Elk stew and elk roast

Wintertime activities for outdoor-minded people include cooking the harvest.

Yesterday a digital pressure cooker was mentioned. This is a marvelous cooking tool. It is designed for the operator to set the pressure, which includes the time involved, and walk away from the gadget.

This is completely different from the old-style pressure cookers, where the cook needed to remain vigilant and cautious as to the amount of pressure it was producing. The rocking of the pressure regulator, which was monitored by the number of rocks were being produced, indicated the amount of pressure in the cooker.

This is why the process didn’t appeal to me, ever. Why should a person be required to remain in the kitchen to babysit a cooker? In the old days, the old-style cooker was all there was available. This is the reason the new-style pressure cookers are so desirable.

The old type pot roast was one of my favorite meals while growing up. Mom would place a piece of beef, one which was not known to be too tender, and cook it in a bit of liquid, such as just water or beef broth, for an hour or so.

Next, carrots, potatoes and celery were added. All was cooked, and ready to eat, after two or three more hours of cooking.

These new digital pressure cookers will cook the same roast in about 45 minutes. As with the old-style pot roast, the vegetables do not need to be in the pot at the beginning. Doing so will render them overcooked, we are talking mush here. So, just as in the pot in the oven, the cooking process needs to be interrupted to add the vegetables.

The tougher pieces of meat seem to be especially suited for these types of pressure cookers.

Slow cooker

The second kitchen tool used to cook a pot of wild meat at my house is the slow cooker. Any piece of meat can be cooked in such a cooker to render it tender. The longer it is cooked, the more tender it seems to be. We are talking about 12 hours or perhaps longer.

Ground meat is used as stew meat when cooking is my chore. No fat is added to the meat when the grinding takes place, so this meat can be considered to contain zero-fat. A caution is necessary here: It is necessary to add a bit of oil of some type to the skillet when browning this meat, such as for spaghetti, or it will burn, because of the lack of fat.