Continuing my penchant for cooking stews inside of vegetables (loyal readers will recall my frenzy over stuffed pumpkins of last fall), last night I served a slightly exotic dish that used wapiti for the meat.
Coming into possession of an elk roast this year was the work of my niece Trina. A 30-something beauty who happened to find herself in a family of avid outdoorsmen, she is no stranger to the massive elk hunt camp erected on a plot of land outside Williams, Arizona each fall. She can often be seen sporting perfectly coiffed hair atop an outfit of lavender camouflage. She always looks gorgeous and like she is right where she belongs, no matter how primitive the setting.
And Trina loves the place they camp so much she got married there a couple of years ago, to a guy she met through the hunting adventures their respective fathers shared with their kids. A match made in heaven.
Although we never see them at Thanksgiving because it is always the beginning of elk season, they don’t miss out on the dinner. In their dining tent they hold a full blown turkey meal for the 30 or 40 folks on the hunt and include every detail, right down to the real dishes and cloth napkins. Quite a feat.
So we were a bit surprised this year to get a call from the camp right before our own relative-filled residential dinner. Trina asked to speak to her Grandfather and imparted the news (most fittingly from that location) that she is with child. The first great-grandchild is in the chute, so to speak. So fittingly, in a sort of circle of life kind of way, the next day she went right out and got herself an 800- pound 6-point elk!
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| Not the actual elk referred to in the story; this was my pal at the Thunderbird Lodge at the Grand Canyon as seen last fall. |
Now elk meat is very lean and mildly flavored. I like the challenge of cooking it because for one thing it is free to me and for another it takes some creativity to take it from just OK to delectable.
Two of my favorite things are winter squash and braising, so I decided this would be the perfect solution for this meat.
Braising is favored because it involves a several steps that any multi-tasker can accomplish simultaneously, it requires a range of ingredients that can be used in endless combinations and, it results in the most tender meat and rich sauce. Even better, it is perfect for a dinner party because you can (and for best results should) make it in advance and simply reheat it in the oven so you can minimize kitchen time and maximize the cocktail hour with your guests.
I must give a shout out to Tom Colicchio here. After about 4 seasons of watching Top Chef on Bravo I suddenly realized that the master braising recipe that I had practically tattooed to my right arm having found it in an early edition of Taunton’s Fine Cooking, was from him! He really is a great cook; he doesn’t just play one on TV.
So back to the Elk Braise, here is what I did:
Cut up an elk roast into long strips about the size of boneless short ribs. There was no weight on the package but I am thinking it was about 3.5 pounds.
Season with salt and pepper. Brown in batches in hot olive oil in a large dutch oven or deep skillet. Reserve the cooked meat in a bowl.
Meanwhile, roughly chop a large onion and about 6 cloves of garlic. Dice 6 medium peeled carrots. Thinly slice one fennel bulb and cut the larger circles in half.
Upon removing the last meat from the pan, add the vegetables and stir to sauté and deglaze the pan. As the onion is about to become translucent, add a 15- ounce can of diced tomatoes, three large sprigs of rosemary, about 2 teaspoons of fresh, chopped oregano and 20 halved prunes and stir for about 5 minutes more. This skillet will look gorgeous.
Add about 1 cup of coffee, 1 can of Guinness, 1 tablespoon of molasses, a box of whole mushrooms (about 15 medium sized ones). Cut the meat into bite size pieces and add back to the pan. Stir all the ingredients together, adjust for salt and cook uncovered in a 350 ⁰ oven for 2 hours.
Note: I like to start the oven phase on convection roast at 300⁰ for about 45 minutes. The top gets a bit brown so I stir this back in and turn to bake and 350⁰ for the duration. Keep your eye on it and stir in some water or broth if the sauce is cooking down too much.
At this point you can remove the rosemary sticks, cover, cool and store in the fridge.
For the squash I used an heirloom variety that was about 10 inches long and fairly fat. Cut in half lengthwise, seeds and strings removed and a bit sliced off the bottom to allow it to sit flat, it offered two wells large enough to take most of the warmed braise. This fit perfectly in a roasting pan which I then baked for about an hour at 350⁰ to cook the squash, lightly covering the stew with foil.
Served over a bed of arugula sprinkled with steamed, diced Yukon gold potatoes, the diners self-served 
using large spoon to dig out the squash with each portion. A nice wine, a crusty, airy bread with herb or blood orange infused oil for dipping (and to pour over the main dish) and a side salad of chopped pink grapefruit in its juices, with thinly sliced fennel and a drizzle of vanilla infused olive oil and voila, a satisfying winter meal.
Not only was this the essence of comfort food, it was beautiful to serve and easy to clean up, which is always a nice thing for my lovely dishwashing assistant.
So thanks to Trina we are living large off the land.
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