Elk Tenderloin in Ancho Chili sauce

Dried Ancho chiles

I cooked the last of the elk tenderloin in the freezer over the weekend.  I improvised a chili based marinade and subsequently, an earthy sauce, on the fly that P, Nori  and I thought was outrageously delicious - if I do say so myself.  Of course it's hard to mess up an elk tenderloin. I will mention that Nori is a vegan who happens to love wild meat and she's not the first one I've known; and now it's practically a movement.

For some time now I've been improvising variations on Bourdain's  recipe Salade D'onglet from his les Halles Cookbook.  If you know his recipe, this one is clearly based on it as well.

Ingredients
(Serves 3 or 4)
1 Elk Tenderloin - sliced into medallions about 1 1/2" thick. One tenderloin should yield about 7 or 8 medallions.


For the Marinade

2 Ancho peppers (dried poblanos)
1 smaller dried California chili (about 3" long)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 cloves garlic finely chopped.
4 tablespoons olive oil


For the Sauce

a splash of Cognac or Armagnac
2 cups of white wine
2 cups of beef stock 
leftover  chili marinade
2 tablespoons of blackberry jam
salt/pepper
a pinch of thyme


To make the marinade dry roast the chilies and make a chili sauce.  I first learned how to make a chili sauce from Rick Bayless's Authentic Mexican cookbook.  Carefully, split the peppers and remove the seeds. I try to get the largest flat pieces I can. Anchos are dried poblano chilies and although not hot, they add an earthy smoky flavor. The California peppers add a bit of a bite. Dry roast the chilies in the hot pan and press them down with a spatula until the skins bubble up a bit.  Once roasted, put them in a small bowl with about 2 cups of water and heat, not quite to boiling.  I used the microwave for about 30 seconds.  Blend the chili and water on high speed for a minute and then pour this mixture over the elk which has been drizzled with olive oil, a tablespoon or so of soy sauce and cracked pepper.  You can strain the sauce if you like -- I used to  -- but now I don't worry about the small chunks of pepper they add texture.  Marinate the meat for a few hours or more.

Once you are ready to cook the meat - put a plate in the over set at about 220F.  Slice the tenderloin into medallions about 1 1/2" thick.  You could go thicker if you like - I don't like them too thick because I find it's harder to get them a perfect medium rare if they are too thick.  Melt a couple of tablespoons of butter in a skillet on high heat and brown both sides of the medallions well.  Once browned - put them on the warm plate in the oven.  De-glaze the pan (carefully avoiding a fire) with about 1/4 cup of cognac (I used Armagnac) and then add white wine.  I think the amount of wine (and later stock) you add somewhat depends on the size of the pan you are using.  I filled the 14" cast iron pan I was using until the liquid is about 1/4" to 1/2" deep. A stainless steel pan might be better - but I don't have one that large. Reduce the liquid on high heat until it starts to thicken. This takes a few minutes.  Once reduced, pour in any of the chili marinade that might be left and mash in a tablespoon or two of blackberry jam (fig preserves are good too) and then refill the pan to 1/4" or 1/2" or so with stock. I used ordinary beef stock this time though I often use trotter gear and a real veal demi-glace would be even better I'm sure.  Reduce this sauce on high heat again until it starts to thicken - stirring as needed to prevent the sauce from burning on the edges of the pan. It may take four or five minutes.  Do not loose heart if you think you've added to much liquid, patience and stirring will yield a thick sauce. Once the sauce has thickened back up, lower the heat and add the medallions back into the sauce and check one for doneness, they can simmer in the sauce for a minute if they are not yet cooked enough.  I would have made frites but we didn't have the oil to make them.  We served it with a salad and a robust red wine.  We drank an inexpensive Jumilla Monastell called Wrongo Dongo which I can recommend.

Cassoulet with Pheasant Leg Confit

A pot of cassoulet and confit being browned for serving.

A bit more than two years ago, in a fit of obsessive frenzied desire for confit, I bought a gallon of duck fat.  The internet is an astounding resource for those of us not living anywhere near a major city.  The fat was ordered through Amazon came from Hudson Valley Foie Gras.  A gallon of duck fat cost less than forty dollars but the shipping accounts for 2/3 more again.  I've been keeping mine frozen, but even frozen, fats can go rancid. I'm just now using the last of that stash, it's almost two years later and it is still good.  At the time of my first confit attack I made batches of Canadian Goose, Blue Grouse and Jackrabbit confit.  I occasionally use the duck fat to brown meat for stews but until recently, I have not gone on another confit making binge.

Pheasant legs in duck fat ready for the oven.

Confit (pronounced in English as "con-fee") is a ancient method of preserving meats and goes back at least to the Romans. Traditionally, the meat is salted and rested for a day or more and then submerged in its own fat and simmered in a stoneware pot very slowly until tender.  When stored in a cool place, the fat congeals and forms a barrier against air.  To eat a confit, the pot is heated again until the fat softens and the meat is plucked out and the pot is returned to the cool storage.  Meats preserved in this way and stored in a cool place can be good for months. Most commonly confits are made of duck, goose and pork but rabbits, hares and game birds are excellent. Other fats and oils can be used to make confit and even olive oil.  Of course game birds are lean so do not have enough of their own fat for confit; but if you gave a gallon of duck fat it is an astoundingly rich way to prepare them.  A game bird leg and attached thigh, submerged in fat and slow cooked will not dry out, it just gets falling off the bone tender.

Cassoulet is a baked white bean dish originating in southwest France that often includes, among other things, pork belly, pork rind, pork sausages and duck or goose confit. The bible on confit and cassoulet is Paula Wolfert's book The Cooking of Southwest France.  The one linked to here is a new edition. The book was first published in 1983 and my own copy is an early one which is unfortunately still in a box in my basement waiting for me to build bookshelves.  Wolfert's book popularized these dishes and she acknowledges that there are as many "authentic" cassoulet recipes as there are cassoulet cooks.  Because of the difficulty of obtaining exotic ingredients in  locally I often have to improvise, but that is part of the tradition of the dish.

Other cook books that are on my shelf (and not in boxes) that have confit and cassoulet recipes are Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook,  Jane Grigson's Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery, and Hugh Fearningley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Meat Book   Hank Shaw's wild food cookbook Hunt, Gather, Cook includes confit recipes for game.  Hank's recipe (also available online here) uses a kind of Sous Vide method which requires the meat be sealed in plastic with just a little of the fat and slow cooked in a water bath; I don't have one of those sealers. Hank uses Olive oil and specifically warns against using duck fat claiming it will overpower the flavor of the pheasant - obviously I don't agree with him.  I'm thinking that the commercial duck fat I'm using must be far milder than what he is used to because the pheasant certainly is not overpowered by ducky flavor it in my experience.

A plate of cassoulet and confit.

I make my cassoulet using the fattiest pork bits I can find. Bourdain uses two pounds of pork belly. This time the best I could find were some fatty loin chops.  Ribs can be good too.  I dusted the chops with flour salt and pepper and browned them in duck fat. Of course if you don't have duck fat, just use some bacon fat. Add the browned chops to the bottom of the pot you will cook the cassoulet in. I cook mine in a large cast iron pot. In the same frying pan, saute a chopped onion and a hand full of garlic cloves. When the onions are browning up nicely, add 1/4 bottle of white wine, a bunch of thyme, salt and fresh pepper.  Let the wine boil for a few minutes and then pour that into the pot over the meat.  Pour in the haricot beans (which have been soaked overnight) and top up with 1/2 trotter gear and 1/2 water - to just cover the beans. If you don't have trotter gear, just use chicken broth.  Put the whole thing in the oven (uncovered) and cook at about 230°F for six to eight hours.

For the confit.  Rub the legs well with salt (this is a salt cure) and sprinkle them with some finely chopped thyme and pepper. Put them into a baggie in the refrigerator overnight while the beans are soaking.  To prepare the leg-thighs for cooking, remove as much of the salt as possible, dab them dry and place them in a casserole dish and cover them with duck fat. Put them into the oven at 230°F for six to eight hours. If they are not completely covered by the fat you may need to turn them occasionally.

When the cassoulet and confit is cooked, finish up the confit by browing the leg-thighs in a hot frying pan.  Serve a leg-thigh with a healthy serving of cassoulet and a bitter salad.  I have previously been publicly chastised for recommending a white wine with this meal but, barbarian that I am, I stand by my recommendation.  Most recommend a hardier red but perhaps because I do not have as much pork fat as some recipes call for (Bourdain wants two pounds of pork belly) my dish is lighter fare.

Trotter Gear Meez

I cook up a batch of Henderson's unctuous stock recipe a couple of times a year and freeze it up in jars for general use in the kitchen.  The recipe is in Henderson's book Beyond Nose to Tail: More omnivorous Recipes for the Adventurous Cook. It's what Bourdain might call my kitchen Meez (Mise en Place). He writes about this in his Les Halles Cookbook which has been my go to cookbook for the past couple of years. For me, having a few jars of this stock in the refrigerator is part of being prepared to cook.  When done right, it thickens up into a stock that is jelly at room temperature, you have to melt to use and it adds rich texture to dishes it's used in.  I end up using most of my stock of stock in game stews. I also sometimes use it to as a substitute for demi-glace in recipes that call for it; it has a different flavor from a reduced veal stock which I have not made in many years but which I am thinking I'd like to make sooner than later.  You can not beat the rich texture provided by trotter gear.  One favorite is elk medallions cooked following  Bourdain's Salade d' Onglet recipe using trotter gear instead of demi-glace.

From: Beyond Nose to Tail: More Omnivorous Recipes for the Adventurous Cook by Fergus Hendersona dn Justin Piers Gellatly. Bloomsbury 2007