If you have never had Moose meat you are missing out on something great, In “The Maine Woods”, Henry David Thoreau described its taste as, “like tender beef, with perhaps more flavor; sometimes like veal”. That is as close as a description of it as I will try. Moose meat is one of our family favorites and it just so happens when we moved to the new house I found some cleaning out the freezer. So today I am going to share one of our family recipes for Moose meat chili. I have made this with Deer meat as well and it tastes just as good.
Serves 6 -8
You will need the following ingredient.
4 tablespoons of olive oil or vegetable oil
1 ½ to 2 pounds of ground Moose meat
1 onion, chopped to your preference
4 cloves of garlic finely chopped
2 tablespoons of chili powder
1 tablespoon of dried oregano
2 teaspoons of ground cumin
½ teaspoon of ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon of allspice
1 can (15 ounces) crushed tomatoes
1 ½ cups of red wine
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon of black pepper
12 dried Japone peppers, stems removed, broken up or whole
- Place a large cast-iron skillet on medium-high head. You can use any type of skillet I just prefer cast iron to cook with. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and all of the Moose meat. You will cook the meat until it is no longer pink, this takes about 8 minutes. You will now transfer the meat to a large bowl and set it aside. Return the pot to the heat adding the other 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the chopped onions. You will cook the onions until they are soft which takes around 10 minutes, you will need to stir very often to keep them from burning. Add the garlic and cook for anther 1 minute or 2. (I am a firm believer that you never need to stick to a recipe 100% unless you have to. I was out of fresh and minced garlic so I improvised and substituted granulated garlic. Not exactly the same but it will work.)
- With the garlic now getting warm it is time to add the chili powder, cumin, cinnamon, oregano, allspice and dried Japones peppers. You will cook for another minute stirring continuously. With most of the dried ingredient added it will start to gum up a little to the onions.
- Now you will add the bowl of Moose meat back into the skillet also add the rest of the ingredient, the can of crushed tomatoes, wine, pepper and salt. Turn up the heat to bring everything to a boil. As a side note normally when you add dried Japone peppers you would soak them to rehydrate them, since we are now going to turn the heat down to low and simmer for 45 to 50 minutes this will rehydrate them as they cook. You will only need t stir it every so often to keep it from burning on the bottom.Grab your favorite beverage and enjoy.
