As a hunter and often household chef, I discovered this delicious sauce with the mention by Chef Andrew Zimmern, and later recipes from Chef Emeril Lagasse on the Food Network.

If you enjoy dipping sauces especially for seafood and wild game you might want to try making Remoulade Sauce for dipping shrimp or as a spread on game meat and even sandwiches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remoulade

It’s more complex and so much more sophisticated than say just Mayo, Tartar Sauce or Cocktail Sauce. 

It’s origin/roots are very French but variations of this spicy, mouth-watering sauce vary around the world.

Use the internet to look up remoulade recipes. I like this one below using my food processor but would use a bit less mustard.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/remoulade-sauce-3645570

I am making shrimp finger food hors d’oeuvres for our family Thanksgiving dinner. Ingredients can be found in most households, such as; mayonnaise, lemon juice, onion, celery, garlic, horseradish, mustard, ketchup, parsley salt and pepper.

There is a Cajun Remoulade version that uses creole spices that is delightful. 

Some remoulade recipes involve the use of food processors and vegetable oil but you don’t need one unless you have one at hand. Look for the mayonnaise base recipes for simplicity. 

Give Remoulade Sauce a try!

Many hunting families have been freezing wild game for a century. But what if you lose power? What if your meat is tough?  Some families “hot can” or “hot pack” meat too.  What advantages do you have if you “pressure can” or “Hot Pack” some of your game meat?

The major reason to hot pressure-can aka “hot pack” meat is that it does not need a freezer or electricity, tenderizes meat substantially and can be consumed right from the jar.

Most everyone uses a Ball Mason Jar because the jars are cost effective and proven. When canning is complete (often takes 90 minutes) and cool the lid becomes vacuum sealed during cooling.

This is essential to preserve and seal the meat from bacterial growth.

Stored in a cool dry area, this food can be stored for 2 to 5 years as long as the vacuum seal is maintained.

“Best practices” followed from canning books like this one, will eliminate losing the seal and your meat to spoilage. 

I began hot canning because I had many pounds of tougher cuts of meat that gathering in my freezer.  And wanted to can some chicken breast for fast meals like chicken noodle soup, pot pies, and chicken salad.

Hot Canning allows me to tenderize the meat and add spices and vegetables. I also can game burger and chicken breast.

I use this T-Fal canner ($155 dollars) among many other models.  A great Christmas gift too! It takes the mystery and fear out of hot canning can get you to the next step with saving food cost and canning your game meat and poultry too.

If your like my family, we pull the best wild game cuts of meat like backstrap and steak or sausage from our freezer first. This often leaves tougher cuts to languish or worse, get buried in our freezer. I have gathered pounds of these harder-to-use-cuts like stew meat and burger. I purchased the hot pressure canner a few years ago, and am thrilled with its ability to tenderize cuts and add herbs and spice to them for sumptuous flavor enhancement, all in Ball Mason jars.

The result is tender moose, venison, and wild boar stew meat and burger that is now instantly ready for stroganoff, and burger for Shepherds Pie, Chili and dozens of soup recipes like Moose, Venison, and Duck, Goose, Chicken Noodle Soup. Further, that we find chicken breast on sale and hot-can or raw-can it in chunks too.

Give it a try!

Good Eating!

I knew for years about dry aging but never really needed it till now.  I have lots of vacuum sealed venison in my freezer from deer and moose. Some of the cuts are on the tougher side. I have used the Sous Vide method of using a water bath to cook the internal wild game temperature to medium rare and that works but does not tenderize or change the flavor of my meat.

I am a big fan of the Internet and You Tube to see what others are doing in the kitchen with venison. Personally I like the idea of short dry age times. I tested my theory and it works for me.

I thawed a piece of moose rump steak after much research and placed it on a  non-reactive rack in my fridge and set the actual fridge temp to 38F. Three days later I had meat that was very tender with minimal meat loss. Flavor was excellent and I didn’t trim  much. Now the Sous Vide will do an even better job on a tender, flavorful cut.

Key to aging is getting the actual temperature inside correct.

Aficionado’s, say that 34 to 39 degrees is the window of temperature that is ideal for connective tissue and enzymes in the meat to tenderize yet minimize bacterial growth. I do not have a spare fridge so I experimented in my new large kitchen fridge. I was able to easily set and verify the temperature.

There are many methods and time lengths that one could use, however, I wanted to minimize the loss of meat and almost no meat was cut away using this 3 day method.

Another method I will try is using special dry age freezer bags that allow evaporation in the fridge for larger cuts below.

Update

It took a month to get my dry age vacuum seal bags from Europe. Beginning tonight, 1/8/2021, I will dry age 2 moose steaks and one venison cut of backstrap in those dry age bags for at least 20 days maybe more. See photo below of my vacuum sealed bags that allow air to pass out only. I am dry aging two Moose Rump steaks and one 5 inch cut of Whitetail back strap. It takes three days for the plastic to adhere to the meat says the instructions.  I will follow up this article in 20 days. 

How to Dry Age Venison at Home

If you vacuum seal meat and freeze as I do, then, I am told,  you are Wet Aging your meat and to some degree freezer meat that has been vacuum sealed, improves in flavor (degassing) but does not tenderize or break down the connective tissue.

Hope this article helps you eat all that great wild game and go get some more.

Good Hunting!

Camp Dinner was over.  Y’all want some dessert? The Texas hunt camp cook said; “I have some Peach Cobbler cooking in the fire yonder”. “Where?”  We asked as we looked into the fire? We could barely see some metalic pot covered in coals. The cook reached into the fire with a metal hook and pulled the cast iron dutch oven from the fire as if pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

Peach Cobbler is a sweet moist cake like mixture with sliced canned peaches and syrup suspended within the cake like mixture. It was so delicious, piping hot from the fire. I was fascinated. I am going back to Texas this year but I can’t wait for my peach cobbler.  I have purchased  a “Camp” dutch oven so coals can be placed both over and under the oven. Today most folks use store bought charcoal to cook with these dutch ovens. Out on the range, chuck wagons used flour, some sugar and canned peaches mixed together. It works fine!

Today some folks use white or yellow cake mix to add instead of flour and sugar but either works fine.

Every cook has his or her recipe for Peach Cobbler. Many use butter or crisco to grease the oven. Today you can buy aluminum trays to line the oven for easy care. The peaches are added first. A 10 or 12 inch 4 to 6 quart oven can use 2 cans of peaches, followed by flour or cake mix. Next is to fold-in the cake mix with the peaches taking care to be gentle. Some folks add other fruits too such as chunk pineapple. Next is to put dash of cinnamon a few pads of butter on top if you like and close the lid.

LIGHT THE CHARCOAL

Use a chimney starter like the one below to get your coals glowing hot. How many? Say 10 coals for the bottom of the oven and 12 coals for the top.

It takes about 45 minutes at around 350 degrees to cook a peach cobbler but it is recommended to rotate the oven a quarter turn every 15 minutes so there are less hot spots. I like to see the top of the cake caramelized a bit. Your the chef so you make the call. Serve with  a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. Wow!

Check out the web for tricks and techniques!

Good Eating Y’all!