Food and drink thread

[Cheshire Setter]

Great thread.   Only just discovered it...

Don't think I've tried Caribou yet but I once ate Bear and Elk Pelmeni on Xmas Day in Moscow (it's early Jan over there not 25 Dec).   I'm not sure whether it's okay to eat bear (Elk probably fine) but it didn't seem to really stand out as having a lot of flavour.

 

[Bearman]

12 minutes ago, Cheshire Setter said:

Great thread.   Only just discovered it...

Don't think I've tried Caribou yet but I once ate Bear and Elk Pelmeni on Xmas Day in Moscow (it's early Jan over there not 25 Dec).   I'm not sure whether it's okay to eat bear (Elk probably fine) but it didn't seem to really stand out as having a lot of flavour.

 

GRRRRRRRRR....

IT IS NEVER OK TO EAT BEAR. NOT EVER.

[Futtocks]

21 minutes ago, Bearman said:

GRRRRRRRRR....

IT IS NEVER OK TO EAT BEAR. NOT EVER.

Do you say that to your wife/girlfriend/significant other?

[Bleep1673]

On 03/11/2019 at 08:28, Mumby Magic said:

What fish?

Haddock

[Mumby Magic]

Have moved shirt term and have a Butcher that has various "different" meats available like Boar, Buffalo and Goat. Going to do a goat Curry first. Any types on how to cook the meat?

[Futtocks]

14 minutes ago, Mumby Magic said:

Have moved shirt term and have a Butcher that has various "different" meats available like Boar, Buffalo and Goat. Going to do a goat Curry first. Any types on how to cook the meat?

The meat is lean and a bit like mutton, so curry goat or a casserole is an ideal approach, or you'll get something very chewy indeed. They also have very hard, dense bones, apparently, so let your butcher wear his blades out cutting the meat up. The place I buy goat from bandsaws it into chunks while frozen, which is means you get casserole-sized pieces with bone attached, for extra flavour.

As for recipes, there are loads online, all claiming to be authentic. One tip I've found useful to know is that, if you can't get Caribbean curry spice mix, use a medium Indian one and add allspice, which gets you close to the proper flavour.

[Bleep1673]

19 hours ago, Mumby Magic said:

Have moved shirt term and have a Butcher that has various "different" meats available like Boar, Buffalo and Goat. Going to do a goat Curry first. Any types on how to cook the meat?

Slowly, low heat

My Butcher (Queens Arcade) does Ostrich, Kangaroo, wild Boar, and plenty of offal

Edited November 9, 2019 by Bleep1673

[henage]

Had wild boar in Poland very nice , over did it a little . Washed down with Polish Lager , lots of Polish Lager . 

Edited November 9, 2019 by henage

[Kayakman]

On 06/11/2019 at 15:32, Cheshire Setter said:

Great thread.   Only just discovered it...

Don't think I've tried Caribou yet but I once ate Bear and Elk Pelmeni on Xmas Day in Moscow (it's early Jan over there not 25 Dec).   I'm not sure whether it's okay to eat bear (Elk probably fine) but it didn't seem to really stand out as having a lot of flavour.

 

I love a good bear steak but haven't had one for a long time....all depends when the bear was harvested...spring is best since you don't get all that browny fat to clean due to getting ready for hibernation.  The meat has a large grain and is very good with fired eggs and onions and mushrooms.

A good Elk steak is really the best of all meats on the grill..caribou is also a special treat and I'm looking forward to getting a big chunk of it.

21 hours ago, Mumby Magic said:

Have moved shirt term and have a Butcher that has various "different" meats available like Boar, Buffalo and Goat. Going to do a goat Curry first. Any types on how to cook the meat?

Cook the goat slow in a stew/crock pot since it is very stringy..very flavourful the closer you get to the bone.  I had a Buffalo Burger the other day and it was great...there is also this combo of cows/buffalo called 'Beerfalo' which is even better!  Odd looking animal though.

The real wild boar is very gamey and needs to be boiled a few times and the water discarded just to get rid of the gameiness...then I like it fried in chunks.

 

 

[Cheshire Setter]

55 minutes ago, Kayakman said:

I love a good bear steak

Ah, so I didn’t do anything evil by eating bear then? Worried it may have been on the endangered list or something. I wouldn’t normally eat that sort of stuff but it seemed the safest bet out of all the items on the menu! 

Another story on the morality of food choices:

I once ended up being taken into a little basement restaurant in Guangzhou, China by two scruffy ‘people’s power plant’ workers who couldn’t speak English (long story).   There was a dirty old card with black and white photos but no writing - which I assume was the menu although I didn’t recognise the items as food - and I just pointed to a few things randomly...   I have no idea what I ate, apart from a few items like snake and chickens feet... the most worrying thing was a broth with little furry paw things in it

Having said all that, the two guys paid for it all which shocked me as they were very poor and you don’t expect hospitality in China. I think they were just impressed that a westerner could pick peanuts up using chopsticks! 

[Kayakman]

48 minutes ago, Cheshire Setter said:

Ah, so I didn’t do anything evil by eating bear then? Worried it may have been on the endangered list or something. I wouldn’t normally eat that sort of stuff but it seemed the safest bet out of all the items on the menu! 

Another story on the morality of food choices:

I once ended up being taken into a little basement restaurant in Guangzhou, China by two scruffy ‘people’s power plant’ workers who couldn’t speak English (long story).   There was a dirty old card with black and white photos but no writing - which I assume was the menu although I didn’t recognise the items as food - and I just pointed to a few things randomly...   I have no idea what I ate, apart from a few items like snake and chickens feet... the most worrying thing was a broth with little furry paw things in it

Having said all that, the two guys paid for it all which shocked me as they were very poor and you don’t expect hospitality in China. I think they were just impressed that a westerner could pick peanuts up using chopsticks! 

Snake is good...I've eaten it in the wild many a time....must be washed and cooked thoroughly to avoid salmoella...good with some hot sauce.  Meat is white and tender but the bony spine you are left with after is sort of funny.   Save the snakeskin...it has many uses around camp.

Edited November 9, 2019 by Kayakman

[Bearman]

2 hours ago, Kayakman said:

I love a good bear steak but haven't had one for a long time....all depends when the bear was harvested...spring is best since you don't get all that browny fat to clean due to getting ready for hibernation.  The meat has a large grain and is very good with fired eggs and onions and mushrooms.

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Cheshire Setter said:

Ah, so I didn’t do anything evil by eating bear then? Worried it may have been on the endangered list or something. I wouldn’t normally eat that sort of stuff but it seemed the safest bet out of all the items on the menu! 

Another story on the morality of food choices:

 

GRRRRRRRR.

Cheshire Setter be very wary -Bears can and will eat mangy Setters.

As for you Kman, I am disappointed in you. I thought we were mates.

[Kayakman]

1 hour ago, Bearman said:

 

GRRRRRRRR.

Cheshire Setter be very wary -Bears can and will eat mangy Setters.

As for you Kman, I am disappointed in you. I thought we were mates.

HEY!  What happens in the Bush stays in the Bush.

[Futtocks]

I've got a haggis and some roasted pumpkin wedges cooking right now. Very Autumnal flavours.

Edited November 9, 2019 by Futtocks

[Leeds Wire]

6 hours ago, henage said:

Had wild bore in Poland very nice , over did it a little . Washed down with Polish Lager , lots of Polish Lager . 

There are thousands of wild bores around Headingley on match days.

[terrywebbisgod]

13 hours ago, Leeds Wire said:

There are thousands of wild bores around Headingley on match days.

Only when the wire are playing there.

 

[Cheshire Setter]

21 hours ago, Futtocks said:

I've got a haggis and some roasted pumpkin wedges cooking right now. Very Autumnal flavours.

I love Haggis.   I think the poor reputation it gets is down to people trying it for the first time and being served a poorly made one, which probably puts them off for life as the flavour sticks around for a while.

There’s an cool little place in Edinburgh, called Maxie’s. If you leave the castle on the main strip and take your first right back on yourself down the hill, it’s on the left side.   They do a nice mix of dishes with haggis, or just the standard neeps tatties thing for the tourists, but most importantly they have a decent range of whiskies to wash it down.

[Futtocks]

2 minutes ago, Cheshire Setter said:

I love Haggis.   I think the poor reputation it gets is down to people trying it for the first time and being served a poorly made one, which probably puts them off for life as the flavour sticks around for a while.

There’s an cool little place in Edinburgh, called Maxie’s. If you leave the castle on the main strip and take your first right back on yourself down the hill, it’s on the left side.   They do a nice mix of dishes with haggis, or just the standard neeps tatties thing for the tourists, but most importantly they have a decent range of whiskies to wash it down.

You also get an unintentionally-biased response from the USA, where you can't import real haggis, but can buy canned abominations that have little to do with the original dish. They are often made with beef, for a start, which is plain wrong.

The commercially aggressive approach by MacSween, however, has made a very decent haggis available in a huge range of shops across the UK, which wasn't the case as recently as 10 years ago. I bought the one I ate last night from a mini-Waitrose, which is their equivalent of a Tesco Metro or a Sainsbury's Local - shops which often frustrate because of their limited stock. This branch had both haggis and vegetarian haggis in their stripped-down product range.

There was a bit left over, which is forming the middle layer of tonight's pigeon pie. Let's see how that works...

[Cheshire Setter]

10 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

The commercially aggressive approach by MacSween, however, has made a very decent haggis available in a huge range of shops across the UK,

...and was even available in my local supermarket when we lived in Dubai!   At a slightly elevated price of course

[Bearman]

36 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

You also get an unintentionally-biased response from the USA, where you can't import real haggis, but can buy canned abominations that have little to do with the original dish. They are often made with beef, for a start, which is plain wrong.

The commercially aggressive approach by MacSween, however, has made a very decent haggis available in a huge range of shops across the UK, which wasn't the case as recently as 10 years ago. I bought the one I ate last night from a mini-Waitrose, which is their equivalent of a Tesco Metro or a Sainsbury's Local - shops which often frustrate because of their limited stock. This branch had both haggis and vegetarian haggis in their stripped-down product range.

There was a bit left over, which is forming the middle layer of tonight's pigeon pie. Let's see how that works...

I had this in Inverness once. I had a go home and it was lovely.

https://thescottishbutcher.com/recipes/chicken-balmoral-and-peppercorn-sauce/

[Denton Rovers RLFC]

On 09/11/2019 at 13:53, henage said:

Had wild boar in Poland very nice , over did it a little . Washed down with Polish Lager , lots of Polish Lager . 

Ditto, went for a week in 2003 to hook up with this lass that did some work for her company out of London from time to time that I bumped into, think I paid about £4 for wild boar and the double vodkas - didn't do singles from what I could figure, were about 50p or thereabouts (roughly 7 PLN to the £ at the time, now 5!)

I remember coming back with a couple of bottles of some locally made vodka and a bottle of fruits of the forest variant I'd bought in the new Tesco that had been built in Katowice, it was deserted but had a pyramid of car tyres in the middle of the store, it was huuuge!

I had a brilliant time and even went to church on Easter Sunday

[Bearman]

I found my Bialetti moka coffee maker at the back of the cupboard where redundant kitchen gadgets live.

I have been spending a fortune on capsules. What on earth was I think about?

Mind you, I have had just two large espresso's so I can't see me going to bed early tonight.

Edited November 14, 2019 by Bearman

[Futtocks]

1 hour ago, Bearman said:

I found my Bialetti moka coffee maker at the back of the cupboard where redundant kitchen gadgets live.

I have been spending a fortune on capsules. What on earth was I think about?

Mind you, I have had just two large espresso's so I can't see me going to bed early tonight.

My sister loves her capsule machine, but the coffee just tastes stale to me.

BTW, espresso isn't all that strong in caffeine. The intensity of the favour can make it feel otherwise, but the speed at which the water is forced through the coffee grounds means that it is nowhere near as much of a caffeine hit as other methods, where the coffee and water are in contact for longer.

I have a Vogvigo roaster, a Delonghi burr grinder and an Aeropress coffee maker, and the results are absolutely spot on for my tastes. Rave Coffee (bought through Amazon) supply green coffee beans of good quality, without stinging you on price or delivery costs.

[Futtocks]

A good haul at the butcher round the corner from work; a couple of pigeons, some wild boar & apple sausages and a compango pack.

[Bleep1673]

I didn't know whether to put this on the RANT thread, or here, but I was so hungry this morning I made some powdered milk, liquid, and ate some 18 months out of date granola. PIP due next Tuesday.