Moose stew with wine and chocolate

Another exotic ingredient for southern latitudes people; Moose.

I had the luck that Ms North's uncle is a great moose hunter and gave me almost 1.5kg piece of moose. I am really grateful he gave me that, because I had never eaten moose and because it is so damn expensive, starting 90€/kg (I know, it hurts!)

So I had a bit of dilemma of how to cook it; Ms North is vegetarian for 15 years so she has no idea how to cook it, then I remembered how my grandad use to cook wild boar and how delicious it is (for me the best game meat).

In the part of Pyrenees where my family comes from, it is typical to cook game giving it previously a marinate and then super slowly and with chocolate.

Ingredients

1kg moose
1,5 - 2 L of red wine
2 bay leaves
rosemary
1 large leek
2 carrots
500g small scallions
100g dark chocolate 
salt, pepper and olive oil

Preparation

We are going to marinate the moose for 12h, so it becomes more tender. Cut the moose in big chunks and place them in a big bowl, cover with red wine and 2 bay leaves and a flat tea spoon of rosemary. Let it marinate overnight in the fridge.

Next day, remove the moose from the marinate and place the wine in a pot to boil, you want to boil the wine because it is diluted a bit of blood and other stuff typical from game meats. Let it boil for few minutes and remove all the foam that forms in the top.

Meanwhile in a big pot, add a bit of olive oil and fry the meat for all sides, we don´t want to cook the meat but to seal the interior for the next cooking. When this is done pour the wine you had boiled and place the pot to the oven, covered by aluminium folio at not higher than 120°C (100-110 is recommended) for at least 6h 30 minutes or 7h. 

You can cook some scallions at the same time in the oven.

After that, smash the chocolate, add it to the stew and mix around till it mixes with the stew's sauce. You can remove a bit of the "juice" if you think there is too much.
The chocolate I added is called "chocolate a la piedra"; it is a type of chocolate which feels granulated and has a bit of flour, so it helps to thicken the sauce.

For this kind of stew, is better to let to rest it for 12-24h.

Hope you like it!
Mr South

Beans with aspargus

Ingredients

• 300 gr big white beans
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 big onion
• 2 carrots
• 1 leek
• couple garlic nails
• white aspargus 
• parsley
• 1dl white whine
• 4 eggs
• saffron

Preparation

Leave overnight the beans in water, at least 12h. Next day discard the water and in a pot place the beans, onion, carrot, leek, garlic and bay leave, cover everything with water and set the fire to medium heat.

When the water starts to boil, drop half a glass of cold water to stop the boiling, this prevents the beans to break. Repeat this for 3-4 times and then let it boil slowly for 1,5-2h or as long as the package recommends.

When the beans are cooked place the vegetables, discarting the carrot and bay leaves, and blend it together with few broken beans, this will help thicken the sauce. Pour it back to the pot with the rest of the beans and mix gently, always with a wooden spoon.

Chop the parsley finely and pour it to the pot, as well add the white aspargus (you can chop them or put them whole), a bit of saffron and the white wine, let it boil for few minutes to evaporate the alcohol.

Serve with half boiled egg

If you have available, add few clams few minutes before serving.
Hope you like it!
Mr South

Rabo de toro (bull´s tail stew)

Let´s keep up with the traditional Spanish meals!

Today, rabo de toro, bull´s tail stew. I don´t know if the fame of the dish is because it is made of bull or because of the main ingredient is not so appealing or common. It takes quite many hours, you can speed it up using pressure cooker.

Traditionally, this dish is made with the Lidia bull´s tail. Of course this is a rare and desired product, so really expensive, otherwise bull or cow tail is used.

It is important to choose good pieces, you have to find pieces with lots of meat and big bone marrow, which will good flavor to the stew. Unfortunately the ones I used were a bit average.    

Ingredients

• 1 large leek
• 1 carrot
• half red pepper
• 1 tomato
• couple garlic nails
• 600g bull tail
• laurel
• 25 cl red wine
• 10cl Porto wine
• 35 cl broth vegetable or meat
• Optional: 2 potatoes and parsley

Preparation 

Serving for 2.

Add salt and pepper to the tail and then cover it with flour. In a hot pan, cover the bottom with olive oil and place the tail as to fry it. You have to fry all the sides so all the outer meat is browned.

After the tail is ready, in a casserole add a bit of the frying oil, trying that the burned flour doesn´t go there. Chop all the vegetables and fry them for 5-10 minutes, then add the bull´s tail and add the wines, the broth and the laurel, mix it till all the alcohol has evaporated. Then close the lid and let cook for 2,5 or 3h.

Every once in a while, open to stir a bit. The cooking time is approximate, the meat is ready when feels that the meat is falling from the bone.

Once is ready take away the bulls tail and the laurel leaf. Blend the sauce and put it through the strainer, if the sauce is too liquid boil it a bit more, but I recommend what I did.

When you take the bull´s tail out of the casserole, peel and cut couple of potatoes and place them to boil with the sauce before blending it. The potatoes will release the starch, helping making the sauce thicker, plus you have an amazing flavored potatoes to go with the stew.

Hope you like it

Mr South

Salmon soup

Finally!! we get to cook salmon soup for you! It is the dish you have to taste if you visit Finland. In Catalonia we usually eat soups when it is cold and dark outside, but Finns do salmon soup whether is summer or winter!

This is serving for 6

Ingredients

• 300g salmon
• fresh dill
• 2 potatoes
• 3-4 carrots
• 2 onions
• 4dl cooking cream
• Salmon broth
• Salt
• Black pepper 

Salmon broth

• Head, bones and trims from a salmon
• Half onion
• Half tomato
• 1 garlic
• laurel
• vegetables for broth (carrot, turnip, celery, etc)
• water

The salmon broth is not mandatory, but it is much better. If you go to buy salmon, either to a supermarket or a small fish shop, they will ask you if you want the head and bones, say YES!!! for the soup it gives so much more flavour! of course you can always use the stock cubes.
 

Preparation

 

Salmon broth

I do what in Catalan cooking call sofregit, this is the base of all catalan cooking and I believe gives much more intense flavor to everything you cook with it. It is really simple to do a sofregit, in a pan or in our casserole (we are going to use always the same) add like a tbsp of olive oil, half onion, a nail or two of garlic and saute it for 5 min, grate half a tomato and fry it together 5 more minutes. And that´s it! this is a sofregit!

Next step is add the vegetables for the broth with the laurel, give a quick mix everything together, cook 5 min and add the water. How much water? Enough as to cover everything plus 3 fingers more.

Keep in mind that I haven´t added any salt, no, I haven´t forgotten! quick chemistry class!

In a broth we want all the flavors to dissolve into the water as to create the broth. All the aromas are dissolved withing the water or oil of each ingredient, if we add salty water we are limiting the amount of flavor the water can gather from the ingredients. Surely there is someone who can give a better explanation, but this chemical aprox and the wisdom of past generations says not to put salt to broth till the end.

Let the broth to boil for an hour at least, then pour it through a stainer into a bowl, just to avoid the bones to go into the broth.

Salmon soup

We have a nice salmon broth, so add the potatoes, carrots and onions peeled and chopped.

From the remaining of the head and bones, try to rescue as much meat as possible and cut small pieces of 300 gr of salmon.

After the vegetables have been boiling for 15 min add the salmon, salt and black pepper, cook it for 10 more minutes.

Add the 4dl of cooking cream and the dill finely chopped, let it cook for 5 min and it is ready to serve!

Hyvää ruokahalua!

Mr South

Roasted duck leg with Porto wine and beetroot sauce

Wanted to try duck leg for really long time, I´ve always eaten duck breast or magret, but never the leg. Wonder around how to cook it, it was for sure that oven was the only way to go, in a pan, it is really difficult to get the bone meat cooked without not burning the outer skin.

Duck meat is really intense, almost as game meat, so I thought it need a slow cooking. This dish was a bit of experiment and test for my skills, I love to experiment with new flavours or techniques, most of the times goes well but there has been times that the result is not eatable!

My idea was to give a slight marinate to the duck leg, achieve a crispy skin and a juicy interior. For the marinate I used mainly Worcester sauce, Lea & Perrins, don´t try any other brand, don´t taste not even close to the original!! The problem here in Finland is that they only sell Heinz Worcester sauce, got mine in a recent trip to Italy and was so eager to use it!

Ingredients

• Duck leg
• Lea & Perrins Worcester sauce
• Dried rosmary
• 1dl Porto wine
• Beetroot
• Onion
• Carrot
• Garlic
• Laurel
• Red pepper

Preparation

Prepare the duck leg, don´t trim too much the fat, we want a bit for the cooking proces. With a sharp knife, make some small holes, pinching, in the duck skin. Place the duck leg in a tray and add salt and pepper and rosmary for both sides, add two table spoons of Worcester sauce making sure the whole meat is soaked in the sauce. Let it rest in the fridge for two hours.

Chop the vegetables in fairly big pieces but the beetroot, otherwise it will be raw. Peel the garlic and with a big knife, press till it breaks.

In the same tray where you had the duck marinating, add the vegetables, a laurel leaf, 1dl of port wine and same amount of water and put it straight to oven at 180C for 30 min.
 

After the 30 min take it out, and with the help of a spoon, mix the vegetables and use the sauce of the tray to get the duck moisture by dropping some sauce on top. Put it back to oven for 15 min more. and repeat the operation.

The duck leg it need 1h 15min to be ready but depend on how thick is it, so an hour would be a pretty standard time.

With the roasted vegetables we are gonna make a thick sauce. For that we will place most of them in a blender with almost all the "juice" of the tray and making sure the laurel is not there. We will get a sort of mashed potato texture.

Now there is nothing but serving it! put a bit of the sauce next to the vegetables and the duck leg, and pour the little bit of the "juice" remaining in top of the duck leg.

Hope you like it!!

By the way, you can see the last pictures the duck has changed a bit, the thing was when the duck was ready and almost going to serve it, we had a kind of emergency that make me postpone it for next day. Then I had to reheat the duck leg in the oven and that's why the colour changes a bit!

Beans!!

We love beans!! they are so forgotten always and underrated but you have an amazing varieties and ways to cook it. We are going to show how to cook, the big beans, the ones which need to be let overnight in water, easy recipe, it is slow cooking, but you can do meanwhile whatever you want, just check every 30min everything goes as planned and you end up with an amazing food.

So which are this beans we pick today? in Spain they are called judion, fabes, judia de la granja depending which region of Spain you buy them. This beans are big (almost 2 cm long, white and flat).

We followed the package instructions, leaving them soaking in cold water for 10-12 h.

Before and after, you have to remove the water and put them to pot to boil, with some salt, pepper, laurel, and then few vegetables, we had carrot and onions. Of course you can add which ever vegetable you find, they will taste better. Of course the more the better. 

Following the package instructions once they start boiling, add little bit of cold water, to break the boiling, do it three times. This is believed to avoid the peel to detach from the bean.

The package said to boil for 1,5h, but try it, we had to boil it for a bit longer.

For the sauce it is really basic, fry a bit of onion and garlic

Once the beans are ready, throw the water away, but save a bit for the sauce, take apart the vegetables too. Once the onion and garlic is getting done, add some roasted red pepper, if you have it fresh or canned, both are awesome. Just let it fry for couple of minutes because the red peppers are cooked already, and add little bit of flour, like a flat spoon.

Cook the flour for few minutes, otherwise the sauce will taste like flour. With the vegetables you can put it to the blender with some parsley and little bit of tomato pure.

Add everything, the sauce, the beans and little bit of the water from the boiling the beans

Let them cook for 5 - 10 min and enjoy it!