Venison Chili

Over the years, I've discovered something interesting about chili. There's only about a million different recipes. Some are great, some are greater, some are hot, others are hotter.

Some have beans, some don't. Some have tomatoes, others don't. Some have meat, others don't. It's almost as if there's a challenge out there to see just how far away you can get and still call it chili.

Well, I thought, how hard can it be? I mean, if there are so many different recipes, and you pretty much follow one of them, you can't really go wrong, then, can you?

Then a friend of mine mentioned that the best way he'd ever had venison was in a chili, and that also intrigued me. I have a brother-in-law that's an avid hunter, and I thought I might get some venison from him. That turned out to be so, and I started!

Venison Chili

12" dutch oven
10-12 coals below

• 1/3 cup red kidney beans, uncooked
  
• 1/3 cup pinto beans, uncooked
  
• 1/3 cup black beans, uncooked
  
• 1-2 lbs venison stew meat
• 1 med onion, chopped
• 1 yellow bell pepper, chopped
• 2 large tomatoes, chopped
• 2 Tbsp chili powder
• 1 bay leaf, crumbled
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1 Tbsp salt
  
• 1 Tbsp crushed red pepper
• 2 Tbsp ground cumin
• 1 Tbsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 Tbsp ground cinnamon
• Black pepper to taste
• About a cup of water
  

I spent a bit of time researching recipes, and learning how to cook beans. I have this thing about starting from scratch, so I didn't want to use canned beans.

So, I started off with three different kinds of beans: red kidney, black, and pinto. Last night, I started them soaking. When I put them in the bowl with the water, it kinda looked like red, white, and blue. Cool! I'd read that adding baking soda to the soaking water makes them less "gassy" later on. I thought I'd try that. (Note, added by the author several days later: I found this not to be the case. I might have to issue a formal written apology to my co-workers who had to work close to me the following day...)

I changed the water in the morning, and again when I got home from church. After church, I started the coals, and put the beans in my 12" shallow. I'd heard that it could take quite a bit of time to cook beans, even after they'd soaked, so I was all ready to cook them for hours, if necessary. I put the dutch oven over about 15 or so coals, and put on the lid, with no coals on top. In no time, it was boiling away. After a few minutes of boiling, I took some briquettes off so that it would be more of a simmer.

Then, I got out my 8" dutch oven, and put some oil in, on top of about 8-9 coals. When that heated up, I put the venison stew meat in to brown. Before long, the meat was browned, and the beans were starting to soften. I put the meat in the beans. At that point, I also added about a cup of water.

Then, I started preparing all of the other things, chopping the onions, the pepper, the tomatoes. All of those went in. I blended up all of the dry seasonings, and added them as well. From that point on, it was just a matter of stirring it and keeping the coals fresh so it simmered. The total cooking time was about 2 hours.

When it was all done, I served it up with shredded cheddar on top and some of my wife's homemade bread. Man, it was good.

Also, when it's all done, I've read that it's a good idea to get chili out of your oven as soon as possible, because all the acid will eat away at the patina you've built up with all your seasonings.

Anyway, that's my chili!

Pancakes?

So, this morning, my son gets me up and asks if we can cook pancakes in my dutch ovens. I've been wanting to get him more and more involved in cooking, so I jump at the chance. We start up the coals, and then come inside to mix the batter up.

Then I have him spread out the coals around my lid stand, and we put the lid on top, and we start waiting for it to heat up.

...And we wait

...And we wait.

Finally, I think it's hot enough, and I tell him to pour on some batter. By this time, of course, he's lost in his Gameboy, capturing Pokemon. But he sets it down and pours on the batter.

And we watch it start to cook.

Sort of.

It does finally cook enough to flip, but it's not really a golden brown, more like a pale white. Pretty soon, he goes inside with the air conditioning, leaving me to sweat it out in a 90 degree morning over a hot griddle. Well, a sort of hot griddle, anyway.

I did manage to cook all of the pancakes, but it never really got hot enough to cook them right. I'm not sure why. I guess, I just need more coals, and need to have them lit a little longer before I put on the lid. Hmmm...

Lasagne!

Tonight was the third time I've made lasagne in my dutch oven. It's always fun, because I often get that reaction like, "Lasagne? In a dutch oven? Is that... um... legal?"

I love it when they do that!

And this one is pretty easy to do, so I'll include it in the "Basic Dutching" list of recipes. It's a two-step, but neither step is complex. Brown the sausage, then make the layers and bake. Unlike most indoor lasagne recipes, you don't need to cook the noodles first. In the times before, I mixed the ricotta with the sauce, but this time, I didn't. I like the separate layers. It makes the tastes more distinct.

Anyway, here it is:

Dutch Oven Lasagne:

10" Dutch Oven
7 coals below
14 coals above

• 3 links (which amounts to a little under a lb. About 3/4 lbs, actually) mild to medium italian sausage
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 jar commercial spaghetti sauce
  
• a coupla hefty shakes of oregano
• a mild shake of Basil
• 2 Tbsp minced garlic
• Lots of salt (to taste)
  
• 16 oz ricotta cheese
• 1 box (12 oz) uncooked lasagne noodles
• Shredded mozarella

To start with, fire up a lot of coals. As they get white, layer them flat and close together and put the dutch oven with the sausage (crumbled) in it. Cook the sausage.

While this is going on, mix up the sauce, the onions, and the spices. When the sausage is done, add it. Stir it all up.

Then, you'll make a stack of layers in the dutch oven. From the bottom, those layers are:

• A thin layer of the sauce mix
• A layer of dry noodles (still uncooked)
• Spread on a layer of ricotta cheese
• Scatter a layer of mozarella
• A layer of sauce mix
• More noodles
• More Ricotta (the last of it)
  
• More mozarella
• More sauce
• More noodles
• A little more sauce
• smother the whole thing in deep mozarella.

Spread the coals into a ring of 7, and set the dutch oven on it. Then put 14 burning coals on top. Bake it for about 45 minutes or so, turning the oven and the lid every 20 minutes or so. The cool thing about it is that the moisture in the sauce and the ricotta will cook the noodles soft, so you don't have to precook them. It's really delicious.

And for sunday, I'm going to try venison chili. My brother-in-law is an avid hunter and has some that he offered me. I'm pretty excited about it.