucepan, add 1 tbs. of honey, 1 tsp. of apple cider vinegar and 1/2  cup of blackberries over high heat. Squish berries with spoon. Bring to a hard boil then decrease heat to medium. Take off heat when berries are mushy and liquified, about 5 minutes.

Just had to share this beautiful honey, which we got from a local bee charmer. :-)
5. Take sauce off heat and strain solids. Combine the blackberry mixture with the sauce. (Blackberry mixture will still had seeds. Thats ok for now.) Simmer the combined mixture over medium heat for about 15-30 minutes, or until its thick enough to coat the back of spoon. 
Once thickened, pour the sauce again through a strainer to remove seeds. Reason why we didnt remove the seeds earlier is because we want the pectin, which is a natural thickening agent found in fruit. 
After the sauce as been reduced and strained, the end result should look like this. Mix in an additional 4 tbs. of honey to sweeten the sauce, or to taste. Set aside to allow sauce to cool. 
6. Grill marinated tenderloin from rare to medium. Nothing beyond medium. Wrap in a tin foil to allow the tenderloin to rest for 5-10 minutes before cutting. Remember to let refrigerated meat come to room temperature before cooking. We typically take our meat out 1 hour prior to cooking. 
Cut tenderloin into medallions. Serve immediately on warmed plates. Drizzle Blackberry Honey Sauce over venison. Enjoy...
And watch the urban sunset. Not quite like the country, is it?

Boiled eggs in mildly spiced creamy gravy. Best sidedish for naan, jeera pulao or ghee rice.

Egg Malai Curry

Eggs - 5 nos
White Onions medium - 2 nos
Green chilli - 1 no
Ginger and garlic paste - 1 tsp
Cardamom - 3 nos
Kashmiri chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
Cumin powder - 1 and 1/2 tsp
Cashewnuts - 10 nos
Kasuri methi - 1/4 tsp
Thick cream - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1 to 2 tsp
Salt to taste
Butter - 50 gms
Oil - 1 tsp

Egg Malai Masala

Method
1. Boil the eggs, remove its shell and cut each egg into halve.
2. Toast kasuri methi in a pan, crush between palms and set aside.
3. Heat oil in pan, add roughly chopped onion, green chilli and ginger & garlic paste, saute until onion turns transparent and raw smell of ginger & garlic leaves.
4. Next add cardamom, cashewnuts, cumin powder and kashmiri chilli powder to the onions and saute for 3 mins on low heat.
5. Remove pan from heat and allow onion mixture to cool, grind the onion mixture to smooth paste adding few tsp water if required.
6. Wipe the same pan and return to heat, add butter to the pan, when butter starts to melt add the ground onion paste to the pan.
7. Saute the ground onion paste on low heat for 3 mins, add sugar, crushed kasuri methi and required salt to the onion gravy and mix well.
8. Remove the pan from heat, add thick cream to the onion gravy and stir well.
9. Add the halved eggs to the malai gravy and garnish with few kasuri methi leaves.
Serve hot Egg malai curry with naan, jeera rice or pulao

Chefs tip
Paneer can be substituted in place of eggs for Paneer Malai Curry.

Egg Butter Masala

Although the most popular way to prepare leeks is in olive oil (a vegetarian recipe served lukewarm or cold), leeks with ground meat or with stew beef are also widely enjoyed winter dishes.

3 leeks, washed and cut in 1/2 inch rounds
1/2 lb or more stew beef (some people like cooking leeks with lamb)
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, cut in half rounds
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp dill, finely chopped
1 tsp dry rosemary
1 1/2 cup water
salt

-Heat olive oil in a shallow pot and add stew beef. Cook until brown on all sides.
-Add leeks, onion, and carrots, and saute for 6-7 minutes or until soft.
-Add water, rosemary, dill, lemon juice, and salt.
-First bring to a boil, and then turn it down to low and simmer for approximately 1 hour.
-Serve hot with rice and / or crusty bread.

The first delicious Dish of the Month was beautifully presented by Dom from Belleau Kitchen.  Upside Down Banoffee Shortcake is a Nigel Slater recipe that Dom found on the Guardian website and what a great find.

Deon Van Schalkwyk is the food blogger behind Food Jam and a recent convert to Nigels Kitchen Diaries II, which is where this super easy and totally delicious Spelt and Cider Loaf recipe is to be found. 

My own contribution to Dish of the Month is this dish of Duck Legs with Bramble Gin and Duck Fat Potatoes, adapted to suit my ingredients from a recipe in Kitchen Diaries II.

Co-host of Dish of the Month, Sue at A little Bit of Heaven on a Plate indulged in this gloriously autumnal Pear and Chocolate Crumble and was thrilled to receive some birthday greetings on Twitter from Mr Nigel Slater himself!

Over the past few weeks, Karen of Lavender and Lovage fame has been travelling all over the UK and has not long got back to her home in France, and yet she still managed to russle up some homemade bread and this Welsh Rabbit for her Sunday Brunch.  This recipe of Nigels was found on the Country Life website - he does get about, doesnt he?  Oh just like Karen lol!

Ill be back with the linky for Novembers Dish of the Month on Friday - get your thinking caps on and join us cooking and baking the recipes of Nigel Slater.