Geekfood Mk2.

MORDETH LESTOK · Post by **MORDETH LESTOK** » March 11th, 2009, 14:24

I think foodstuffs is takin' over 5punk! Its spreading thru all the forums!

mrbobbins · Post by **mrbobbins** » March 11th, 2009, 15:24

MORDETH LESTOK wrote:I think foodstuffs is takin' over 5punk! Its spreading thru all the forums!

Yeah, WEY tried to kill it off by assasinating the original food thread, but it just grew back stonger!

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » March 11th, 2009, 15:26

mrbobbins wrote:Yeah, WEY tried to kill it off by assasinating the original food thread, but it just grew back stonger!

it's true.

Post by **HereComesPete** » March 14th, 2009, 17:23

Okay - Bambi and Thumper Stew. I'm aiming to serve 4 with this.

~1 pound venison. I bought some flank and shoulder to dice.
~3/4 pound rabbit. (Not de-boned anything in a while so it took about 15 mins, you could ask the butcher to do this if they don't sell rabbit off the bone, or you could google how to do it I guess)
2 sticks celery.
2 Roquito sweet chillies.
2 onions/a leek. Doesn't really matter too much, the leek is slightly stronger flavour, but it won't stick out.
2 cloves of garlic.
~6 carrots.
Bottle of red wine.
Herbs/Spices - thyme, bay leaf, fresh chillies (maybe 1 bird eye or a couple of generic shop ones)
Flour for dusting
Tomato purée.

All the meat into a bowl (not metal, it'll fuck it up) wine over the top, about 1/2 the bottle. Into this you want the thyme, bayleaf and a crushed garlic clove. Leave it alone for as long as you can. I'm aiming for overnight.

Prep all the veg, chunky chopped carrots, fine chopped onions and celery, de-seed/membrane and fine slice the hot chilli's, de seed/fine slice the big sweet chillies.

Veg into a hot frying pan, get a bit of colour then drop the heat to stop them burning. Pour all the wine/herbs off the meat into a saucepan then add the veg after it's all soft and squishy and the onion is a bit see through. Don't de-glaze the frying pan yet, just put it to one side. Leave the saucepan on a very low simmer, stir it occasionally.

Get all the meat, get as much juice/wine off it as possible, pat it dry with a clean cloth (not kitchen roll or similar, that's just silly. It'll stick to the meat) then flour dust, you can add a bit of paprika or cumin to the flour if you want. you can roll it in flour if you want I tend to flour dust a few times until the flour doesn't stick, then jiggle extra flour off.

Get that frying pan back on the heat, bit of oil nice and hot, quick fry the meat to seal and colour it. Do it in batches if need be, but keep the heat in the pan up. All the meat into the simmering saucepan, de-glaze the frying pan with some red wine, pour that into the saucepan too.

Stir the saucepan vigorously to get that flour thickening the sauce, add tomato purée leave it to simmer for ~45 mins/1 hour.

In that time, prep anything else you'll be serving with the stew. I'm doing new potatoes and vinegar red cabbage.

Nom everything. Fall asleep.

Post by **HereComesPete** » March 15th, 2009, 19:32

Well, I've eaten the stoo. Was tasty, rabbit wasn't carrying enough flavour to really stand out over the rich venison so was a bit wasted. This could quite happily be bambi only. Very rich with the red wine gravy, if you're not a huge fan of venison or you're not sure I'd suggest going for a bit of it like berk cooked and posted on the disco.

Rabbit was surprisingly dense, more so than the venison in fact, was like a pork/chicken in terms of flavour and consistency. Would be nice stir fried I think, getting enough meat off one carcass is a challenge if you haven't de-boned much stuff before. Very little fat, quite sinewy as expected. Quite cheap from the butchers.

I think my next game experiment will be bird based, wood pigeon or duck.

I've got a duck black pudding and raspberry salad recipe too if anyone wants.

Post by **FatherJack** » March 20th, 2009, 21:51

I have been disturbed all week about the flavourless rabbit not working in that magical Disney combination I posted on the disco board, thus potentially costing me millions in royalties when you open your fancy restaurant and charge £50 to all the red-blooded men that order it. So I decided to see if I could do something about it.

I bought some venison steaks and some rabbit pre-diced, but since I love venison so much just fried, I won't be making a stew - it's just for comparison to see if I can impart enough flavour into the rabbit for it to stand up to the power of bambi.

I have made six marinades, using roughly traditional ingredients from six areas of the world. The object is not to find something that would work well in your recipe, but merely to infuse a shit-load of flavour into the otherwise meek rabbit.

The marinades are powerful concoctions - quite inedible as sauces, so I'll likely be shaking/rinsing the rabbit off and cooking it simply. I shall post the results later this weekend unless it fails spectacularly.

I mentioned a while back about an experiment involving Marmite and beans, but it didn't turn out to be as complex or interesting as I'd hoped. Since I never got around to posting, there are a couple of pics, and my findings here.

Post by **HereComesPete** » March 22nd, 2009, 12:43

See, problem there is you're using the wrong beans.

Any update on super strong marinades?

I've had rabbit in salads and such before, and it's flavour is nice and earthy, but too delicate for big stew.

If I was to make a bambi and thumper dish it would probably be a rocket salad with salad veg strips and char-grilled strips of Disney animal on, allowing both their own flavours and supplying them with their own favourite food stuffs in a style reminiscent of the forest fire.

Post by **FatherJack** » March 22nd, 2009, 20:42

I hardly ever buy plain tinned beans, so I thought I'd check out the claim of those Branston ones at being bigger. They weren't significantly and the taste/thickness was somewhere between Tesco value and Heinz for what I was doing there wasn't enough difference to care.

I've done the marinade experiment, with not fantastic results, but enough to give me some ideas, I'll get the pics off the camera and post the results soon.

The marinades were as follows:

1. Red wine & cinnamon
2. Lime juice & coriander
3. Shaoxing+chingkieng vinegar & ginger
4. Soy, teryaki, plum & garlic
5. Tomato & chili
6. Harrissa, ras el hanout, jollof & pickapeppa

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » March 30th, 2009, 20:29

anyone got a good minestrone recipe?

Post by **HereComesPete** » March 30th, 2009, 20:42

I've only made it the once with a bbc food recipe. Generally I'm a creator of things like pea and ham, lentil and orange or cream of tomato with basil/marjoram.

FJ - any update on the marinades? Lime juice and coriander is a firm favourite of mine (with some nam plaa/chilli for Thai fish stew is best).

I did think the other day that rabbit would benefit more in a pastry dish, garden veg and a rich but light gravy to set it off.

Post by **FatherJack** » March 30th, 2009, 22:46

The lime coriander one was nearly the top in terms of penetration, but sadly dead last in terms of a pleasing flavour - it was like sucking a raw lime.

Bear in mind these were deliberately overdone to infuse maximum flavour - you'll see what I mean when I can be arsed to get the pics off the camera. Basically each sample was 25-40g of rabbit utterly drowned in about 250ml of marinade in a fridge for 24 hrs.

A toned-down version would have been quite good, although still a poor match with venison.

buzzmong · Post by **buzzmong** » March 30th, 2009, 23:22

What about lemon and coriander?

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » March 30th, 2009, 23:25

buzzmong wrote:What about lemon and coriander?

Lime's a better bet really, it's stronger and more bitter. much better suited to the job, IMO.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » April 6th, 2009, 15:24

I has some pheasant meat still

what should I do with it?

Post by **fabyak** » April 6th, 2009, 15:40

ciijasiie

Mr. Johnson · Post by **Mr. Johnson** » April 6th, 2009, 15:41

Eating it would be a good idea.

Post by **Roman Totale** » April 6th, 2009, 15:55

fabyak wrote:ciijasiie

Post by **HereComesPete** » April 6th, 2009, 20:16

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:I has some pheasant meat still

what should I do with it?

What part of the animal is it? Boobies?

I've had vanilla pear and pheasant, that was nice. you could maybe try your Calvados sauce on the pheasant? Red onion marmalade? stew (although that's better for the random bits). Pheasant soup? Stuff it with stuff? Like apples, then the Calvados sauce? Stuff it with walnuts and raisins and serve it in a brandy or Madeira reduction?

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » April 6th, 2009, 20:34

seems to be tit fillets or something.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » April 10th, 2009, 18:47

I Put some butter on the pheasant breasts, wrapped them in bacon and braised them in kopparberg.

Caramelised onions, put some flour on them, added some kopparberg and calvados and reduced to a thick sauce.

Served with sautéed potatoes.

Nom.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kitteny_berk/3429811824/" title="DSCF5718 by Kitteny Berk, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3330/342 ... 388f42.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="DSCF5718"></a>