German Girl Steaks and Tender Chunks
 | Author:
Eileen Clarke - Rifles and Recipes
Author: Rifles and Recipes |
German Girl Steaks and Tender Chunks: Custom spice mixes
By Eileen Clarke
By Eileen Clarke
Serves 2-4
Perhaps you have a bunch of wild game steaks in your freezer. So do we. But we also have packages labeled “Tender Chunks.” Not big enough for a steak, too tender to toss into the grinding pile, Tender Chunks are perfect for kabobs in the summer and quick lunches or soups in winter.
This is one of the quick winter recipes, though it’s not a soup. It starts with my own spice blend, which we call the German Girls Spice Mix in honor of our friend Bob’s equally German Drathaars, his bird dogs. But I’ve made lots of other spice blends over the years. From Moroccan to Tex-Mex, intensely Italian to Old World Eastern European and Chili-Java, as well as marinades of red wine, honey and Worcestershire sauce or white wine, cloves and brown sugar. They’re all collected in Tenderize the Wild, one of my wild game cookbooks. Custom spice mixing is habit-forming though. Start mixing your own custom spice mixes and you’ll never buy a generic again!
German Girls Spice Mix ingredients:
1 tablespoon dry leaf marjoram
2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons sugar
½ teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
Combine all the ingredients in a glass jar, cover it tightly and give it a few shakes. Set aside.
The rest of the ingredients:
1 yellow onion
1 sweet potato
2 golden potatoes
3-4 tablespoons oil, in all
1 pound venison steaks or Tender Chunks
2 tablespoons horseradish
2 tablespoons sour cream
Cooking
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Chop the veggies into large bite-sized pieces and toss them into a plastic bag with 2 tablespoons oil and a tablespoon of the German Girls Spice Mix, trying to spread the oil and spices around equally. Seal the bag and shake to get everything coated. Now toss the veggies in a single layer on a large cookie sheet. Place in the oven. They’ll need 45 to 50 minutes, total, flipping them about halfway through.
2. Shake the rest of the German Girl spice mix onto the venison and let that sit while the veggies cook to a nice golden brown and are fork tender, about 45-50 minutes.
3. About 10 minutes before you take the veggies out of the oven, start a large skillet on medium-high heat with a couple of tablespoons of oil.
4. When the oil’s hot, add half the meat, cook on one side until nicely browned, and blood seeps up through the top, then turn and cook about half again as long. On a meat thermometer, about medium rare (135-140°F). Repeat with the rest of the meat, adding oil if needed.
5. Mix the horseradish and sour cream in a small bowl. (Sometimes I mix ketchup and mayonnaise. But horseradish seems more appropriate for a German Girl-ish dinner.
Dish up the roasted veggies and meat, with the horseradish sauce for the meat, and enjoy.
Tenderize the Wild: 100 Marinades, Brines and Rubs, available at https://www.riflesandrecipes.com/406-521-0273.
Eileen Clarke
https://www.riflesandrecipes.com
406-521-0273
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Image 1 Caption: German Girl Steaks
