akaShag

Awesome trip, and an excellent report. I have fished out there (Port Alice, Alert Bay, Winter Harbour) but did NOT have success like you enjoyed. Well done, you!

Doug

Chicken was on the menu here as well. Some more of that buck a pound stuff (factory chicken) I bought a bit ago. This was a package of drumsticks, nice meaty ones for sure. Into my (*&%$%^#^&**((^%$$^&*) slow cooker they went, but this time on HIGH, with a quart of last year's canned tomatoes, a bunch of spices, and a can of Diet Ginger Ale. Four hours on high, and the chicken was very tender and succulent, but scored somewhat lower in the flavourful department. Two drumsticks was enough for me, so they were really quite a nice size, and did I mention they were CHEAP!!!!

The broth will make a decent soup base, and the six leftover drumsticks will make a meal plus meat for a soup. All for about four bucks.

Doug

I've never made the stuff, only drank it...............

Back to Old Ironmaker, you got THAT right. When it burns with a blue flame in the spoon, that's a good batch.

Doug

Plum brandy

be vewy afwaid, be vewy afwaid..................

I do not believe I would care much for that stuff, no offence to anybody that might like it.

Tastes differ. Like, I love pan-fried deer and moose liver, and I cook deer and moose hearts several ways, all of them delicious. But lots of guys will not eat organ meat. I get that, and I get the fact that not everybody likes the same stuff. I don't see myself eating brined beef any time soon............

...........so back to Cliff, I do have a buddy who makes "corned beef" out of venison and he loves the stuff. But I have never tasted it and I am not likely to do so.........

Doug

Never tired naval beef, and I have no idea what that might be.........

I am not usually at a loss for words, but it is hard to describe a taste sometimes. Canned moose (and other red meats, done from raw) have a fairly rich taste, kind of like a concentrated taste of what the cooked meat would be like, done in an oven. The texture is soft but not mushy, but can be stringy. One almost always needs a toothpick afterwards because oftentimes some pieces will get stuck in your teeth. Jerky is generally sweeter, saltier, smokier, and drier and no, it is not a comparable taste at all.

MOST of the time when I can raw meat I do it to save freezer space and to extend the life of the meat. Moose in the freezer starts to lose its flavour in about six months, or less than that if it is wrapped in butcher paper. Canning the meat extends its life by several years, and of course requires no refrigeration so it is a good thing to bring along for camping, etc. You can eat it cold right out of the jar, or make a stew or soup with it, or any number of quick dishes.

Doug

Yes I have canned more deer than I have moose. It has been a long time since I shot a moose and I depend on the goodness of a buddy from the Golden Lake FN to get me some moose meat every year.

Doug

back to Big Cliff, come on down!!!

But before August, that is when I leave to hunt and fish my way to the Yukon and back.

Doug

back to m2b2, you should get a chance to eat canned moose next August when I visit you. I just need to remember to bring it.

Chances are very good that I will be bringing my canner with me, so if you had say twenty or so pounds of moose meat (frozen muscle meats like roasts, steaks, etc, but not ground moose) we could do up a canner full when I am there. Then you can enjoy some for as long as the batch lasts. (with your crew that might be a weekend or so.......... ) Or if the walleye fishing is really good and I stay for a couple days, we could do a canner full of moose per day.

Doug

I just edited that post to clarify that what I wrote was for RAW meat, not COOKED meat, this is extremely important. If you tried to can cooked meat in this manner, all of your jars would likely break. And trust me, broken jars in a canner make a terrible mess.....................

Doug

Well let's start with deer, moose, and Canada Goose, all of which use the same method (and you could do beef for sure, caribou, elk, and similar red-meat critters) NOTE THIS RECIPE IS FOR RAW MEAT, NOT COOKED. COOKED MEAT REQUIRES VERY DIFFERENT CANNING.

Clean any bits of blood, bone, feathers, etc, and as much fat as you can off the cuts you are going to process. I also cut off any "silver skin" that is present. Cut your meat into about one-inch cubes, size is NOT that important, but that is about the easiest size for filling the jars. Lay your meat out on a cutting board or similar, and season it. typically I use garlic powder, HY's seasoned salt, maybe a bit of summer savoury, sometimes some pepper, but anyways whatever spice you like on your meat can go on now.

It is called canning, but we actually use Mason jars........

Clean your jars with hot soapy water, then give them a good rinse. The books say they have to be sterilized, that's Bull, the meat you are about to put into the jar sure is not sterile!! but you do want CLEAN.

Put the chunks of meat into the jars, and push them down fairly firmly so as most of the air is out of the jar. You want to fill the jar to within about a half-inch of the top.

NO LIQUID is put in the jar unless you wish to add a small amount of something, for example sherry.

I often add diced onions and sometimes sliced side bacon to the jar, maybe a tablespoon or two in a pint kind of idea.

When all your jars are filled (and you know in advance how many will go into your canner..........) then you get the canner going on your stove with the recommended amount of water, generally about an inch to an inch and a half, but follow your own canner's manual. Put NEW snap lids, one per jar, into the water and let them boil for a few minutes. While that is happening, wipe the rim of every jar mouth so it is completely clean. Even a grain of salt could cause the seal to fail.

If you buy the little magnetic tool to remove the jar lids from the boiling water, it is a very handy item, but tongs will work. Place a lid on a jar, and tighten the screw-top down JUST finger tight, maybe a wee bit less, but not real tight. Once all your jars are ready, put them in the canner.

Follow your canner's instructions to get you up to ten pounds pressure, allowing steam to vent (if your canner has this feature) for about five minutes first. Keep it VERY close to ten pounds pressure, up to twelve or thirteen is OK but the best is to keep it even at 10 or 11 pounds, for ninety minutes.

After ninety minutes at ten/eleven pounds pressure, allow the pressure to drop to ZERO, do NOT pour cold water on it or anything else, just let it go down on its own.

VERY carefully, take the lid off your canner, and remove the jars (for this, you REALLY should buy the canning tool), and place them on a heat-proof surface like a cookie sheet. The jars will still be boiling, for the most part. You will hear the "POP" as each jar seals.

When the cans are cool enough to the touch, bounce a finger off the jar lid. If it doesn't move, you have a good seal. If it goes up and down, you don't.

You COULD re-do the whole thing, with a new snap lid, for any jar that doesn't seal, or you could just put it in the fridge and eat it within about a week.

The jars will have some residue on them. Just wash this off, then tighten the screw lids, and store. I have kept canned meat for upwards of four years, with no issues.

Enjoy...........

Doug

Easy to do, Brian, but I ONLY know how to use pressure canners and all of my advice would be for pressure canners. People do use the water bath canning method (which has been around for decades, and only accounted for a few hundred thousand deaths or so.....) but I do not know how to do that and as you might suspect, I consider it dangerous for anything except jams and jellies kind of idea. I KNOW that in Newfoundland, for example, just about everybody bottles their moose and rabbit using the water bath method, but......................

So yes I would be happy to scribble a few notes on both.

Doug

mr b, you could include a trip on GSL to CATCH the trout, which we will then smoke together, AND I shall bring canned moose with me................

Sorry, would not swap canned moose for smoked trout. I have been smoking trout, salmon, and other stuff for about thirty-five years, and yes including the west coast style "candy."

But if you are smoking your own fish, rather than let it cook fully in the smoker, take it out when it is still partly raw (rare), remove and discard the skins, then pressure can it. The pressure canning drives the smoke flavour through every molecule of your smoked fish. The texture is still good after canning, it doesn't turn out mushy, but of course it is not chunks like cold-smoked fish, with the skin on.

Doug

Dug up some potatoes from the garden, and picked what is undoubtedly the last of the yellow beans, boiled them together and that was supper.

I might need a protein fix before I go to bed, though..............

hmmmmm, canned moose looks very tempting..................

The good thing about my slow cooker failing to deliver on my moose roast was that I made up a fantabulous soup yesterday with the moose, vidalias, sweet sauce, wine, etc that had all been in the slow cooker, PLUS the meaty bones from a rather large (beef) prime rib roast, some more goodness including a home-made condensed beef broth, etc etc. So I have a moose/beef/barley soup that is absolutely amazing.

When God gives you lemons, make lemonade.............

Does anybody here have a really good slow cooker? I have had several, the latest being a Black and Decker which is highly inconsistent, to say the least. I have had it two years and it almost always disappoints. The high is too high and the low is too low it seems. After eight hours on low yesterday, the diced Vidalia onions in my moose dish were not even cooked.

Any recommendations? I don't mind spending money for good quality.

Doug

Tonight's moose roast is in the slow cooker in a sweet sauce with wine and garlic, summer savoury, etc. But it is not looking all that great so far...............hopefully it will taste better than it looks!

Doug

back to Brian, earlier you said medium ground, not lean...............but yes I agree if a person can pick up decent ground beef there is no sense washing that grinder!

and m2b2, mostly what I eat is wild game, but sometimes I buy beef too! I have not shot a moose in a number of years, but a buddy from the Golden Lake FN gives me some every year. And one deer does not give up a lot of ground meat, maybe forty pounds. So...............occasionally, it's beef!

Doug

non-fancy, same here, there are eighteen marinated chicken thighs in the oven right now. Industrial strength cooking!

back to Brian, here it was No Frills, thighs and drumsticks on sale for $1.88 but then marked down to a buck a pound. Sale ends today.

Doug

back to Mr B...........

..........we often see the cryovac packages of "eye of round" beef on sale. It is fairly tough stuff if you wanted to roast it or cut it into steaks - this is the cut that butchers put the long needle tenderizers through a half-dozen times to make them into steamboat steaks. But it is very lean and generally pretty flavourful (for packaged beef) and when it hits less than two bucks a pound I generally buy a couple to grind into burger. Why pay big bucks per pound for regular ground when you can grind your own extra lean for two bucks?

Doug