Do Up Your Deer.

November is apparently the best month for me to share recipes, and on the request of KARN’s Dave Elswick I’d like to share some of the recipes I’ve used with venison.  They’re a little off the beaten path, but they do offer a different take on the animal -- and after all, if you take a deer, you’ll have quite a lot to deal with.  At Dave's request, I'm also including recipes called in by listeners.

I love this recipe for Venison Stew.  It combines deer meat with red wine for a nice, deep flavor best served when the weather is cold.  It also has mushrooms, which I love.

2 pounds cubed deer meat
1 pound mushrooms (any sort), sliced
1 cup red wine
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 packet French onion soup mix.

In a cast iron casserole or Dutch oven, sear the venison cubes.  Add the mushrooms.  Mix the remaining items and add them to the casserole.  Set in the oven at 250 degrees and allow to cook for four or more hours until the venison cubes fall apart.  Can also be made in a Crock-Pot, just sear your venison first.


Venison Philly Cheesesteaks
For this one, you want a meat slicer and a nearly frozen deer roast -- or when you get your deer butchered, ask that your deer roast be sliced wafer thin.  You’re looking for cross-section slices no more than ¼ inch thick.

1 pound wafer-thin venison roast cutlets
2 bell peppers, seeded and sliced
1 onion, sliced
1 tablespoon Worchestershire sauce
1 clove garlic, smashed
Salt and pepper to taste
Bread of choice (6 inch hoagies work well)
Provolone cheese slices

Slice open hoagie rolls or spread appropriate bread.  Lay Provolone over the inside surface.

Bring skillet to medium high heat.  Saute peppers, onions and garlic until onion is translucent.  Add venison and Worchestershire sauce.  Cook for one to two minutes or until cutlets are cooked through but still moist.  Add salt and/or pepper if you like.  Remove from heat but do not drain.  With tongs, drop meat and vegetables into rolls on top of cheese.  Serves 2-4, depending on how hungry you are.

I talked about cooking venison in a medieval fashion on the show.  Here's a great recipe on the Gode Cookery website for Venyson in Broth, or more properly Venison Ribs in Wine.

John Philpot called in with this great venison recipe.  He and Phyllis Speer hosted "Arkansas Outdoors" on AETN for 20 years, and they always had great things to share and eat.  John says this is the most requested venison recipe they had.


Grilled Chili Crusted Venison Steak

1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 ¼ teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon ground red pepper
One venison steak, one to three and a half pounds, 1 ½ to 2 inches thick

Trim any fat off the meat and rub the mixture onto both sides of the steak.  Place it in a shallow glass pan and cover it tightly with plastic wrap.  Refrigerate it at least overnight.  It's better if you give it a full day -- and 36 hours is still all right.  Every 12 hours, turn the steak over.

Get a charcoal fire burning, and once the coals are covered with ash put that steak on the grill six inches from the heat.  Flip it once while it's cooking.  Give it 25 minutes for rare or 30 for medium.  Slice it up and serve it.

John says you can slice it with a fork.

Not a deer recipe, but John also gave this recipe for Mexican Eggs.

A pound of sausage
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon cumin seed
1 can Rotel
salt and pepper to taste
4 eggs
1 eight ounce package grated cheddar cheese

Crumble the sausage in skillet, brown it and drain it.  Add the onion, pepper, garlic and cumin and cook until the onions are soft.  Add Rotel and, if you like, salt and pepper and cook it all together.

With a large wooden spoon, make four little wells in the mix.  Break an egg into each well.  Cover tightly with a lid and cook until the egg is firm.  Sprinkle the cheese over the whole mess and let it cook until the cheese is melted.  Makes four servings.

John says Phyllis would crack the eggs in gently so they'd cook up where the yolks were still whole and runny -- but you can beat the eggs first if you wish.

One of our listeners, Fred, told us about a breakfast treatment for tough deer meat.  Take cubed up meat and throw it in a crockpot with garlic, black pepper, onion and white gravy.  Let it simmer all night long and serve it up the next morning over biscuits.

It's similar to what parts of my family has been doing for years for breakfast...

Skillet Fried Deer


1 pound deer minute steaks (1/2 inch thick)
2 cups + 1 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 stick + 1 stick butter

Heat skillet to medium high.  Drop in a stick of butter to coat the bottom.

Get yourself a meat mallet and pound the holy fire out of the deer steaks until they are less than a quarter inch thick.  Sift together flour, salt and pepper.  Dredge deer steaks in flour.  Drop steaks into the browning butter and cook for a minute on each side or until golden on each side.  Remove steaks.

Add second stick of butter.  Whisk in remaining flour and continue to whisk until roux becomes the color of chocolate milk.  Serve over biscuits or grits.

Listener James called in with a different recipe -- for duck rather than venison.  Sounds good, too.

Stuffed Duck Breasts

2 duck breasts, butterflied
2 cups soy sauce
1 teaspoon vinegar
1/2 cup Worchestershire sauce
Cream cheese
Sliced jalapeno pepper
Bacon

Take duck breasts and butterfly them.  Marinate them overnight in a combination of the soy sauce, Worchestershire sauce and vinegar.  Next day tuck cream cheese and jalapeno slices inside, fold over and wrap in bacon.  Cook to medium heat.

Alas, I didn't get the name of our last caller, but he gave us these instructions for Venison Tenderloin.

6 inches of venison tenderloin
Marinade of your choice (Cajun marinade prefered)
1 stalk celery, cut into sections
1 carrot, cut into sections

Pierce the tenderloin with a knife.  Slide pieces of carrot and celery at intervals into the tenderloin.  Add marinade, wrap tightly and marinate overnight. Bake in aluminum foil for three hours at 350 degrees.

And then there was the contribution from Grav Weldon, who has become pesce-vegetarian but who still loves to hunt.  He referred me to this recipe for Venison Shepherd's Pie.

Have a venison recipe you'd like to share?  Add it to the comments!

Delectable Elegance at The Grand Taverne.

Is there such a thing as casual elegant? Upscale comfort? There must be a word somewhere for the sort of atmosphere you find at The Grand Taverne in Eureka Springs.

The restaurant is housed in the historic Grand Central Hotel on Main Street, down in the valley. The building has a great history to it, dating back to 1880 as the place where passengers first arrived after deboarding trains that had come down from the North. In modern times the facility was renovated top to bottom in 1987, updated with fine suites for guests upstairs and a full service spa and salon downstairs but somehow maintaining that Victorian era grandeur.

The restaurant itself was named after the very first full-menu service restaurant that offered table service -- Le Grande Taverne de Londres, opened in 1782 in Paris. The name was chosen to convey a sense of attention to detail on food quality and service.

Its chef, Dave Gilderson, was schooled at L’Ecole de Cuisine Francais Sabine de Mirebek in England. He apprenticed in the south of France before returning to the states and working his way up through a number of assignments, including Branson’s Big Cedar Lodge and his first stint as Executive Chef at The Candlestick Inn. Gilderson came to the Grand Central Hotel to open The Grand Taverne in 2003.

I’ve enjoyed fine dining at The Grand Taverne before. It’s where my husband and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary in 2009 during one of Eureka Springs’ grand Food and Wine Weekends. That was a fantastic meal of beautiful foods -- a Duck Confit with bitter greens and Madeira cherries, a lightly spicy butternut squash soup, Grilled Veal a la Perigordine and a fine selection of paired wines. As always I chronicled it in my notes and took photographs -- but when I returned from the trip and looked through what I had I realized I could not do the restaurant or its chef full justice because I had not taken lighting into account. My photographs were just not up to the job.

I promised myself that when I got the chance I’d go back and chronicle another meal there -- but take someone along who could properly photograph the food. I’m so glad I had the chance to be hosted at the restaurant this January… to get another chance to celebrate a meal there and relate the experience to you.

The first thing I noticed when we came in was the music. There was a small group of people who were chatting back and forth with the pianist, who was popping along with some of the greatest tunes of the singer songwriter era. I was glad we were seated within ear and eyeshot of the piano, but I would have a greater surprise later on.

Turns out the musician we enjoyed that evening was none other than Jerry Yester of the Lovin’ Spoonful. That’s right -- he even played a couple of the group’s greatest hits for us over the course of the evening, including “Do You Believe In Magic?” and one of my favorites, “Summer in the City.” He also cranked out hits from other artists and did a rendition of The Eagles’ “Desperado” -- a parody called “Avocado” that seriously cracked me up.

Being on-duty, I passed on the offered wine for my traditional iced tea. We started off with the fabulous house bread and butter. The bread is a rustic, light flavored pastry; large of crumb, it was moist and delicate but strong enough to stand up to a cutting knife. The butter was sweetened with honey, and the combination of the two was pleasant and hard to put down.

Choosing what to dine on was a little difficult. The Pan Seared Sea Scallops with lobster butter sauce ($11) looked tempting, as did the Pan Seared Crabcake with smoked tomato remoulade, creole red pepper cream ($13). But we both opted for more salad-y things. Grav chose the simplicity of a Classic Caesar Salad ($6). It was a fine selection of crisp greens tossed in a housemade dressing with grated parmesan, croutons and fresh cracked black pepper, a good example of how the salad should be prepared.

I chose the Grilled Romaine Heart ($8), which came dressed with chunks of Roma tomato and Parmesan cheese drizzled with both Caesar dressing and a balsamic reduction. The romaine had been grilled just to the point of bringing out the flavors, wilty but not mushy. The inspired combination of savory Caesar dressing and tangy-sweet balsamic glaze did not overpower the dish but elevated it to a level of elegance you don’t traditionally expect from a salad. It was mighty pretty, too.

We debated over the menu briefly, each of us having narrowed down our selections to the same two menu items. It was almost a flip of a coin to determine who would choose the Roasted Rack of Lamb (Cointreau mint sauce, gratin dauphinois potato, $39) or the Classic Preparation of Half Duckling (Blueberry citrus jus, dried cranberry wild rice, $28). Both were equally appetizing. We agreed to sample and share.

I drew the duck, and I am so glad I did. It was, without a doubt, the best thing I’d tasted that month. The first bite I was overtaken with a range of flavors that started with blueberry and citrus, a light pepper, red wine and the richness of red-meat duck. I had started with the breast medallions and was ever so pleased with the flavor and texture -- meat that literally melted on the tongue spiced and marinated by a chef who understood the nature of duck. As much as I was thrilled with this, I was surprised by the entirely different preparation of the leg -- stuffed with spinach and herbs and completely savory, compared to the sweetness of the breast. The cranberry wild rice was augmented with a sweet wine-soaked cabbage that almost blended into it in the subdued light. The dish was served up with an attractive display of orange and grapefruit segments.

The lamb, on the other hand, drew mixed reviews. I was quite taken with the lovely balance of flavors of orange and mint in its crust. The meat had been cooked just up to rare, a warm center, three well-filled lightly trimmed bones with an ample amount of flesh and not too much fat. At first I thought a similar red wine sauce had been used for both, but there were subtle differences. The lamb’s glaze was sweeter, and here there were also those slivers of sweet wine-pickled cabbage. The glaze might have been a bit too sweet for the dish but the side item -- paper thin wafers of potato layered between buttery creaminess -- were tasty.

On the dessert menu we found a selection of five dessert martinis ($8) -- chocolate, coffee, Grasshopper, Golden Cadillac and Brandy Alexander. I demurred on these, tempting as they were, because driving was in the near future and I’m a hopeless lightweight. There were three choices on the dessert menu that night -- a flourless Chocolate Paradise, White Chocolate Crème Brule and a Montrachet Goat Cheese Cheesecake. We sampled the latter two.

The crisp top to the Crème Brule was a perfect layer of burnt sugar. The flavors beneath were a little odd to me, strong on notes of cocoa butter and with an almost slick texture.

It did not compare to the cheesecake, which was one of the richest cheesecakes I have ever had, with a delightful sharpness that played against the sharp tang of the splendid strawberry balsamic reduction pooled at its base. The lemon cracker applied to the edge was sweet with no tartness and very light, perhaps as a counterpoint to the dish. Perfect cheesecake texture, unusual flavor juxtaposition but it worked so well.

I had discovered I’d come to the end of yet another perfect meal from Chef Gilderson. It made me a little blue. On the other hand, I was stuffed and starting to feel the drowsiness a good meal brings on. Our fabulous classic rock musician jammed on comfortably as we took our leave.

I understand fully why so many of my friends in Eureka Springs say this is the place they go for special occasions. The Grand Taverne has a measure of the gentry about it, very high-class and handsome but still accessible to all. This is where you should consider bringing your date for that special evening.

You’ll find The Grand Taverne inside the Grand Central Hotel in Eureka Springs at 37 North Main Street. Call (800) 344-6050 for more information or check out the hotel’s website.

Duck Gumbo: I wasn't prepared.

You may have wondered at my lack of diligence this past week. It comes primarily from a weekend incident in the research of the Wings Over The Prairie Festival down in Stuttgart. I’m working ahead on a magazine feature for next year… don’t worry, you’ll hear about it when the time comes.

Thing is, part of the event is Duck Gumbo. I recall hearing a certain redheaded producer colleague of mine talk about Duck Gumbo as if it were a calling, a religious event or a frat party and I never could tell if she were joking or not. I went into it thinking it was a simple competition between culinary sorts. Wow, was I wrong.

I went in with a busted camera (dang it, after 70,000 shots the old P50 is all but dead) and a notebook and no idea of what I would encounter in the giant tent that took up a football field’s space on the lot of Producers Rice Mill on Highway 165. Identification shown, wristbands applied and Grav and were tossed into the mass of humanity beyond.

Well, that’s not really right. We went early on, right as the competition began. It’s simple, really -- the competitors each have their own booths, and in those booths they have to come up with a suitable gumbo in just a few hours consisting of half duck and half whatever else they serve up.

But those booths -- now, they’re something else and they consist of everything from a couple of tables and a banner to stories-tall duck blind structures complete with viewing decks on top, often with ladies in skimpy clothes or guys in funny hats throwing beads into the crowd. The creativity in these structures was extreme, and the décor fell between Razorback ultra fandom to duck hunter’s delight to taxidermy havok to… well, anything went.

Early on it was very relaxed -- a couple of hundred people flitting in-between the different stands, chatting with others and nibbling on the provided nibbles. There were a lot of these -- lots of cheese and crackers, sausages and such. One booth had quartered pork barbecue sandwiches, another sausage balls and spinach dip, another salami and olive appetizers on skewers, another beef and bean chili. In-between those croissant-wrapped Lil Smokies and cheese balls with Fritos there were competitors hovering over pots, every different sort of color of roux going from deep brown to bright red to pale green.

And the scents… the lovely smoky scent of sausage and the wild bite of duck combined with all sorts of things -- okra and celery and tomatoes and bell peppers and onions and spices -- slightly different at each stand but still always with that prevalent scent underneath. Duck was getting its due in those pots.

A gentleman from one booth came up to me with a tissue, which he quickly and quietly tucked into my cleavage. I started to issue a protest but he held up a spray gun of water, shot me at the collarbone with it and pressed something to my chest. “This is your first time here, ain’t it?” he asked me.

“Sure is.”
“You stick out like a sore thumb, but that’s okay. You look like a box of Crayons. That’s good.” He pulled away the thing against my chest and pulled the tissue out of my shirt. “What do you think?”

I looked down and saw he’d applied a tie dyed peace sign temporary tattoo. I grinned. “That’s pretty good.”

“I hope I got it right side up. You have a good time.”

Well, it was, interesting. The next booth’s purveyor adorned me with beads. I’d been told upon entering that the event was considered “redneck Mardi Gras” but having experienced Mardi Gras I figured it was a bit too light for that.

Or so I thought. I was about three quarters of the way around my survey round, and I got smacked on the butt. I turned around to see a couple of guys laughing.

“Oh, she’s a noob!” one of them laughed. I smiled and moved on, thinking it was a random incident.

It was not. Over the next couple of hours I’d get smacked numerous times. It seemed like some sort of fraternity rite. But instead of leaving just stinging cheeks, these rascals were leaving stickers. A lot of stickers.

And was this frowned upon? Not at all. In fact, many of the local girls (all in the “uniform” of tight jeans, camoflauge shirt or jacket and knee high boots) were showing off their sticker-bedazzled bottoms. I ran into an old friend, Josh Heffington, who had his cell phone out showing off photos from last year’s debaucle. Among the many shots were those of random bottoms plastered from one hip to the other with a smattering of stickers. Apparently it’s a source of pride.

As the afternoon progressed, smoke hung in the air and the crowd packed out. There were even crowds waiting for use of the portable facilities, housed in a connecting tent, a good three dozen of them in constant use. The hired band started playing in-between updates from the Razorback game. There were lines at the liquor stands (the event is 21 and older only). There were groups of older men and groups of teens chewing the fat and having a good time. In many ways it reminded me of a Jimmy Buffett-haze on a beach. The competition in many ways came second -- just a chance to have a booth and make some gumbo while enjoying one hell of a party.

It was getting too tight to take many photos on the ground. Grav managed to talk one of the guys manning a booth near the epicenter of the event into letting him up on the upper platform. He told me later that while it was awesome to be able to shoot down into the crowd, the platform swayed amidst the activity -- and for someone afraid of heights it was quite a challenge to conquer.
There was just one thing that confused us. Duck Gumbo seemed to be a pretty rockin’ event, sure --

but it overlapped the actual World Championship Duck Calling Competition, which we figured was the main reason everyone was coming to Stuttgart for Wings Over The Prairie anyway. I realized that yes, there were going to be rounds for the competitors in the competition, but there was really no way to be in both places at one time. And we were missing out on that story.

But the allure of Duck Gumbo continued to grow on me. It was coming up on three o’clock, when the cooking was over and the judging would apparently begin. Booth after booth was getting prepared for the big moment. I saw those competition cups go out -- I’m familiar with them from the CASI competition circuit -- and I watched a couple of different booths as they carefully packaged away the judge’s sample of gumbo and sent it off.


And then the floodgates were open for anyone to have themselves a try. Each participant is required to cook up at least three quarts of gumbo but most of the competitors I saw had made gallons, and they were quite generous with samples. A host of six ounce Styrofoam cups appeared like egrets on Lake Conway, each with its own sample of a different duck gumbo in them. Some included tasso, some andouille, some ham, some pork chops. One included summer sausage and possum -- and the guy at that booth dared me to try it. Without the pork in it, I woulda.

I was sorta disappointed, just because I couldn’t try it. Every single gumbo -- even though all gumbos were supposed to be 50 percent or more duck -- every one of them contained some sort of pork. I was out. Dangit.

It didn’t keep me from sampling other things, though, like the scrumptious duck tamales one contestant had set out. He seemed discouraged that no one was trying them. I did -- they were smoky and wonderful and I was glad I’d sampled them.

The crowd was thickening and the clock was ticking. Grav and I actually were planning to wait until the judges had made their announcements, but overhead we heard a guy on the loudspeaker saying the judging itself wouldn’t begin until 4 p.m. Well, that cinched it. We had to go do something on the other story.

And here’s the part where I realized we had come to Stuttgart with an entirely different idea for a story than we’d actually started out to get. Because while there were a lot of people in downtown Stuttgart, they were in the vendor tents and out in the little carnival at the north end of the stretch of Main Street. There weren’t quite a hundred people standing around watching and listening to the World Championship Duck Calling Competition.

We realized why less than half an hour later. Each competitor has 90 seconds to do five calls. They are, for all intents and purposes, the same five calls. And while I’m somewhat used to duck calls, it about drove Grav out of his head. The idea of sitting through it all was just too much. Besides, we had another assignment to catch that afternoon.

So, what am I telling you? Well, if you go to Wings Over The Prairie, you’ll probably want to spend a few minutes watching the duck calling. You’ll certainly want to check out the vendor booths.

But if you’re an adult and you like “a good time” as it were, you really should be over in the parking lot at Producers Rice Mill under the big tent. It’s an event like no other I’ve ever seen in Arkansas, and it’s definitely something you won’t forget any time soon.