Wilderness Festival 2014 Hunter Gather Cook

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Yukhoe - Korean Venison Tartare 육회

Yukhoe

This Korean version of steak tartare was originally made with horse meat and more recently with beef. For best results the meat needs to be absolutely as fresh as possible. At Hunter Gather Cook this dish is made with venison fillet within a couple of hours of it coming off the deer so we have the perfect opportunity to make the finest of dishes.

Forage:

10 Wild Garlic Leaves

1 Bunch of Three Cornered Leek

16 Edible Wild Flowers to Garnish ( Dog Violet, Wild Garlic Flowers, Three Cornered Leek, Primrose, Cuckoo Flower)

4 Sorrel Leaves

Ingredients:

1 pound / 450g Venison Fillet

2 Pears

4 small egg yolks or 4 quails eggs

2 tablespoon pine nuts

Seasoning Mixture:

4 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon clear honey

3 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds

2 tablespoon sesame oil

1/2 teaspoon freshly-ground black pepper

1 tsp chilli powder

Wild mies en plas

Firstly the Venison Fillet should be put in the freeze for 1 ½ to 2 hours, this hardens it up slightly making cutting it thinly a lot easier.

For the seasoning mixture add the soy, honey, sesame oil, sesame seed, pepper and chilli powder to a bowl. Next very finely chop the Wild Garlic and Three Cornered Leek and add to the bowl. Stir well to combine and set to one side.

Yukhoe seasoning mixture

Fill another bowl with a cup of water and add a teaspoon of salt to it. This will keep your pears from browning whilst preparing the rest of the dish. Peel and julien the pear cutting it into matchstick sized pieces and place in the bowl of salted water until ready to plate up.

Take the partially frozen venison fillet and slice it in the same way as the pears. You want lots of tiny matchsticks of venison. Add the sliced venison to the seasoning mixture and stir well.

Making sure the venison fillet is free of any fat and sinue

To plate up make a bed of the pear sticks, take a serving of the venison and seasoning and place on top of the pears making a small indent in the top of the venison. Carefully place the egg yolk on top of the venison. If using a quails egg the top should be cut off and the egg put in the same place ready to be poured over when served.

Garnish around the stack with whatever edible wild flowers you have found, the sorrel and serve!

Yukhoe - The finished article

Fine Wild Food Feast - 22nd March

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Oak smoked venison Jerky

Going Paleo...

Traditionally used technique used to dry meat to extend its shelf life.   The exact origin of this technique isn’t known but it would have been obvious to early humans that the smoked meat lasted a lot longer than raw and that may have been discovered due to the meat being kept in a smoky environment  to keep the flys away.  Europeans came across the technique on their first trips to the Americas.  It is also very good for travelling, long hikes, mountain climbing due to the high protein content and also the fact that the equivalent weight of fresh meat would be 6 times heavier.

A friend recently donated a large bag of venison to me, aware of how sick I’m getting of fish.  The best method I could think of to preserve such a large amount of meat was to smoke it.  It was also a good opportunity to practice a recently acquired skill.

Before I got started though, I had to build the smoker...