Goat stew for Easter.

A bit late.. but I got some good halal goat in OPKS. The recipe was originally for lamb.

MOROCCAN GOAT STEW

FOR THE GOAT

1 tbspn olive oil,  750g goat shoulder, cut into 4-5cm cubes

Halal goat

1 onion, finely diced,  4 garlic cloves, crushed,  1 can plum tomatoes, chopped, 1 cinnamon stick (optional)

30g dried apricots, roughly chopped, pinch of saffron, goat or lamb stock or water

FOR THE SPICE MIXTURE

1 tspn ground cumin, 1 tspn ground coriander, 1 tspn ground ginger,1.5 tspn smoked paprika, 1 tspn turmeric, Half tspn ground chilli

Salt and freshly ground pepper

seasoned goat meat

TO GARNISH

4 tbspn finely chopped coriander, Half-1 tspn of Harissa paste, zest and juice of half a lemon, 1 tbspn honey

SERVE WITH

300gm pumpkin, peeled, chopped into 1-2cm cubes and roasted in olive oil with a little seasoning.

METHOD

Place the olive oil in a large saucepan or casserole pan and put it over a moderate-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the onion to the pan and sweat for one minute until transparent.

Place all the spice mixture ingredients in a bowl and mix together. Toss the goat in the spices so that it is well coated.

Add the spiced goat and garlic to the pan and seal the goat on all sides so that it is browned.

Stir in the chopped tomatoes, cinnamon stick, apricots, saffron and enough stock to just cover the goat. Bring to the oil then reduce to a slow simmer. Leave the goat to cook for 1-1.5 hours or until the meat is tender, stirring regularly with a wooden spoon (add more stock or water if the liquid is below the goat). (You can do this on top of the stove or in the oven. If the stew is too watery, drain off the excess liquid into a saucepan and reduce until thickened. Then return to the stew.

Stir in 3 tblspns of the chopped coriander, harissa paste (more or less to taste), lemon zest, juice and honey.

Garnish with roasted pumpkin and scatter over remaining coriander

In progress

Easter dinner

Fish Stew..

A version from a Martha Rose Schulman recipe. Clam juice, clams, Alaskan cod-pieces, white wine, saffron, mild Rotel Tomatoes & green chiles.. Feb 23, 2013..

I’m not that impressed with Trader Joe’s frozen fish.

Carne Guisada January 13, 2013

Yesterday I decided to make a beef stew, which turned out as a form of carne guisada.

• 1.5 lbs beef stew meat in ~ 3/4″ cubes. (You could use pork, lamb, goat, venison, or elk here)
• 1/2 cup ~  chorizo (if dried Spanish.. chop it up, if Mexican, w/o casing) I used Chorizo Seco from El Torito #2 in KCKS.
• 1 tbs olive oil (or bacon drippings or canola oil)
• 2 medium yellow onions chopped 1/2″
• 3 shallots sliced thinly
• 3 cloves garlic (chopped, crushed, whatever..)
• 1 red bell pepper chopped roughly
• 1 green bell pepper chopped roughly
• 6-8 tomatillos, husked & quartered
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 3-4 small russet potatoes cut into 8ths.
• 2 corn tortillas torn to bits (these are for both flavor and thickening)
• 1 tsp tomato paste
• 1/2 tsp epazote
• 2 tsp Mexican oregano
• 2 tbs chopped cilantro
• 1/2 tsp Penzey’s Bonnes Herbes Parisienne (the end of a jar of this stuff I had)
• 1 tsp ground chile ancho
• 1/2 tsp chile caribe or crushed red pepper
• 1 tsp minced chile serrano  (I could add more chile, but my mother-in-law eats with us)
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 bottle of beer
• stock to cover (I used chicken stock this time)
• salt to taste

Heat oil in large stewpot. Brown/render chorizo on low heat. Add beef and brown slowly.. when partially browned, add onions, shallots, garlic, epazote, mexican oregano, bay leaf, cumin and chiles. Stir regularly. As the onions finish, add bell peppers and have them soften. Add tomatillos, tomato paste, carrots, and potatoes. Add beer and stock as needed. (You could be hoity-toity and use white wine. But you don’t have to.)
Bring to a low boil, add torn-up corn tortillas, and cilantro, stir, and lower to a simmer, cover and let cook for at least two hours.

Good with bolillos (french bread) or cornbread.

Carne guisada Jan. 13, 2013

Pozole 101

Before I left for Thanksgiving, I made pozole.

I used:

Stock

~3/4 lb pork bones from Belmont (or other custom butcher). (the pork neck bones you get at the regular store are often full of bone chips, which can be a PITA)
1 small onion un-peeled, cut in quarters
6 smashed cloves of garlic
2 bay leaves
some salt

simmer for ~3 hours, making 1 1/2 quarts of stock. Strain. Take meat off bones and reserve.

3/4 cup dried Los Chileros white corn pozole; soaked overnight. Or use a can of hominy..
1 1/2 cubed pork (with some fat) 1/2″ cubes
2 tbs oil or lard or bacon fat
1 1/2 cup chopped onion
2 smashed cloves of garlic.
2 chopped Roma tomatoes
1 tbs mexican oregano
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tbs chile caribe (or real ground chiles)
half a jar of La Frontera guajillo sauce. (Or Herdez guajillo sauce; it’s cheaper..)
salt to taste
juice of half a lime

Cook the pozole in water or stock until it’s nearly reconstituted.

Sauté pork in fat, until browned nicely
add onions & garlic, saute until translucent, add tomatoes, oregano, cumin, chile, the reserved pork from stock making, and some stock. Cook this down a bit.

Add pozole, guajillo sauce, a bit of salt and the rest of the simmering stock. Stir. If you need more fluid, add beer, chicken stock or water.

Bring to a simmer and cover allowing it to cook for 1-2 hours.

Que rico!

Pozole.. Feb 2015. Salem,Oregon

Pozole, Salem, OR Feb 2015

Serve with fresh corn tortillas, a squirt of limón, chopped onion & chopped cilantro.

One buffalo haunch, coming up!

Back in the late 1970s I was working for the State of Texas as a cartographer/illustrator/shovel bum on historic archaeological sites. I got to live outdoors in many parts of that state and was doing an awful lot of outdoor cooking. We worked for the same agency as the possum cops and were able to salvage venison on the way to the excavation from the previous night’s roadkill. We could tell how long it had been there readily. We had a number of great venison stews that came from our good works. RO-TEL tomatoes & green chiles was a staple in our pantry. This was before they wussified it, like they wussified jalapenos at the Texas A&M  School of Plant Science.

One time though, out in West Texas, we lucked into a huge piece of buffalo. You see, a bunch of pre-colombian archaeologistii got permission to see if they could butcher a buffalo with bone tools. All they needed was a dead buffalo. They found that the herd at Fort Sill, Oklahoma needed culling and bright and early one late September morning, an old buffalo bull was dropped with a single shot. The bone implement boffins went and plumb cut that sucker up into transportable hunks. One of our colleagues was along for this lovely boondoggle and filled a couple of Igloo chests with this rather meaty booty. He drove back to Austin by way of our Buffalo soldier site and laid a cooler of  “buffler” on us.

The first thing we tried was to cut it into steaks.. we grilled them over mesquite and found that they really tasted good, but were, shall we say, a mite chewy as one would expect a buffalo bull to be. We ended up cutting a 40+ pound chunk of  buffalo haunch into stew & chile meat. By hand. And no one lost any digits.

We ate quite well for the rest of the dig.. except for the whiny vegetarian.

Saturday Night Tiffin: Vindaloo

I decided to make some vindaloo or Goan pork with potatoes..

For the marinade:
cumin seeds (1 tsp)
cloves (3)
coriander seeds (2tsp)
brown mustard seed (1 tsp).
I ground them up in my trusty garage-sale coffee grinder. I make sure I never grind coffee in this grinder..

I put the following into a small food processor and ground it into a paste:

Chopped onions (1 cup),  1″  of ginger (peeled & chopped)  5 cloves garlic (chopped), 1 tsp of chile powder, 1/2 tsp paprika.

Adding  2 tbs of red wine vinegar, 3/4 tsp of salt, & 1/s tsp of turmeric, I made a paste  of which 2 tbs was rubbed on 1 1/4 lbs of cubed boneless pork.

Vindaloo spices

Veg for vindaloo

The pork was then allowed to rest for at least 30 minutes in the fridge.

Pork for vindaloo

30 minutes (or more) having passed, I  got a heavy  lidded pan (a cast iron dutch oven) and put 3 tbs canola oil in it and got it hot. I then added another 1 tsp of brown mustard seeds and when they began to pop, I added the rest of the vindaloo paste. I cooked this until it started to brown.

I then added the pork and browned it; after which I added 12 oz. or cubed potatoes and put in 2 cups of  fluid (1 c water/ 1 c white wine). I brought this to a boil, covered it, reduced it to  a simmer and allowed it to cook for 50 minutes or so.

lovely simmering vindaloo

This was served with rice and a cucumber and tomato salad. It was quite tasty.

Estofado de Cordero con Manzana

I was wondering what to do with a few nice lamb chops I had gotten from the Jerusalem Halal butcher shop on Hull & Turner and didn’t want to do anything that was too involved. I found this recipe for lamb stew with apples in Penelope Casas’  DELICIOSO: THE REGIONAL COOKING OF SPAIN.

• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 lb boned lamb
• salt
• freshly ground pepper
• 1 apple, peeled cored & chopped
• 1 med onion chopped
• 1 med tomato, peeled, seeded & chopped
• 1.5 cups of dry  white wine

Set the oven for 350F. Heat the oil in an ovenproof casserole (I use my trusty cast iron dutch oven) and brown the meat on all sides, spinkle with salt & pepper. Stir in the fruit & veg, cook for a bit, add the wine & adjust the seasoning. Bring to a boil, cover, & transfer to oven. Cook for 1.5 hours, add in some wine or chicken stock if the liquid cooks away.

Estofado de Cordero con Manzana