Sloppy Elk

I am cycling through the freezer and this ground elk is from earlier in the year. I thought I would do something different with it so I made Sloppy Joes.. with elk meat. After the copious amounts of doctored homemade ketchup, I really can't tell what I was thinking when I started this recipe. It's food and I'm hungry. Let's eat!

Ingredients

1 lb ground elk meat
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 c homemade ketchup, plus more for reheating
garlic powder, to taste
sea salt, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

In a large skillet, heat oil and add garlic. Fry the garlic a bit until lightly golden brown then add the peppers. Stir it around some more. Add the meat and the remainder of the ingredients. You should always be tasting this (after the meat has cooked).

The consistency should be about the same as spaghetti sauce, runny enough to be poured on top of bread, but not too liquidy to seep right through it. This can also be eaten on top of rice or other non-rice cooked grains.

Elk curry

I am a big fan of wild game meat, except I live in a quaint suburb of Los Angeles and there's often no such meat to be had unless I go out of my way to a specialty meat shop. Fortunately, there's a shop a few miles away, Harmony Farms. I have eaten elk jerky before, but with all the spices really hard to tell what elk really tastes like.

Any meat cooked with curry is prepared a lot like a stew. You take some flavoring agent like ginger or garlic, heat it up with some oil (usually 2 tbsp) in a skillet and add whatever meat. With the exception to roast duck, I don't think anyone else in my family likes eating game meats. I love it and I love reading folklorist-styled cookbooks that talk about the olde ways of preparing food. Anyhow.. onto the recipe.

There's a small hole-in-the-wall Middle-Eastern foods specialty shop that sells a lot of dried goods and spices in Burbank called Y & K Distributing. The curry that I have is packaged under their label and the spice ratios of it are unknown to me; but it is rather mild and flavorful.

Ingredients:

4 tsp curry powder + enough water to make a paste
2 tbsp EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
1 lb elk stew meat
boiling water
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp wine (I used red xiao-xing wine)

Directions:

1. In a skillet, heat oil until hot but not smoking; add curry paste and stir until fragrant but not burning.
2. Add the elk meat and brown the elk meat. This step takes a lot less time than with beef stew meat since there is a lot less fat in elk meat. About 5 mins, or less.
3. Add enough boiling water to cover the meat.
4. Add soy sauce (this is a natural glutamate)
5. Simmer for 45 minutes to an hour. You could add wine to this step. It is optional.

Serve with steamed rice, noodles, or fresh lavash bread.

IMHO, it tastes pretty good.