I have a rack of spare ribs to smoke tomorrow when the rain stops, and I will be making some elk sausage later today while the rain is ongoing. I am experimenting with a recipe involving Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale as the liquid.
For this rainy day, I cooked up elk osso buco, basically elk shank stew. I saved the front and rear shanks off the elk, and have six or eight bags of these as they were so large. Here is what the looked like getting browned in my dutch oven - note this a 6-qt for a size perspective.
The preparation is pretty simple:
1. Coat top and bottom of shank with seasoned flower and brown in olive oil.
2. Saut? a med white onion, 3-4 celery sticks, one bell pepper and some garlic until translucent.
3. Add browned shanks on this bed.
4. Add one can of stewed tomatoes.
5. Toss in your root veggies. I used carrots and turnips from my garden.
6. Fill with stock until level is about 1/4" from top of the shanks.
7. Put in 300 degree oven for about five hours.
8. I took the top off at hour four to let the liquid reduce a bit and thicken up.
We served this over cheese grits, but would equally good over rice. This is a great way to use your deer shanks too, vice cutting them up for grind.