Deer Heart with Dandelion in Elk Stock Stew

The deer heat is very good. I liken it to nicely textured beef. It can easily be used in any dish that calls for beef. Unlike my earlier liver cooking attempt, I was sure to remove as much fat I possibly could. Deer fat is NOT good. The fat sticks to the tongue and coats it, giving it a texture of soap - no no!

Ingredients

1 deer (or beef) heart, cubed, with as much fat removed as possible
1/2 lb pork, cubed (optional)
1 medium onion, peeled and diced
5 carrots, peeled and diced
1-2 c lima beans, washed
1-2 c dandelion flowers, blanched then drained to remove the bitterness
Chicken or beef stock (I had some elk stock in the freezer so I used that). If you don't have any, just use water, use the amount of liquid to produce the amount of stew you want.
1 Tbsp butter
Salt, pepper, garlic powder, Worcestershire sauce to taste

Method

In a dutch over, or heavy stock pot, melt butter. Add onions and cook until tender. Add the heart and meat and allow it to brown. Add the carrots and allow to brown slightly on the sides. Add the water or stock. Add beans. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Add the blanched dandelion flowers. Add seasonings to taste. Cover and stew for a few hours. The stew is best if left overnight before serving. Serve with Parmesan cheese.

Deer Lung Rempah

This recipe continues my posts on using as much of the deer we caught for food. I've looked all over for deer lung recipes but came up with nothing. You can of course, just grind it up with other meats into a burger or lunch meat or scrapple of some sort. But I decided that I wanted to try it on its on. So, I went back to my roots - Malay style beef lungs. If you want the original recipe for Paru Goreng, you can follow this link. My recipe is inspired by that but simpler.

I used a basic rempah for the seasoning. Rempah is basically a mix of spices that can be wet or dry. I added blachan, which is a fermented then dried shrimp paste or powder. It may also be called terasi (Indonesia), gapi (Thailand), bagoong (Philippines) and balichǎo (Macao). Thanks for Uncle Phil for the information.You should be able to get this in a well stocked Asian grocer.

The lungs turned out to be very good. Not at all game-y, and is similar to the deer heart.

Ingredients:

Deer or beef lungs (approx 2 lbs)
1/2 Tbsp blachan
Salt and fish sauce to taste

Rempah
2 sticks of lemon grass
1 piece of galangal about 3ins
2 tsp of balchan
3-4 tsp corainder powder
1 large onion.

Method





In a large enough sauce pan or pot, bring water to a boil. Add the lungs and simmer for a few hours, until soft. When done, cut into slices.

In a processor, course grind the onion. Remove and fry it until translucent. Return to processor and add the other rempah ingredients. Grind to a paste. You can use this base for curry as well by adding curry powder to the mix.

Use about 3-4 Tbsp of the rempah. Fry the rempah and blachan in a pan until fragrant. Add the lung slices. Add salt and fish sauce to taste. Serve on its own or with rice.

Dim Sum-Style Braised Deer Tripe

This requires time to prepare. You can buy beef tripe from Asian and Mexican grocers. I have even seen big packs sold at both Walmart and Sam's Club for about $5. I believe they are all bleached.

Obviously, the tripe from our deer was green tripe so it had to be cleaned and washed well. The best way to wash it (after cleaning) is to use rock salt (I just used sea salt). This will result in a grey-ish looking tripe. Without bleaching, I don't think you can get it looking white like those available commercially.

Next, boil the tripe in salted water for about 4-5 hours, with a couple of changes of salt water in between. I have to warn you that this whole process is, well strong-smelling. "Barn-y" if you will - it will STINK.

Towards the end of the boiling, the smell will dissappear and leave what I call the 'tripe-y' smell. It's hard to describe what this smell is, you'll recognize it if you've grown up eating it.

After boiling, allow to cool and slice it into thin strips.

The following it revised from a braised beef recipe I found online. You can follow the ingredients exactly from that recipe but I used what I had on hand.

Since I had neither Hoisin sauce nor much soy sauce left, this is my version of the recipe.

Ingredients

Deer (or beef) tripe, cleaned, cooked and sliced thin

Oil  

Sauce

Dark soy sauce

Black bean sauce or paste

Sugar

Honey

Molasses

Shaoxing Wine (or dry sherry)

A few drops of Sriracha chili sauce 

Garlic powder

Garlic, peeled and minced

1 star anise

Black whole peppercorns

Five spice powder

Carrots, peeled and chopped

Chicken Stock

Salt

Corn starch (for thickening)

Cilantro (for garnish)

Method

Saute the tripe in hot oil in a dutch oven. Add the black bean sauce/paste and mix well. Add the chicken stock and the rest of the ingredients except the salt and corn starch. 

Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Allow to simmer for 4-5 hours. When everything is cooked and soft, add salt if necessary. To thicken the gravy, add water to corn starch in a separate bowl (never add corn starch to water as it will be VERY difficult to mix).  Mix until you get a paste. Add it to the stew and allow it to simmer until thickened.

Serve over rice or egg noodles and garnish with cilantro.