Dear Deer&Moose Goulash With Prunes&Walnuts

So Kevin, co-worker of Wil's dad and a passionate hunter gave us a whole bunch of moose and deer meat the other day.
With all that game in our freezer I decided to make one of my all-time favorite winter dishes.
My mum gave me this recipe years ago, and she got it from one of her colleagues. Originally it is made with venison, but really any deer-like game can be thrown into it.
I decided to mix deer with moose for this.
One thing you should know: Moose can sometimes be a bit too 'gamy'. Buttermilk usually takes care of that. just soak the raw moose meat in buttermilk for an hour or longer and it should be less extreme.

I was so busy cooking that I totally forgot to take any pictures in between. Sorry about that.
anyway, here is what you need:

600g/22oz. deer/moose/venison/elk etc. (lean or with a bit of fat on it) cut in goulash cubes
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 medium-sized onions cut in thin rings
1 tsp garlic finely chopped
2 tsp flour
250ml/8.5oz. red wine (preferably cabernet sauvignon)
60g/2.2oz. prunes (pitted)
2 bay leaves
3 slices of bacon, coarsly chopped
275ml/9.5oz beef broth (preferably home made)
2tsp butter or margarine
100g/3.5oz walnuts, coarsly chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped in slices
salt, pepper

Directions

On a stove heat up olive oil in an oven-proof casserole.
Add the meat in small portions and sear each portion over high heat for about 1 minute.
Remove the browned meat from the casserole.
Reduce heat.
Add onions and garlic to the remaining meat juices and sautee for about 2-3 minutes until golden brown.
Stir in the flour and cook for 1 more minute.
Remove from stove and slowly stir in the red wine.
Add meat, prunes, bacon, bay leaves and broth and bring everything to a boil again.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Put the lid on the casserole, or aluminium foil if you don't have an appropriate lid for it.
Cook everything in the oven for about 1.5 - 2 hours at 170°C.
A few minutes before serving melt butter/margarine in a pan, add walnuts and cellery stalks and sautee at medium heat for about 5 minutes.
Season with salt and pepper and toss over the goulash.

Serve with potatoes or mashed potatoes and a glass of red wine.

Pigeons with red wine sauce

Yesterday Wil and I were incredibly lucky at Galerie Lafayette. The woman in the meat section was kind of confused and sold us two pigeons for the price of two corn-fed chicken. Sounds weird? Yeah, that's what we thought as well, when we went to a market a couple of weeks ago where they wanted to sell us two tiny pigeons for almost 30€. Pigeons and doves, or so-called squab (for less association issues), seem to be ridiculously expensive. Don't get me wrong, I'm not considering eating those sick and scruffy looking city pigeons. But pigeons are everywhere on the countryside and should be quite easy prey. I don't understand why they have to be more expensive than corn-fed chicken...Well, the ones you buy are most often bred. So that may be why. But still...

Anyways. We got two for less than 9 bucks. So we went home, filleted the breasts and legs and removed hearts and livers from the carcasses.

From the carcasses, wings and organs we made a stock. We browned the carcasses and wings in a big pot with some olive oil and deglazed them with 250ml red wine. We then added water and some leftover game stock until everything was covered by liquid, added the chopped up organs as well as 1tsp dried thyme, 2 rosemary twigs, 2 juniper berries, 2 bay leaves, 1 big crushed garlic clove and a dash of nutmeg, pepper and all-spice and let it simmer for 60 minutes with lid closed.

We then strained everything to separate the stock from the bones and spices.

Afterwards we reduced the stock to make a sauce to serve with the pigeons. We didn't use all of the stock for it. That would have been to much. A third of the total amount should be enough. After reducing I seasoned it with salt and for a bit of sweetness added 1/2 to 1 tsp of red currant jelly.

To thicken the sauce and in order to make it richer (pigeon meat is very lean) I also stirred in some small ice-cold cubes of butter in the end.

While making the sauce we fired up our cast iron pan to medium heat with 1 tbsp of olive oil two rosemary twigs and another slightly crushed garlic clove. Once the oil was hot enough we placed the breasts and the legs in the pan and fried them for a total of 5-6 minutes; 3 minutes on the skin side to give it a nice sear and 2 to 3 minutes from the other side.

It's important that the meat is still medium rare. Otherwise the meat gets too tough. In France they even it their pigeons raw.

Let the breasts and legs rest for another 5-10 minutes before serving. We wrapped ours in aluminium foil for that. 

Serve with the sauce and pair of heavy red wine. The meat of pigeons is a bit like duck meat, just with less fat. It's very dark in color and has a gamey and quite organy flavor to it..

PS: We had chive and sour cream mashed potatoes with it and a glass of French Malbec.

PPS: I'm sorry for the crappy photos. Unfortunately my beloved camera broke and therefore iPhone it is for now...