Moose Meat Stew
I MADE THE MOOSE MEAT STEW!
The backstory is that a co-worker of Dave’s killed a moose. It weighed 600 pounds and took three ATVs to drag to the truck. He bought a deep freeze for the meat, but it didn’t all fit (600 pounds translates to so much meat!). So we ended up with a bunch of moose meat.
I have never cooked, or eaten, moose. It doesn’t taste the way I thought it would: not particularly gamey, more like beef, with a mineral-y aftertaste. I’ve also never made meat stew. So I decided, as is my wont, to cook moose and make stew for the first time all at once when a bunch of friends were visiting. I was midway through browning two and a half pounds of moose when they arrived. I had to hug without hands because they were moosey.
Once I was done browning there was a bit of hands-on cooking, and then the whole thing simmered for four or five hours.*
I thought it was fantastic. The meat was so tender. There was an amusing line of conversation relating to killing moose with spoons.
I started my recipe hunt with the Joy of Cooking, followed by googling, which felicitously led me to a post that fellow Portland, ME blogger S. from Edible Obsessions wrote in 2009 about making moose stew. I made her recipe, basically as posted, except that I forgot about the olives.
Moose Meat Stew
- 2 1/2 pounds moose stew meat
- 1 cup flour
- 2 small to medium onions (or 1 large), sliced
- 5 garlic cloves, peeled and kept whole
- 4 cups beef stock
- 1 28-ounce can of San Marzano tomatoes
- 2 cups red wine
- a few sprigs fresh thyme, and a sprig of fresh rosemary
- 3 carrots, sliced thick
- 5 medium red-skinned potatoes, cut into 3/4” to 1” chunks
- salt and pepper
1. Heat olive oil in the bottom of a large dutch oven or stock pot.
2. Season the flour with salt and pepper. Pat the stew meat dry and dredge in flour. Brown the meat in batches and set aside. I ended up with a ton of gunk (fond) in the bottom of the pan at the end of the browning, so I deglazed with a cup of the red wine. I poured the wine back into a measuring cup to add later. You want to save the gunk that you scrape off, because it’s flavorful.
3. Add some more olive oil and caramelize the onions until deep golden brown. This is relatively hands-off— you cook the onions, stirring periodically, on medium/low heat until they get very soft and brown all over.
4. Add garlic and brown.
5. Deglaze with all the red wine and reduce.
6. Add the beef stock and tomatoes.
7. Add herbs. (This is where the Edible Obsessions recipe gets a little vague. I waited maybe 10 or 15 minutes before adding the herbs).
8. Add the carrots and moose meat. Let everything simmer for 4 or so hours.
9. Add the potatoes, adjust the salt and pepper, and cook for another hour or so (until the potatoes are tender but not falling apart).
I forgot to cover it as it was cooking, so it cooked down to a very thick stew. Which I enjoyed.
* It simmered in my new 5 qt. Le Creuset dish. I bought it at the Le Creuset outlet in Kittery, ME, and it was half what they sell for normally because it’s a second. But it’s basically perfect!
The photo, by the way, is of Teddy Roosevelt fording a river on a moose.
