Curry (Korma)

I realized after Jimmy commented on my rabbit curry, that I've never posted the recipe here.  Since I was gathering some of my favorite recipes for a potential church cookbook, I decided it was high time I added it to the blog!

Picture credit goes to Jimmy - Cause I almost always forget to take one!

Ingredients

-          2 tablespoons vegetable oil

-          2 teaspoons curry powder

-          1 pound boneless beef or lamb (you can also use venison or rabbit) – cut into one inch cubes

-          ½ large yellow onion – peeled and chopped

-          3 large potatoes – peeled and cut into one inch pieces

-          1 green bell pepper (optional) – chopped

-          Frozen broccoli (as much or as little as you’d like)

-          1 teaspoon salt

-          1 teaspoon paprika

-          1 teaspoon garlic powder

-          ½ teaspoon chili powder (more or less to taste - depending on how spicy your family likes things...I keep it really mild and let people spice it up at the table since two of us are not fans of spicy things)

-          1 can of chopped tomatoes

-          1 cup sour cream (or to taste)

Directions

Heat oil in a large skillet or soup pot (depending on how much you’re making).  Add the curry powder, meat, and onions.  Cook 3 or 4 minutes, stirring frequently, until the meat has browned.  Add the potatoes, bell pepper, broccoli, salt, and spices, with only enough water to cook the vegetables.  (I normally splash in an inch or so of water and then add more if it boils off.  Better to need to add more then to have too much water!!)  Cook over medium heat 15 to 20 minutes, stirring from time to time, until the vegetables are cooked.  Just before serving, add tomatoes and sour cream.  Cook over low heat just until heated through. 

Serve over rice.

Optional: top with your favorite chutney, chopped peanuts, French fried onions, and/or chopped hard-boiled eggs.

Easy Crock Pot Venison Stew

There are many yummy sounding recipes for venison stew involving various marinades, wines, spices, etc...but when you're fiance calls from the grocery store while you're in the middle of crazy work week and asks for ingredients that will make a quick stew that he can throw into the crock pot - you make something up and cross your fingers that it's edible.  Thankfully, this stab in the dark turned out delish! 

Easy Crock Pot Venison Stew

- One ziplock full of venison (in other words, I have no idea how much meat there was but use enough to feed your family and balance out the veggies) ... Prep:  I can't remember where I read it, but for SUPER tender (and not at all gamey) venison - defrost in fridge for a few days and when it's thawed, sprinkle with salt and soak in ice water and ~1 cup white vinegar for about an hour.  Rinse and either cook it immediately or refrigerate for one day or less (needs to be used pretty quickly after it's thawed)

- Peel and chop enough carrots and potatoes to even out your meat. 

- chop one onion (not sure whether Glenn added garlic or not...but a little or a lot of garlic never hurts!)

- 1 large can cream of mushroom soup

- 1 packet of ranch dressing mix

- 2 cans chopped tomatoes

Dump everything into the crock pot.  Cook on low for 10 hours (I think ours actually cooked for more like 12 or 14...so extra doesn't hurt it!).  Glenn forgot to add the tomatoes in the morning, so they ended up getting added a couple hours before we ate.  Either way is probably fine. 

Nothing fancy...but yummy and great on a cold rainy fall day after football games and parent teacher conferences! 

The Definitive Venison Stew

The original recipe can be found here (the part where it says it's quick and easy should be completely disregarded as laughably false), but as the cooking progressed, the recipe and I didn't agree on several points. So this is my version with important contributions of both help and ideas from Aunt Kathy and Pam.

Ingredients:

2 pounds venison, 1" cubes
1 medium onion, cut into 8 chunks
3 medium carrots, cut into 1/4" slices
1/4 cup finely chopped celery
3/4 t salt
1/2 t ground white pepper (black can be substituted)
2 t dried parsley
1/2 t dried thyme
1/4 t dried rosemary
1 1/4 dry red wine
1 can beef broth
5 slices of bacon, chopped
1/4 c all-purpose flour
1 t tomato paste
1 package cleaned, quartered mushrooms
2 large potatoes (next time I will strongly consider throwing in more potatoes)
1 T corn starch (as needed)


Marinade:
Remove all tendons, fat and silvery skin from the venison (removing this will help get rid of any gamey flavor). Add the venison, onions, carrots, celery, salt, pepper, and the herbs to a glass bowl or casserole dish. Pour 1 cup of red wine and 3/4 cup beef broth over the venison and marinate in the refrigerator for 8 hours, or overnight. Do not marinate for over 12 hours or your meat will turn to mush.

Cooking:

Strain out the marinade and set aside for later. Separate the meat from the marinated veggies. Throw the meat in a large ziplock bag with the flour, shake to cover evenly. 
In a large saucepan over high heat, cook the bacon until it turns crisp.* Transfer the bacon to a paper-towel-lined plate to drain. Pour all but 2 tablespoons of bacon grease from the pan (Note: if you need more grease, augment with vegetable oil). Saute the onions, carrots, celery and potatoes in the bacon grease for 5 minutes, until the vegetables turn soft. Transfer to a large stock pot.

*Venison meat has little or no fat, the bacon is important.

Brown the venison in the remaining bacon grease in two batches and add to the stock pot. With the remaining wine, deglaze the pan, scraping the bottom, add in the remaining broth until heated. Add pan juice, the reserved marinade, mushrooms, bacon and tomato paste to the stock pot. Add enough water to barely cover the stew. Simmer on low for 1 hour until meat and vegetables are tender. If sauce is not thick enough made a paste of 1 T cornstarch and 1 T water. Add to pot and stir until thickened.

This recipe makes 6 to 8 servings.