Cooking with Game - my technique for tender stir fry and curry meat

 

I've noticed that the recipes on the curry paste and stir fry sauce containers I get always start with adding the meat first and the vegetables later.  I know from experience that over cooked game meat is tough and can taste 'gamey'.  So I've come up with my own technique for when I use game meat in a curry or a stir fry.  The last 2 meals I cooked were a curry and a stir fry (pictured above) and I made both with mountain goat.  Mountain goat is known for being tough but the meat in both my meals was tender!

Anyway, my basic technique is to cook the meat first and then add it back in at the end.  But I do a few other things that might make a difference too.  Here is my technique step by step.

1) Thinly slice the game meat (and do not use calf, shank or some other 'stew' like cut - I prefer shoulder, small 'flat' roast, or backstrap).

2) I then add a teaspoon of salt, pepper, a teaspoon of sugar, and rub in the red curry paste (a healthy tablespoon or more) - for stir fry I usually use 'chili garlic sauce' and I rub that in too.  Then I leave the meat on the cutting board to soak up the flavors.  I might leave it an hour or so while I get all the other vegetables ready.

3) Preheat the oven to 170 (my oven's lowest setting) and put a glass container in there.

3) Heat up a cast iron skillet (or what I use a Le Creuset pot), add oil (my favorite is chicken schmaltz but usually grapeseed or avocado oil) and  quickly saute the meat.  I do not cook it completely and actually take it out looking a little raw and put it into the preheated glass container in the oven.  Then I turn the oven off, but the meat continues to cook in the pre heated glass container and warm oven. Basically I am doing a sort of 'sous vide' slow cook style.

4) I then cook the onions, carrots, garlic, peppers, broccoli, celery, etc (in that basic order). Don't over cook the broccoli!

5) For curry I'll add the coconut milk when the vegetables are mostly done, heat a bit to warm up the milk, and then add the meat just before I serve it up.  

6) For stir fry I add the meat back at the end and then add a half cup of water/chicken stock and soy sauce mixed with a teaspoon of corn starch.  This thickens up into a sauce and finishes the meat.

And that's my basic stir fry or curry technique!

Patrick

Hawaiian Air

 

Goodbye cold air and bright snow, Hello Blah and grey and brown.

Yesterday when Nora and I went skiing up the Upper Buskin River the snow was still dry and the temperatures in the mid 30s.  Then on the way back there was a blast of warm air.  Both Nora and I commented on it. It hit our faces and felt like the hot air from off of a hot summer field.  It was bizarre.

An hour or so later I went skate skiing with Stuey at Abercrombie and the snow turned to mush.  By the time we quit skiing it was 55 degrees (near record high for Kodiak).  The temperature went up 20 degrees in less than 2 hours.  Stuey commented that it was too hot to ski.  He also opined that he much prefers cool weather - even in summertime.  

Looking at the weather maps it seems we have a dry Pineapple Express jetting into the Gulf of Alaska straight from Hawaii.  It means abnormally warm weather for the next week or so.  It also means we will be hearing all about how people are too cold in the lower 48.  Our displaced cold air will be moving east and south.  Of course they will complain, but they should just enjoy it!

Patrick

Trek to the Blue Icicles

 

Sunday I went on a long cross country ski up into the Salonie Creek Canyon with my brother and nephew.  It is one of my favorite 'destination' cross country ski treks, and I don't think I have ever done it this early in the season.  Normally, this is a February/March trip (click here, here (best one), and here for blog posts about trips over the last 2 years).

It is not every winter that we get enough snow and cold for skiing up the river beds.  Looking back it seems 10 or 15 years ago we did the trip a lot, but then there was about a 10 year gap where we never had good enough conditions to ski to the canyon.  But for the last 3 winters it has been good again.

The goal of the ski is to go far up into the canyon until you come to a sharp bend where there are often HUGE blue icicles hanging down from the cliffs.  Past this bend are waterfalls and the going gets impossible.  The canyon is deep and the light low. It is sort of a 'Gollum' world of darkness.  You look up at the mountains above the canyon and everything is bright pink in the sunlight.

This year we made it up to the icicles but they are not very big yet.  I think it is still early in the winter and they need to do some growing.  Hopefully I'll be checking on them again sometime soon.

Patrick

My Christmas Bird Count

 

Yesterday, just like every year, I helped out with the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count (click here and here for posts about the last 2 counts).  It's the day when all the local birder canvas the immediate area around town and count the birds and see how many different species they can record.  It's always my job to climb a mountain and find a ptarmigan.  

Year in year out I have usually been pretty good at this. Except last year I failed to find one and then yesterday I did too.  So no ptarmigan for the last 2 years. The good thing is that another ptarmigan SWAT tasked with the same job as me did climb another mountain and see 2 ptarmigan.  So the count got a ptarmigan - phew.

My totals for yesterday were:

3 miles hiked in 3 hours - 3 Ravens, 1 immature bald eagle, and a northern shrike.  

That's it nothing else.  This time of the year there just is not all that many birds in the high alpine.

I've also noticed that this year and last year I looked for ptarmigan on Pyramid.  Whereas most years I have always climbed behind the North Sister.  Perhaps next year I'll go back to climbing the North Sister.

Anyway, no ptarmigan, but it was not a day wasted.  I found some deep powder for skiing and the light and clouds were spectacular.  I also explored areas looking for ptarmigan where I do not usually go.  Last year I found deep powder in the same places too.  Maybe I'll to explore these places more when I am not looking for ptarmigan.

Patrick

Only 'interesting' bird I saw - a 'butcher bird' (northern shrike)

Sunset Ski

 

Yesterday I took the dogs up Pyramid for the first time in almost 2 weeks.  I was kinda surprised that the conditions were still about the same as they had been when I last went - deep with no base down low and rime on high.  There has been no rain or warm conditions to consolidate the snow.  But still pretty good skiing and there is an inch or 2 of dry new snow on top.  And, best of all it is easy to ski to the car.  

The snow down low is still too deep for the dogs. So on the way down I had to ski along side the beaten in uptrack so that the dogs had a trail to follow.  Whenever they left the trail they posthole up over their shoulders.  

At the parking lot we ran into Bode's sister Roo.  We first ran into her last May on a Near Island hike (click here for post about Bode and sister).  Bode and her sister are amazingly similar and raced around playing.  Her owner is a big snowboarder so I have a feeling they will be seeing a lot of each other. He told us her adoption name was 'Hershey' which matches the photo of her and Bode when they were pups (on old blog post linked above).  In the photo she is brown and Bode black.  

It's funny but this time of the year 2:30 in the afternoon qualifies as 'sunset'.  The sun is low in the sky and it is dark by 5PM.  Unlike nearer the equator it does set rather slowly - raking along the horizon rather than dipping quickly below the rim.

Patrick

Bode plays with his sister Roo

Before and After

 

I've been cross country skiing up into the canyon on the Upper Buskin River every day for over a week.  It takes about an hour round trip from the car and is pretty much the perfect ski.  

Up until yesterday it has been pretty brutal conditions - icy, windy, and very cold.  I'd leave the car and it would be like 10 degrees with 40 mph winds (I know, I know not negative numbers like the rest of Alaska - Kodiak is in the 'banana belt' after all), and my hands would freeze in the gloves.  I'd keep at it and after about 20 minutes my hands would warm up.  The conditions were also very fast and icy.  I'd double pole across long sections of ice.  And then I'd get to the canyon and the wind would die and it was all beautiful.

But yesterday it snowed and warmed up.  No wind either!  What a difference - no frozen hands and no rattling over ice. And the canyon was stunning.

Afterwards, Nora and I took the doggies for a second walk to Lake Gertrude at Abercrombie.  The sun set and the moon rose, and the conditions were perfect.  Now it just needs to stay that way.

Patrick

New powder in the canyon!

This is 'rattling on the ice' conditions

new snow!

New snow on the lake at Fort Abercrombie

Early Winter

 

So far we have had a pretty good winter.  It's been early and cold.  Looking back through years past it seems winter has been starting in early December, but this year it got good in early November.  Anyway, these are pictures from the last few weeks that show winter.

The Abercrombie pictures are from a walk I took with Nora.  We walked in the new snow across the lake.  

The eagle is from yesterday.  Every day on my drive to go skiing I've been seeing bears fishing for spawning silvers at the outlet to Buskin Lake.  All sorts of cars and people taking photos of them - and it must be said the bears look amazing with all the ice in their fur.  But I've just been driving past and not taking 'bear in the distance' photos (OK I did take one - posted below).  And then 4 days ago I watched a sow with her cubs swat at an eagle trying to take her fish.  That was very cool - so for the last couple of days I took my telephoto lens along on the ride hoping for bear photos.  And of course I have not seen a bear since!  Yesterday all I saw was this eagle in a tree.

Patrick

This pumpkin froze solid and then in 12 hours the temperature went from 5 to 38 and it defrosted

Bode up close in the telephoto lens - no bears!

My 'bear in the distance' photo taken through the car window (on the Buskin River bridge) - and the ISO was set way too high!