Moose Shaving - a handy recipe for small pieces of meat

We got one of the three appointed moose on this first moose hunt. A bull approximately 1.5 years old. The great part about that is that the meat is tender like veal is. The not so great part is that there is relatively little meat to be divided among the group and you end up with bits and pieces of meat that is too small to be used as a roast and too tender and fine a meat to be ground to beef.

Now, you have to remember that this is like butching any animal you hunt or butcher yourself on a farm. After the dividing of the meat is done, you start the proper preparing  and packing of the meat. Roast with bone, roast without bone. There will be pieces of meat with bones that are best suitable for making soup. My parents always save bones with a little meat on them for this purpose. It makes for a delicious tasting soup, but it is a helluva job to do as you have to keep skimming constantly to keep the soup clear looking. There are those pieces of meat that may have tendons, etc and are packed as stew-meat and the pieces of meat only suitable for being ground to beef. Then there are the pieces of meat that don't fit any of the categories. This is a recipe for those.
 
Scott, you asked me to mail you some meat. Would have been fun to see what the postal customer peeps would do when it started to really stink up the place :P Instead I can give His Magnificent Chefness a recipe should His Magnificent Chefness get his hands on some moose meat.

It is originally meant as a recipe for reindeer/caribou meat, but works with all types of meat. I've used ox meat and that worked quite well.  It is fairly cheap and a great dish to serve when you don't know exactly how many people you're cooking for, just that it is rather many. I tend to use about 1 kilo meat which is enough for 6-8 people, although you can make it work for up to 12 people without the use of magic, or too much difficulties.

Ingredients

 1 kg bone-free meat

2-3 onions

mushrooms (whatever suitable for the season - we use chantarelles)

3/4-1 litre of cream

salt(meat stock/buillion), pepper and if you prefer a spice mix of your choice

oil or margarine for frying

Slice the meat in very thin shavings - I prefer to do it while the meat is still semi frozen, using foil and a cloth to protect fingers against the cold - with a properly sharpened knife. Cut and slice the onions and mushrooms.

Fry/sautee the shavings, spice while frying - remember that wild game needs more salt than the meat you buy in the stores. (I don't use too much salt, as I use a couple of dice of bullion in the pot instead)

Fry/sautee the onions and mushroom. Don't fry too much at a time and don't fry for too long, the thin shavings don't need much time in the skillet - a couple of minutes are more than enough.

Put it all in a suitable pot - I use the old fashion iron pot both for the frying and the cooking. Pour the cream over and let it simmer until the cream thickens. Serve with taters and vegetables, or with rice and a salad on the side. 

Okay, this is the neat bit about this recipe. It is relatively easy to "stretch" the dish. 

Say you're already cooking and preparing the dish and what do you know, out of the blue 5 more people show up and not only that, they're hungry as hell. What to do? What to do? Coming from a large family, marrying into another large family, this is more the rule than the exception for me. Family members dropping by unannounced all the time.

If you're almost done there isn't time to add more potatoes/rice.  If served with a salad, there isn't much to do about the amount of salad unless you live next to the store and run over to get some. What you can do, is add  bread, or rolls (preferably freshly baked) on the side. -I usually have baked bread/rolls in the freezer and it's only 15-20 min needed to thaw in an oven, making it appear as if they're freshly baked - You can easily stretch the dish by adding some more cream or some milk to the pot and use a sauce thickener. It doesn't change the dish, or the taste noticeably.   If  you do have the time, you just add more potatoes/vegetables, or rice/salad instead of adding extra bread/rolls. 

One time I was serving this dish with taters and veggies and 4 more people suddenly showed up hungry, I simply added a pot of the 5 min quick-cooked type of rice in addition to the taters, added some more milk to the pot and thickened it. Voila, everybody happy and more than satisfied!