Bev Huhndorfs Moose Head Recipes

BEV HUHNDORF'S MOOSE HEAD

Steps:

• 1. Skin and cut to fit in large kettle. When Cutting head, remove nose and put in separate kettle, parboil for 45 minutes. Remove and cool in cold water. Pick off hairs as you would feathers from a duck and wash thoroughly.
• 2. Boil head, skimming as it boils. Cook until meat can easily be removed from bone. Cut into bite size pieces and add vegetables, rice, macaroni, and seasonings for moose head soup.
• 3. To make Head Cheese instead of soup:
• 4. Make bouquet garni by tying onion, bay leaves, parsley, celery, thyme, and sage in a square of cheesecloth, and add to boiling head.
• 5. Add tongue, and any scrap meat not used elsewhere (such as neck bones).
• 6. Add wine to boiling head.
• 7. After 90 minutes, remove tongue
• 8. When meat is done, cut meat and tongue into very small pieces. Strain and reserve liquid.
• 9. Drop Brains into a little of the boiling liquid, simmer 15 minutes. Remove, drain and add to meat and tongue.
• 10. Season with cayenne, sage and nutmeg to taste.
• 11. Mix all very well.
• 12. Pack mixture into loaf pans, pressing firmly
• 13. Pour 1/2 c lukewarm liquid over each loaf.
• 14. Chill 48 hours before using.
• 15. Slice and serve.

MAKING CORNED MOOSE, CARIBOU OR BEAR

Steps:

• Salt down meat in layers in a wooden keg, alternating meat and salt.
• At this same time make a solution of sugar, soda, and salt peter in a gallon of WARM water (it needs to dissolve all the sugar and etc.). Let both stand overnight.
• Next day pour, the solution over the meat, keeping it covered by a large inverted plate.
• After a few days, drain the solution, bring to boil, straining off the blood.
• Replace the (cooled) solution on the meat, cover with a large inverted plate on the top of the meat.
• This preparation is ready to use as corned meat within 4-6 weeks.
• But it is satisfactory at intermediate stages. If it is to salty it can be soaked or parboiled. Save the salty water for soup or stews, for cooking potatoes, veggies, and for making gravies. (she says, use your own judgment).
• (Prep time on this is your own, how fast can you cut up 100 lbs of meat? ).
• From the book Putting Food By Authors Greene, Hertzberg and Vaughan.
• Saltpeter also called potassium nitrate or sodium nitrate. Most simply nitrates are changed into nitrites by metabolism when we eat them, or by the action with the protein of raw meat being cured.
• If you buy the substance at a drugstore you are likely to get the compound with potassium,and note that it is labeled as a diuretic. If you buy it at a farm supply store, it will probably be sodium nitrate. Many store bought curing mixtures already made up-some even containing spices and simulated hickory smoke flavorings- contain both nitrate and soduim nitrite.
• Saltpeter has been used for centuries as a means of intensifing and.
• holding the red color considered so appetizing in ham and allied pork products, and in corned beef, etc. Nitrites also help to prevent the growth of Celsius Botulinum.
• Storing Cured Meat:.
• The heavy concentration of salt protects Corned Beef and salted pork for several months in the brine which they're held is kept below 38 Deg F/3°C.
• Freezing storage of sausage and cured meat is relatively limited: after more than 2 to 4 months at Zero F / -18C, the salt in the fat causes it to become rancid.
• This is why country-dwellers wait for winter weather to slaughter hogs and beef for there own table.Once in cure, meat should be held 36-38 F/2-3 C: for the largest pieces this means a thermometer inserted to the center of the meatiest part.
• Below 36F/2C: salt penetrates the tissue too slowly. If the temp of the storage drops below freezing and stays there for several days, increase the days of salting time by the number of freezing days.