Any game to us spoiled city dwellers seems tough, lean and difficult to prepare. Meanwhile, the game is not only much more useful than fat broilers and pigs, it also has an exquisite and refined taste - if, of course, you know how to cook the meat of an elk, wild boar or deer. It is not for nothing that game in all countries is considered a delicious meat since the time when livestock products seized the shelves. So we will study - in case the hunter we know gives you a boar, moose or bear cub for the holiday.
How to cook soft moose meat
There are several tricks to get rid of excess rigidity of game. For example, before cooking elk meat , recipes recommend it for several hours - up to a day - soak in cold water, which should be periodically changed during this time. Before cooking, the moose is dried with napkins.
If the meat is supposed to be baked or fried, it must be pickled. The most common marinade is made from mineral water, grape vinegar and vegetable oil, but there are other interesting options. Elk can be fattened or laced with it - then it will turn out to be surprisingly juicy.
It is very important not to salt the meat until fully cooked! From salt, moose calf becomes even drier, and then the dish will not be saved.
And most importantly: any culinary processing of game lasts much longer than cooking meat of livestock. Extinguishing will take about three hours, and cooking - from four. So be patient! And if on the threshold there appeared a taiga with fresh carcass on the shoulder, do not refuse a gift, as preparing moose meat soft is not at all as difficult as it seems.
Lithuanian moose meat
A very interesting recipe! The meat will be stewed, but neither beef nor pork can be compared with it.
Residents of Lithuania know the secrets of how to cook elk meat, and to get an amazing result. A large chunk, 600 grams, is rubbed with pepper and salt. On all sides, shallow cuts are made in it, into which pieces of bacon are embedded. Then the elk is poured with dry red wine and left to marinate for half a day. To save money, you can put a piece of meat in a bag, pour in a little wine, tie and gut it so that it spreads evenly. Pickled meat is fried - in fat, not oil, with carrots and onions, transferred to a saucepan, where two glasses of broth are added. Stew the dish for 2-3 hours until the moose calf is soft.
Serve meat laid with sauce. For him, in a dry frying pan, a spoon of flour is fried, poured with a hot broth from a spoon of dried mushrooms and boiled for a quarter of an hour. The liquid is filtered, the chopped and fried large onion, mushrooms from the broth and seasoning are laid in it. The sauce boils the same amount, and at the end add half a glass of sour cream to it.
Elk meat in foil
Again, before preparing the moose meat, it should be marinated - in wine or in the composition described above. Dried elk is cut in large portions, which are laid out on individual pieces of foil. On each slice is placed a plate of bacon or bacon, onion rings; the construction is salted, sprinkled with lemon, sprinkled with chopped herbs and sprinkled with a spoonful of thick sour cream.
The foil is neatly but tightly folded, and the baking sheet is removed into the oven - an hour and a half, if the pieces are not too large.
Studded moose
This is just a great way to cook moose meat deliciously. However, it takes a lot of time to implement it. Elk meat (three kilograms) is carefully beaten and poured with the following marinade: a liter of water, a glass of 6% vinegar, a tablespoon of salt and sugar, a pinch of ground laurel, a few peas of pepper, two onions and parsley root.
All this combines, boils and cools. After pouring the load on the moose, and it hides in the cold for 24 hours. Then the meat is dried, rubbed with spices (it is desirable to include caraway seeds in the list as well), densely stuffed with lard and fried - like a Lithuanian recipe.
Having received an appetizing blush on all sides, the chunk is wrapped in foil and placed on a baking sheet, where a glass of water is previously poured (it will have to be added periodically).
In the oven, the dish will stand for ten hours, so you have to wait, because it is impossible to cook elk meat quickly and at the same time deliciously. But as a result, you will feed the family with tender, fragrant and juicy game.
Dried moose
If you don’t know how to cook elk meat, the beef jerky recipes will work well for him, with minor changes.
Cut a large piece in half so that in each part you get three hundred grams. Pour a spoonful of sea salt into the bottom of two trays or bowls and level it. Put a piece of moose calf on top and cover it with another spoon of salt, evenly over the entire surface. Pour half a stack of vodka into each container, cover with lids and refrigerate for two days. Every 3-4 hours, the meat must be turned over. When it is salted, wash it in running water, dry it, grate it on all sides with a mixture of peppers and herbs (the composition is to your liking), tightly wrap it in several layers of gauze and pull it with twine. The bundles are hung in a cool place. In the absence thereof, they are placed down the refrigerator on the grate. After a week, meat can be actively tasted.
Elk cutlets
Any other recipe requires soaking or pickling, which takes a certain, and long, time. Cutlets - the only way to cook moose meat quickly, although troublesome. And so that they are not too lean, you will have to add lard to the minced meat - a pound per kilogram of moose.
The meat passes through the meat grinder at least three times (preferably more). Separately, lard and soaked stale bread are ground . The substances are combined, crushed two peeled tomatoes, onion, two egg yolks, pepper and salt are added. Stuffing is mixed, laid in a blender and whisked until mashed. Balls roll out of it, flatten, crumble in semolina and fry like ordinary cutlets. Due to the airiness of minced meat, their preparation is fast enough. But if you want unprecedented juiciness, you can stop at half ready, put the patties in a pan, pour them with two glasses of cream and put in the oven to simmer for half an hour.
Elk with prunes
This recipe for cooking elk meat is suggested by a hunter who regularly brings such game home.
Still moose still have to soak, especially if the animal was an adult, older than three years. However, the use of prunes can reduce soaking to two to three hours. A pound of elk is chopped into small pieces - a little larger than in goulash. The meat is quickly fried so that the crust appears, but inside it was still raw. Simultaneously with the moosecake, it is necessary to fry a couple of chopped onions, put in a casserole, pepper, pour juice extracted from meat, pour frying pan with dry red wine and add it to the moosecake. On low heat, the meat should languish for an hour. Then tomato paste is poured (two large spoons, sprinkle in half a glass of hot water), and spices are poured. Another half hour of stewing, and add prunes - pieces 10-12, seedless and sour. At the same time, the dish is salted, and removed after a quarter of an hour.
Moose roast
Again, before cooking elk meat according to this recipe, it is better to marinate it. Only chopped already. A mixture of 2 tablespoons of sugar, the same amount of salt, several crushed bay leaves, finely chopped parsley root and peas is made. Pieces are laid out, sprinkled with this mixture (it will be enough for a pound of moose) and poured with 2 tablespoons of vinegar, diluted in an equal volume of water. So the meat will stand for nine hours. Then the cubes are fried and put out to stew. Five potatoes are cut into large strips and, together with chopped carrots, are poured into almost finished meat. Before the shutdown, two chopped onion heads, tomato paste, allspice and laurel are added. Finely chopped garlic and herbs are already poured into the roast on the plates.
Losyatina in the slow cooker
The beginning is the same - the meat is soaked in water, the films are peeled off, and it is cut with sticks. The elk is laid out in a bowl with a couple of spoons of sunflower oil, and for about five minutes the frying mode is turned on to give the meat an appetizing blush. Then the mode changes to quenching and a time of one and a half hours is set. As the timer signal sounds, chopped onions, grated carrots and mushroom plates are poured. At the same moment, the dish is salted and peppered. Extinguishing is switched on for another third of an hour. Then chopped greens are added, the device switches to heating, and after ten minutes you can set the table. There are other ways to cook moose meat in a slow cooker, but this recipe seemed to us the most successful.