#!meat

[midgarmunchies-blog]

RABBIT PIE - a traditional pastry dish of the Wildwood Elezen formed to resemble a rabbit, but not necessarily containing any meat of leporine origin.

ingrediants:

1lb of steak (of your choice). I used sirloin here, as I got lucky and there was a sale. Any kind of stewing meat is fine though.

4 stalks of celery

4 medium carrots

handful of baby asparagus (do NOT use full sized arugula. it’s much too big) OPTIONAL

4 potatoes

1 yellow onion

3 tablespoons garlic

1 1/2 containers beef broth

1 cup of flour

1 cup of butter

1/2 cup marsala wine (can sub for sherry or red wine if accessible)

2 pie crusts

variety of spices (for taste)

Despite this recipe being in the 11-21 category of culinarian, this recipe took a lot of time to complete! It’s not hard per-say, but you’ll need some dedicated time to  prepare this. Don’t worry. It pays off ~ !

First you’ll need to prepare you veggies! Keep your cuts of the vegetables small and bite sized, otherwise the pie filling will be too chunky. We want a smooth pie filling! Everything should be at least an inch cut or smaller. Potatoes I quartered and then quartered again. Carrots you can cut in half and then cut into your inch pieces from there. Celery is fairly easy to cut, just be sure to cut off the dirty roots. Asparagus, though it is optional, adds another veggie to the mix and just adds an extra body to the filling and can be cut into inch stalks. When you’re finished, place in a bowl and set aside. Add some garlic to the veggies as well (I used pre-cut garlic)

Now, for the steak! If you’re using stew meat, you don’t have to prep your meat save for salt and pepper. Get some oil and garlic going in a pot and toss the meat in to begin browning. If you got yourself a full steak like I did, begin to cube it into one inch sized cubes so it’s bite sized and able to get tender. Don’t forget the salt and pepper! For my meat, I had to cut it from the fat which keeps it fresh and moist while not in use. The marbling of the steak (or the meat-to-fat ratio) is very important here as that will tell us how the cut of meat will hold up to stewing.

Now that your meat is cubed and ready, and if you skipped the second step, grab your pot, some oil and garlic and start browning your meat! YOU ARE NOT COOKING THE MEAT FULLY THROUGH HERE. It’s just a quick sear! Your meat should look like this when it’s all said and done. Notice we’ve got a nice brown color to the meat, but it’s not cooked through. That’s perfect!

Now we move onto making our gravy. You can now add your veggies to the meat with one container of beef broth. Cover and let it stew for about twenty minutes. During this time you can add your other spices to the dish. I added taragon, rosemary, marjoram, dill, oregano, salt and pepper. This will not only flavor our filling will the veggies and the meat but the flavor will transfer to our gravy! Let this stew for about twenty minutes or so on medium heat

When the stewing is almost complete, grab another pot. This will be the pot for our roux. Roux, if you don’t know, is butter and flour and is used to make gravy and the base for other thick sauces. It’s fairly easy to make and even easier to mess up. The key to a good roux is equal parts butter and equal parts flour. Get our butter melting in your second pot (about half the butter as directed). Once it’s halfway melted, begin sprinkling in your flour (also about half as directed). If you feel like there is not enough roux OR it is not smooth enough, melt in the rest of your butter and sprinkle in the rest of your flour until you have a nice smooth roux.

By this time, our veggies and meat should be done stewing. Lower the heat and begin pouring the liquid from our filling pot into the one with the roux. Don’t worry if any veggies get into the gravy! Grab a whisk now and begin stirring the roux and the liquid together! A couple things -- the gravy should be SMOOTH when it is finished. If it is not, you may have added too much flour. If that’s the case, open your second container of beef broth and add a tablespoon of broth and stir it again. It also, because of our addition of garlic, may appear to have pockets of flour but i can assure you it’s just the garlic. If you’re nervous though, keep whisking until its the consistency you want.

Once the gravy is finished, add it back into your pot with the veggies and meat. Add in about 2 cups more of beef brother and a cup of marsala wine. If you happen to have red wine on hand, use that! Sherry cooking wine also works! I used marasala cause it goes great with the vegetables, especially the asparagus and gives the meat a nice full-bodied and earthy flavor. Feel free to add some more spices here. The gravy should be flavorful enough but I added a little more salt, pepper and I threw in some cayenne pepper for good measure. Once everything is mixed thoroughly together, set your stove to low and cover your pot. You’ll need about four to five hours for everything to stew properly together. 

Once you have about an hour left into stewing, grab your pie crusts (which should be frozen) and let them defrost. I made the mistake of trying to roll my dough too early and I tore through it. This is fine though! You can still work with torn pie crust. Butter your dish and lay the crust into your pie tin or (in my case) casserole dish. This will ensure that the pie crust doesn’t stick to the bottom and tear further. You can set your oven to 400 degrees now and if you see fit, crisp the bottom pie crust for about five minutes. Once everything is finished, add your filling to the dish.

Grab an egg and when you’ve covered your pie with the second crust, coat the top with a bit of eggwash. This will ensure that the crust doesn’t burn and that it stay crispy and moist. I also added a little course salt to the top of the crust for some crispness! Bake for about twenty minutes and....

Tada!! Your pie is complete! Sorry it doesn’t look like a rabbit, but I promise it tastes good enough for the Wildwood Elezen! Serve as soon as you can and cover with tinfoil for later. I know I’ll be eating this for weeks! It’s great to share with friends and if you have any leftover filling that didn’t make it into the large pie, save it for later and get yourself some individual puff pastries and cook yourself some individual pies as a nice treat to yourself. 

And let me tell you what .. it tastes SO much better than anything from the frozen food aisle! In fact, this picture is from my second helping! It was so good I almost forgot to show you!

If you have any questions or concerns, please send me a message and share with me your cooking adventures! 

[midgarmunchies-blog]

MOLE LOAF -  a moist, juicy loaf of ground mole meat and onions baked to a golden brown.

ingrediants:

1/2 lb ground beed

1/2 lb ground pork

1/2 white onion

4 garlic cloves (or one clove of elephant garlic)

2 eggs (not shown)

1 cup italian breadcrumbs (not shown)

1 cup parmesan

1 tablespoon basil

1 tablespoon oregeno 

1 tablespoon marjoram

1 tablespoon taragon

1/2 can tomato sauce

salt and pepper to taste

Ah .. mole loaf .. ! Such a hearty meal and can be paired with so many other meals! Put it on flat bread and you’ve got a sandwhich! Mashed popotoes? A perfect dinner! Or if  you wanna get real fancy a spinach saute! The point is, this is a very good recipie for a lot of different occasions. And perfect for leftovers as well ..

First off, preheat your oven to 375. Second, we’re going to need to chop the onion finely. It should be minced as small as you possibly can to avoid your meat being chunky. Then chop your garlic. I got lucky and found elephant garlic (extra large garlic) on sale so I used that! If you are using standard sized garlic, about four cloves should do you perfect.

Once everything is chopped, we get to prep our meat! Start with one meat or the other and knead it so the fat and meat are combined and then add your second meat and do the same. The meat should be sticky but if it becomes a gluey texture, it’s a little too mixed together. That’s fine but you’ll need to add a little less breadcrumbs. You can add pretty much the rest of your ingredients from here! Everything goes in the bowl -- onions, garlic, eggs, bread crumbs, cheese and spices.  Now, when it comes to the spices, you can use whatever you’d like! I used these because they go great with tomato sauce and meat but you can put whatever you’d like in the loaf!

The bowl should be about overflowing and that’s fine. Begin to knead the meat!! You’re gonna get your hands dirty but make sure you thoroughly mix everything together.It should look similar to this when you’re finished:

Now, once everything is mixed together you can put the meat into a large, spacious pan with the meat in the middle. You can form it into a loaf if you’d wish but just make sure it’s an even size! The evenness of the loaf will allow it to cook evenly. I made the mistake of having a fat midsection and it caused my loaf to cook a little slower than intended... Once your meat is prepped and set, you can pour your sauce over it. Don’t worry! I’ll teach you how I made my own tomato sauce soon! Smooth the sauce over the entire loaf and the inside of the pan as well. Doesn't look like much now but it’ll be delicious soon, I promise!

Cover with tinfoil and place in the oven. Again, my loaf was a little fat so I cooked mine for about and hour and fourty-five minutes. I would suggest and hour, then cut it open just to check the middle. If it’s still pink, cover again and cook for about twenty or so minutes longer...

Voila! Be sure to serve yourself a hearty piece of the loaf with plenty of sauce! I shared this meal with my brother and he’s usually such a picky eater .. but he loved it!! It’ll be sure to satisfy anyone! If you have any questions, feel free to ask or make suggestions for my next recipe! Happy cooking ~ !

[midgarmunchies-blog]

MARMONT STEAK  -  a filet of marmot grilled with sweet wild onions and pungent Garlean garlic.

ingredients:

kosher salt

black pepper

orgeno

savory

vegetable broth

3 garlic cloves

1 shallot

olive oil

Once again, a super easy (and cheap!) recipe! meat is always expensive, but if you can get cheap meat in bulk you can make this meal! Marmont isn’t a New York Strip after all. Also, wild onions aren’t exactly easy to buy from the store, hence why I used shallots! They’re just as sweet and small enough to use for single portions. I really love shallots too. They have a lot more multi-use than onions considering they’re so much smaller. PS: Don’t ask how I got myself some Garlean garlic ~ Trade secret! 

Now, onward to the cooking! First off, chop your shallot and garlic. Make sure the garlic is minced (as in finely chopped). The shallots can remain in a fairly medium sized chop. Once they are chopped, move them to a bowl for later. Then season your meat with salt and pepper! I used just regular coarse kosher salt instead of garlic salt since we’re obviously using garlic!

Next, begin heating up your pan with the olive oil so we can begin to saute our veggies. I added a pinch of the oregeno and savory (it tastes very similar to tyme) along with some salt before adding to the hot pan. Everything should begin to brown and begin to smell really .. really good! Then add the vegetable stock! This will be the sauce for our steak.

Look at that! Tasy, right Simmer this for about a minute before moving the sauce to a bowl. Don’t worry, you’ll be using this soon! Your pan should still be hot so add  some more oil and place your steak down. Since I’m using a thin piece of meat it doesn’t take long to cook. Honestly, 30 seconds to brown one side should be enough. When you flip it over, then add the sauce, onions and garlic back to the pain. Let that cook for about another minute before moving to your plate.

And tada ~ ! Another meal done! I’d even say this one is high quality too! With the broth, it makes sure the steak stays moist instead of drying out, even if you overcook just a bit. You can pair this with some rice or pasta or make two pieces and eat just the meat! 

A job well done! You’re well on your way to become a mastercraft Culinarian ~ !