Snacking State-by-State: Virginia IV - Stop being squirrelly! (No, seriously. Stop it.)

Ah, Brunswick stew.  So many states vie over it, each saying "We made it first!" We hear this from Tennessee, North Carolina and of course from Virginia (not so much Kentucky, though their burgoo is somewhat similar).  But what constitutes a Brunswick stew?  Some ingredients that you can easily find, though most of us don't know how to actually hunt them.

Official Name: Commonwealth of Virginia
State Nickname: The Old Dominion State
Admission to the US: June 25, 1788 (#10)
Capital: Richmond (4th largest)
Other Important Cities: Virginia Beach (largest), Norfolk (2nd largest), Chesapeake (3rd largest); Newport News (5th largest), Hampton (6th largest), Alexandria (7th largest)
Region: South, Upper South, Mid-Atlantic, Chesapeake; South Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Chestnut, Crab Cake
Bordered by: West Virginia (northwest), Maryland, District of Columbia and the Potomac River (northeast), Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean (east), North Carolina (south), Tennessee (southwest), Kentucky (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: brook trout (fresh water fish), milk (beverage), Eastern oyster (shell), striped bass (salt water fish)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: ham (especially Smithfield); peanuts; Chesapeake Bay cuisine to the north and east of the state, specifically crabs (fried, steamed, boiled, deviled, Norfolk and she-crab soup) and oysters; typical Southern foods to the south and west of the state (including ham biscuits, beaten biscuits, etc); diverse multicultural foods in Northern Virginia (notably South & Southeast Asian, West African, Ethiopian and Central American); Brunswick stew

Brunswick stew has a long history in the Upper South.  Of course, Brunswick County, Virginia, is one of the places that says they had it first.  I have no horse in this race, though Virginia is closer, so I guess they're as close to the home team as possible.  So the origins of Brunswick stew, in Brunswick County at least, dates back before the Civil War.

It all started back in 1828 on the banks of the Nottoway River during a hunting party. Dr. Creed Haskins, a member of the House of Delegates from 1839 through 1841, took a group of his friends on a hunting expedition. While they were on the hunt, camp cook Jimmy Matthews stirred together the first impromptu mixture that has become known as Brunswick Stew. The original thick soup was made from squirrels, onions, and stale bread. 

When the hunters returned, there was reluctance to try the new mixture. However, the reluctance turned to demands for second and third helpings of the warm, thick stew. [Brunswick Stewmaster's Association, date unknown]

When we think of Brunswick stew, we usually think of those squirrels. In fact, one message board commenter "Elmer Fudd" at the Field & Stream website, who offers his own recipe, swears that,

In my opinion an authentic Brunswick Stew must include three things: Squirrel, lima beans, and okra. Yet if you go online, you will find plenty of recipes that do not include *any* of these items. ["Elmer Fudd" 2009].

He suspects those recipes are from New York (As Elmer suggests, "This incredible development is what happens when we let Yankees dicker with things that should be left to Southerners").  And yet, while it is ridiculously easy to find the last two ingredients - there isn't exactly a shortage of lima beans or okra - finding squirrel isn't such an easy task, especially flying squirrels who are apparently the most authentic type of squirrel to use (this from Tim Carman [2009] at the Washington City Paper).  Yes, I am speaking as a non-hunter: I don't know how to hunt, I don't have the time to hunt, and all of my in-laws who do hunt have moved out of state.  This is also the reason why I haven't had venison in a few years.  So short of sneaking up on a few squirrels and bonking them on the head with a brick, I had to think of alternative meats out of necessity.   


The recipe I chose would almost make Elmer's blood curdle, I fear: no squirrel (sadly - you can't even find it on the internet for sale!), and no okra.  But at least it has lima beans in it.  And once more, I went back to John Shields' Chesapeake Bay Cooking for his expert advice.  Shields does urge the home cook to use squirrel instead of chicken, the go-to replacement these days.  Or you could get adventurous and use muskrat instead [Shields 1998].  But he does give you quantities for both squirrel and chicken, should you go the latter route.  His Brunswick stew, presumably from Virginia's Lower Eastern Shore, is on page 168 of Chesapeake Bay Cooking.  I halved this recipe.

The Recipe: Brunswick Stew

For this Brunswick stew assemble the following, if you can't find squirrel that is:

* chicken (in lieu of squirrel; I bought it at Wegman's for about $3 per lb)

* onion (did not cost a lot)

* potato (same)

* bacon grease (or in this case, chicken schmaltz, which I had in the fridge)

* butter (had it)

* flour (same)

* lima beans (a bag of dried lima beans for about $1.50)

* chicken broth (a quart for about $2.  I used the entire thing)

* thyme (had it)

* bay leaf (same)

* corn (a can for about 70¢ at Wegman's)

* salt and pepper (had these of course)

I forgot to add to the photo one more important ingredient: tomatoes, which is an important part of many Brunswick stew recipes.  I added two, chopped.

* First, dredge you chicken pieces, with the skin on.

Melt your butter and schmaltz in a cast iron skillet.  I used my 12" skillet.

Brown your chicken pieces in the fat...

...a few minutes on either side.

Add the chicken broth and simmer for several minutes...

...covered.

Next add your vegetables...

...your lima beans,

...your herbs...

...and your tomatoes.

Simmer for a total of an hour and a half, from start to finish.

While this does not look like many of the Brunswick stews that I have seen (most of those look more like the burgoo I made for Kentucky), this is still a hearty stew that will fill you up.  I didn't have okra or squirrel, true.  Yes, I would have liked to try it with some squirrel meat.  But I couldn't get my hands on any, alright?  Seriously, man!

- - - - -

From the home of George Washington to the state that bears his name, we head from the Southeast to the Northwest, trading blue crabs for Dungeness ones and apples for, er, apples.  It's time to see what the Evergreen State has to offer as we explore the foods of Washington.

- - - - -

Sources:

Anderson's Neck Oyster Company.  "History".  Copyright 2012, Anderson's Neck Oyster Company.  All rights reserved.

Brunswick Stewmaster's Association.  "Brunswick Stew History".  Copyright 2010, Brunswick Stewmaster's Association.  All rights reserved.

Carman, Tim.  "The Real Reason Why Squirrel Meat Isn’t Used in Brunswick Stew Anymore".  Young & Hungry column, Washington City Paper, posted May. 6, 2009.

Cowen, Tyler.  Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide.  Copyright 2012, All rights reserved.

Chadwell, Treva.  "Virginia Ham Biscuits".  Provided for the Cooking Channel.  Copyright 2012, Cooking Channel LLC.  All rights reserved.

"Elmer Fudd" (user), "Elmer Fudd's Brunswick Stew".  Posted September 26, 2009.  Copyright 2009 Field & Stream.  All rights reserved.

Good Earth Peanut Company.  "All About Peanuts".  Date unknown.

Graham, Paul, N.G. Marriott and R.F. Kelly.  "Dry Curing Virginia-Style Ham".  Written for the Virginia Tech Cooperative Extension, 2011.

Peanut Shop of Williamsburg.  "Thai Cucumber Salad".  Copyright 2010, The Peanut Shop of Williamsburg.  All rights reserved.

Randolph, Mary.  The Virginia Housewife: Or Methodical Cook: A Facsimile of an Authentic Early American Cookbook.  1824.  Republication of the edition by E.H. Butler & Co., Philadelphia, 1860.  Introduction by Janice Bluestein Longone, Moneola, NY: Dover, 1993.

Shields, John. Chesapeake Bay Cooking. Broadway Books: New York, NY, 1998

Virginia Tourism Corporation. "Home page".  Copyright 2012, Virginia Tourism Corporation.  All rights reserved.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Virginia" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Virginia".

Snacking State-by-State: Oregon III - Food Truckin' the Thai Cuisine Way (or "Dawn of the Food Trucks II")

Many of the food trucks in Portland are of the Thai variety.  This should not come as a surprise: I noticed the same thing in Los Angeles, when I encountered the many food trucks along the Miracle Mile across from LACMA last year.  Thai food has become a more and more important part of the American food landscape.  Not only do you find many Thai restaurants, but even Chinese restaurants serving up pad thai left and right.

Official Name: State of Oregon
State Nicknames: The Beaver State
Admission to the US: February 14, 1859 (#33)
Capital: Salem (3rd largest)
Other Important Cities: Portland (largest), Eugene (2nd largest), Gresham (4th largest)
Region: Northwest, Pacific; Pacific (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Salmon, Pinyon Nut
Bordered by: Washington and the Columbia River (north), Idaho (east), the Snake River (northeast), California & Nevada (south), the Pacific Ocean (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: beaver (animal, though they are generally no longer eaten), milk (beverage), Dungeness crab (crustacean), Chinook salmon (fish), Oregon grape (flower, bearing an indigenous fruit that was once gathered and eaten), pear (fruit), Pacific golden chanterelle (mushroom), hazelnut / filbert (nut - they're the same thing)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: Northwestern and Pacific foods, including: Pacific seafood (salmon, Dungeness crab, etc), hazelnuts, pears, marionberries (first grown in Oregon), huckleberries, blueberries; Portland is an epicenter of the American food truck industry


As is the custom in Bangkok, most food trucks specialize in just one thing alone [see Shouse 2011: 74].  Thai-American food truck chef Nong Poonsukwattana, owner and operator of Nong's Khao Man Gai truck, does just this.  Poonsukwattana focuses on just one dish: her kaho man gai (chicken with rice).  According to Shouse and many loyal customers, she does it damn good.

Of course, Poonsukwattana was unwilling to surrender the recipe for her signature dish - which she practiced over and over before she started selling it to get it right [see Shouse 2011: 74-75] to Shouse. Who could blame her?  She did give Shouse another recipe: the winter squash soup she typically serves with the khao man gai.  According to her website, which shows a much more diverse menu for her new location, the soup is bland.  It didn't seem very bland to me, but maybe it was the type of winter squash that I used?

The Recipe: Nong's Winter Squash Soup

For Poonsukwattana's soup (exact recipe on page 76 of  Food Trucks: Dispatches and Recipes from the Best Kitchens on Wheels [2011]), you will need:

* winter squash (I used butternut squash.  In retrospect, perhaps I should have used a more bland winter squash than this one, because the flavor had that lovely rich butternut flavor.  I got this one for about $4)
* cilantro (getting expensive these days: one bunch for $1.89)
* white pepper (had it)
* white peppercorns (did not have it but I will find uses for it.  The cheapest white peppercorns I could find were $6, surprisingly at Whole Foods.  I couldn't even find them anywhere else I looked - just the already-ground stuff)
* chicken broth (oops, I used up all the chicken stock from the previous poutine recipe.  Double oops, I only had a beef boullion cube)
* water (that I had a plenty)
* garlic (had it)
* two types of Thai soy sauces: the thin kind and the dark kind (Healthy Boy brand, as Poonsukwattana specifically recommends.  What's the difference?  The thin / light soy sauce is more or less like the standard soy sauces we are used to in the US, though presumably this brand is of a higher quality.  The dark / thick soy sauce, on the other hand, has molasses added to it, thus also making it sweeter.  Any East Asian supermarket should carry both kinds, whether from Thailand, Japan or China.  Each bottle was about $3, and was big enough to last me a while).

First, take a few white peppercorns and put them into a mortar with some sprigs of cilantro.

Crush it all together with a pestle and set aside.

Peel your squash...

...and dice it.  I used about half of this squash for the recipe.

Meanwhile, throw your water and broth in a large pot and add your garlic.

Add to that the squash...

...and the crushed cilantro and white peppercorns.

Next add a few tablespoons of the thin soy sauce...

...and just a little bit less of the dark soy sauce (note: I made the mistake of reversing this, adding more of the dark soy sauce, thus making the soup much darker than it probably should have been).

I also failed to lid the pot before some of the water boiled away, so when I finally did pull away the lid, I wound up not with winter squash soup but squash mush.  I had to add more water to this to make it more like an actual soup.  Anyway, cook the soup until the squash is "fork tender".  I squooshed it with the fork.

Regardless of how the soup is supposed to look,  serve it up...

...with sprigs of fresh cilantro and sprinkles of white pepper.

It only dawned on me after auto-scheduling this post for publication that I probably wasn't supposed to squoosh the squash (errrr...).  So I did this again a few days before this post went up (at the time I was feverishly working through the Pennsylvania recipes y'all will be seeing up here in the next few weeks).  I came up with the following:

What to say of this soup?  Well, as noted above a few times, I am now pretty sure that I did something wrong the first time around - namely, squashing the squash.  I have to say that, even though the second time around got me a result that was probably much more in line with what Poonsukwattana serves up at her food truck, the wrong version I did first still wasn't bad.  Each one was a tasty soup, which leads me to think that perhaps it takes a lot of work to mess this one up.  I sure worked hard at it, and it was still okay in the end.

That said, the second time around, with its juicy sweet bits of butternut squash, its salty-sweet dark and light soy sauce broth, and its strong tang of cilantro, was indeed much, much better.

Sources:

Brooks, Karen.  "Portland's top 10 food carts".  Posted October 8, 2009 (The Oregonian), reposted August 6, 2011 (OregonLive.com).

Cuisine Bonne Femme & Dieselboi (blog authors).  "About" (About Page for Food Carts Portland".  Copyright 2012 Food Carts Portland, all rights reserved.

Lewis, Nancy (recipe author).  "Marionberry Cobbler".  Information page for the episode "A Cuisine of Our Own" from the television program Oregon Experience, 2010.  Copyright Oregon Public Radio 2010-2012, all rights reserved.

Mersinger, Monica.  "Marionberries: A Delicious Part of Salem's Past".  Salem Online History, 2006.  Copyright Salem Public Library, 2005-2006, all rights reserved.

Oregon Public Radio. "A Cuisine of Our Own".  Information page for the episode "A Cuisine of Our Own" from the television program Oregon Experience, 2010.  Copyright Oregon Public Radio 2010-2012, all rights reserved.

Porges, Brad.  "Hazelnut Salmon with Apple and Pear Compote".  Posted on the Oregon Food website, date unknown. Copyright Travel Oregon 2009-2012, all rights reserved.

Shouse, Heather.  Food Trucks: Dispatches and Recipes from the Best Kitchens on Wheels.  Random House: New York, 2011.

World Culinary Institute. "James Beard".  World Culinary Institute, date unknown. Copyright World Culinary Institute, all rights reserved.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Oregon" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Oregon".

Snacking State-by-State: North Dakota II - Knoepfla-licious (say THAT five times fast)

North Dakota's European-American population has contributed many Scandinavian, German and Russian recipes to the state's culinary background.  Take the Russo-German population: Germans from Russia and Ukraine who immigrated to the Great White North starting in the 1870's after Alexander III's "Russification" of ethnic German areas of the country [Germans from Russia Heritage Collection 2011] - see more at the North Dakota State University's section on Russo-German Heritage, noted above.  As North Dakota "Ambassador" Sandy McMurty points out, many of North Dakota's favorite foods come from this specifically Russo-German background: the custardy Kuchen cake, the fried Fleischküchle fruit pie, sausages, Spaetzle and of course favorite soups such as borscht and knoepfla.  This last one I haven't heard of, but apparently everyone in the Roughrider State has.

Official Name: State of North Dakota
State Nicknames: The Roughrider State, The Peace Garden State, the Flickertail State
Admission to the US: November 2, 1889 (#39)
Capital: Bismarck (2nd largest)
Other Important Cities: Fargo (largest), Grand Forks (3rd largest), Minot (4th largest)
Region: Midwest, Great Plains; West North Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Bison; Wild Rice
Bordered by: Manitoba, Saskatchewan (Canada) (north); Montana (west); South Dakota (south); Minnesota (east)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: milk (beverage), northern pike (fish), chokecherry (fruit), Western wheatgrass (grass)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: wheat & milk (a leading producer of each), Native American (such as Lakota Sioux) foods (including fry bread, pemmican, foods using buffalo, etc.); buffalo, wild rice, chokecherries and other native foods; German, Scandinavian and Russo-German foods (including borscht and knoepfla soup, etc) [McMurty 2011].

Knoepfla (pronounced "NIF-la") soup - a creamy chicken soup with potatoes and homemade dumplings - is a common one in North Dakota: there seem to be quite a few recipes for the stuff.  The ones I found came in two varieties: those made from scratch, and those that used condensed cream of chicken soup as a shortcut.  Guess which one I went with?  Nope, I went with the shortcut.

There were a few family recipes I found online using cream of chicken soup as an ingredient, usually from some intrepid food blogger writing about the soup that his or her North Dakota-born grandfather or fiancé had remembered so fondly growing up.  Megan, author of the Diary of a Recipe Addict blog, is one such food blogger, discussing the knoepfla soup she grew up eating as a child:

I grew up eating this, often with premade "knoephla dumplings" that a local company called Baker Boy makes. We always made the recipe on the back of that package. Recently, I started wondering how hard it would really be to do it entirely from scratch. I came up with this recipe and I am really happy with it. I also like the fact that it contains much less than the entire stick of butter the Baker Boy recipe calls for. [Diary of a Recipe Addict 2011]

As much as I love butter, I couldn't bring myself to add any either.  And here in Maryland, we've never heard of Baker Boy (must be a Midwestern thing?), so I went with Megan's recipe.  Mind you, she's making the dumplings from scratch.  The soup part still has a can of cream of chicken soup.  I'm fine with that, just like Adam "Amateur Gourmet" Roberts and his chicken broth-infused matzah ball soup a few posts back.

The Recipe: Knoepfla Soup

The recipe I used is Megan's recipe [Diary of a Recipe Addict 2011], and I probably should have halved it.  It's a lot of soup.

For the soup part you will need:

*butter (okay there was some butter in the recipe, but only for frying up the next three ingredients)
* celery (a few stalks.  It's too bad one can't just buy "a few stalks" of celery because $3 for a whole head of celery that will just sit in my fridge mostly unused seems like a waste of about $2.47)
* carrots (these I will use - bought a small bunch for about $1.50 at Harris Teeter)
* onions (or in this case, a shallot for about 75¢ at Harris Teeter)
* bay leaves (had them)
* dill weed (optional - also had some)
* potatoes (had quite a few from the Waverly Farmer's Market - a pint of small ones for $3)
* chicken base (had none; I used some frozen duck broth left over from Christmas)
* cream of chicken soup concentrate (the whole can goes into one recipe)
* heavy whipping cream (about $2.50 for a pint; you will not need that much)
* and lots of water (had it on tap, natch)

And for the dumplings:

* milk
* eggs
* salt
* flour (yes I used White Lily - not exactly a Midwestern tradition but still.  Perhaps a harder flour would have been better for this recipe)

Melt a few tablespoons of butter in a large pot.

Add to this your celery, carrots and onions - all chopped.  Cook until the onion starts to become translucent.

Next add a few quarts of water (exact measurements in the original recipe linked above)...

...then add the bay leaves...

...the dill if you feel the need...

a few shakes of pepper (yes I forgot to include this in the photo above. It is very optional and I only added it at the last minute)...

...and of course, the potatoes and soup base / broth

While the soup is simmering, make the dumplings.  Mix all the dumpling ingredients together.

I tried to get some use out of this new - okay, old and used - stand mixer I bought a few weeks ago.  It doesn't have a kneading attachment, so I didn't find it terribly useful.

I eventually used a spoon, and then finally kneaded it in the bowl with my hands.

It never quite completely firmed up, so I had to add a good bit more flour (up to 1/3 of a cup, not all at once).

Once firmed up,  roll into a log about 1" in width, and cut more or less into 1" pieces with a pizza cutter.

Drop the dumplings into the soup and boil for several minutes.  This part reminded me of the matzah ball soup I mentioned earlier, except for the "not kosher because it mixes meat and dairy" part.

For the final touch, mix the cream of chicken concentrate with the cream.

Whisk together until blended.

And add to the rest of the soup.  Cook for just a few minutes and serve.

It is a lovely soup,  However, I might add a little more salt or - what!? - butter to it the next time I eat it.  My guess is that this is almost certainly not how people would eat it in North Dakota, but that's how I like it I suppose.  I wish I had not assumed I had chicken base or bouillon: the duck stock probably wasn't the same. And I don't know if my dumplings turned out the way they should have - I have no gauge for these things since I don't make too many of them.

- - - - -

We're not done with the Midwest yet.  On we go to the Buckeye State, where brats, buckeyes and big ol' plates of chili await: destination Ohio.

Sources:

Deer With Horns, Wendell and Nancy. "Buffalo Recipes".  Deer With Horns Web Site, date unknown.  Copyright 1998-2012 Deer With Horns Web Site.

Diary of a Recipe Addict (Megan, blogger).  "Knoephla Soup".  Posted March 10, 2011.  Copyright 2011-2012 Diary of a Recipe Addict.

Germans from Russia Heritage Collection.  "History and Culture".  Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, 2011.  Copyright 2012 North Dakota State University Libraries.

"HLakota51" (username). "Grandma Connie's Buffalo Feast". NativeTech.org: Indigenous Food and Traditional Recipes. Date posted unknown. Copyright 2012 NativeTech.

McMurty, Sandy.  "Foods of North Dakota".  Thoughts from a North Dakota Ambassador.  Posted March 3, 2011.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "North Dakota" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "North Dakota".

Snacking State-by-State: North Dakota I - It's A Sioux Stew Revue

Prior to this post, my only exposure to North Dakota was Fargo (which, I might add, mostly takes place in Minnesota).  Watching Fargo give me no insight into the foods of the Roughrider State, and well it shouldn't.  Otherwise, I'd just be exploring Arby's and "Pancakes House".

Official Name: State of North Dakota
State Nicknames: The Roughrider State, The Peace Garden State, the Flickertail State
Admission to the US: November 2, 1889 (#39)
Capital: Bismarck (2nd largest)
Other Important Cities: Fargo (largest), Grand Forks (3rd largest), Minot (4th largest)
Region: Midwest, Great Plains; West North Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Bison; Wild Rice
Bordered by: Manitoba, Saskatchewan (Canada) (north); Montana (west); South Dakota (south); Minnesota (east)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: milk (beverage), northern pike (fish), chokecherry (fruit), Western wheatgrass (grass)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: wheat & milk (a leading producer of each), Native American (such as Lakota Sioux) foods (including fry bread, pemmican, foods using buffalo, etc.); buffalo, wild rice, chokecherries and other native foods; German,  Scandinavian and Russo-German foods (including borscht and knoepfla soup, etc)


North Dakota's cuisine features a few strong culinary traditions: northern Great Plains (such as Lakota Sioux), Northern European (such as German & Scandinavian) and Eastern European (such as Russian and Russo-German).  While there are surely other traditions, these are the big ones.  A very complete list of what to find food-wise in North Dakota comes from Thoughts from a North Dakota Ambassador blog author Sandy McMerty, the North Dakota Commerce Dept's Ambassador Program Director and self-proclaimed "chief cheerleader for the state of North Dakota".  She (with intern Stacey Loula) provides an extensive list of food festivals, finds and recipes from all over the state [McMurty 2011]

Of these, the foods of North Dakota's native peoples are certainly the oldest: Ojibwe/Chippewa, Assiniboine, the Affiliated Tribes (Hidatsa, Mandan and Arikara), and specifically the Sioux: Lakota, Dakota and Nakota. Many of the foods that the Sioux and other Great Plains peoples have eaten and still eat today (and will continue to eat in the future) have already been featured in this series: specifically wojapi and more than a few types of fry bread (the versatile staple of modern Native American cuisine), while others such as wahuwapa wasna (corn balls) will likely pop up at some point in the future .  One search for modern Sioux recipes also turns up a lot of recipes with buffalo, a very important animal in the Great Plains.  It was hunted and eaten there for generations, and of course is now raised as livestock.  So once again it's easy to find.

One search of the internet turned up many Lakota recipes that use buffalo.  Wendell and Nancy Deer With Horns offer a traditional Lakota stew that consists of just chunks of buffalo, wild onions and turnips - simple and delicious.  I went with a more modernized stew from NativeTech.org contributor "HLakota51", Hunkpapa Lakota (Standing Rock Sioux), who gives a filling "Grandma Connie's Buffalo Feast" using ground buffalo, corn, tomato and brown rice.  I thought of using wild rice, but sometimes my innovations don't work out too well, so no substitutions this time.

The Recipe: Grandma Connie's Buffalo Feast

For this buffalo feast you will need the following:

* ground buffalo (quite the feast indeed.  I picked up a pound of ground buffalo at the Waverly Farmer's Market - Gunpowder Bison had plenty of buffalo.  I picked up a pound of it for - gack- $9)
* corn (one can, about 80¢ at Harris Teeter)
* tomatoes (again, about the same at Harris Teeter)
* onions (had a few in the kitchen)
* brown rice (a few cups of it.  I bought it in bulk at Whole Foods for surprisingly little, only about $1.50)
* water (you will need this for the rice.  I had to add a little more than the recipe called for)
* all-purpose seasoning (I didn't have any of this around, so I threw a few spices together: rosemary, cayenne, oregano, thyme and sage.  In the end, I also added a few fancier, feastier things to the finished product: alder-smoked sea salt and Trader Joe's Flower Pepper, a combination of peppercorns and dried edible flowers, all ground together)

First, chop the onions.

I started to sauté the onion with some butter (not listed in the recipe)...

...and then added the buffalo.  Cook until brown.

Add everything else and simmer for half an hour.  I found the rice to still be hard after twenty minutes, so I covered it for the last ten.  The rice was still hard, so I added more water and cooked, covered, for fifteen more minutes.  Tender this time!

Once done, add the spices and stir.

One thing I can say about this buffalo feast: it is quite hearty.  With the selection of seasonings I used it turned out somewhat bland.  Had I used different seasonings that probably would have made a difference.  Again, adding the Flower Pepper and the sea salt made for a fascinating flavor.  It could go well with a little fry bread, or in my case some leftover naan.


Sources:

Deer With Horns, Wendell and Nancy. "Buffalo Recipes".  Deer With Horns Web Site, date unknown.  Copyright 1998-2012 Deer With Horns Web Site.

Diary of a Recipe Addict (Megan, blogger).  "Knoephla Soup".  Posted March 10, 2011.  Copyright 2011-2012 Diary of a Recipe Addict.

Germans from Russia Heritage Collection.  "History and Culture".  Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, 2011.  Copyright 2012 North Dakota State University Libraries.

"HLakota51" (username). "Grandma Connie's Buffalo Feast". NativeTech.org: Indigenous Food and Traditional Recipes. Date posted unknown. Copyright 2012 NativeTech.

McMurty, Sandy.  "Foods of North Dakota".  Thoughts from a North Dakota Ambassador.  Posted March 3, 2011.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "North Dakota" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "North Dakota".