Slow Cooker Elk Stew

This really healthy stew could also be made with venison (deer), antelope, moose, lamb, or even beef. While it’s very tasty the first day it’s made, it’s better stored overnight in the fridge and reheated the next day with the addition of chopped crispy bacon and quartered button mushrooms. Elk is quite lean, so any small bit of fat laying over the top after cooling is best left in the stew for flavor. Marinate the meat for an hour at room temperature before slow cooking begins or overnight in the fridge if that’s easier. If you’re making the Quick Elk Stock, where you’ll use the bone from the roast, make it while the meat marinates in the morning or let it simmer overnight in a slow cooker if you’re marinating the meat overnight.6-8 servings

Ingredients

2.5 – 3.5-pound bone-in elk rump roast, boned and cut into 1 ½ - 2-inch pieces
Mustard and White Wine Marinade-see recipe below
¼ cup olive oil
2 quarts Quick Elk Stock- see recipe below -- can sub beef or chicken stock
4 leeks-sliced and well-washed (white and light green parts only – use dark leaves for stock or freeze for making stock later)
1 medium yellow onion, cut into small dice
3 tablespoons all purpose, unbleached flour
2 cups dry red wine
4 medium carrots, trimmed, peeled, and cut into ½ inch slices
2 medium russet potatoes, peeled, and cut into ½-inch pieces
1 EACH: medium turnip and rutabaga, trimmed, peeled, and cut into ½ inch pieces
2 medium parsnips, peeled and sliced 1/4-inch thick
3 tablespoons tomato paste
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon each dried thyme and rosemary
2 strips thick bacon, diced, and fried to a crisp (added at end or next day while heating)
4- ounces about 1 ¼ cups diced button mushrooms, fried in the bacon fat (added at the end or next day while heating)
Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
Minced fresh parsley +/or sliced scallions for garnish

Instructions

Marinate the meat in the Mustard and White Wine Marinade for an hour at room temperature or covered overnight in the fridge. A 9-inch square glass casserole works well for this. If there isn’t enough liquid to come to the top of the meat, add a little more wine.
Remove meat from the marinade ¬— reserving marinade — to a plate lined with paper towels, and adding another layer of paper towels on top, pat the meat dry. Heat olive oil over medium flame in a large, deep skillet. When hot, add half of the elk in an even, spaced layer. Brown, turn, cook the other side, and remove to a bowl. Repeat with the rest of the meat, adding a little oil if you need to. When you turn the last of the meat, add the leeks and onions, and cook 4-5 minutes. Return the cooked meat from the bowl into the pan, stir, and sprinkle with flour. Cook, stirring, two or three minutes, and pour in reserved marinade. Simmer another two or three minutes, scraping the bottom of the pan. Carefully pour or spoon the meat and vegetable mixture with the cooked marinade into a 6-quart slow cooker.
Add the wine to the skillet and heat through, scraping the bottom of the pan once more, and simmering a few minutes until reduced a bit. Pour the wine into the slow cooker on top of the meat and vegetables. Stir in the elk or other broth. Add the carrots, potatoes, rutabaga, turnips, parsnips, tomato paste, bay leaves, thyme, and rosemary. Stir well. Taste and adjust salt if needed. At this point, the stew should still be fairly brothy. If it appears thick, add another cup of broth or water. It will thicken as it cooks.
Set slow cooker to cook on low for 8 hours, stirring once halfway through cooking if possible.
If serving that night, add cooked bacon and mushrooms for the last 30 minutes of the cooking time. Taste and add salt and/or pepper as needed. Serve hot garnished with minced parsley and/or scallions.
If serving the next night: Cool, carefully pour into an 8-quart soup pot, and store covered in the fridge overnight. The next night, add cooked bacon and mushrooms, heat slowly over medium-low flame, stirring regularly until hot and bubbling. Serve hot garnished with minced parsley and/or scallions.
Leftovers will keep in the refrigerator for 3-4 days tightly covered or in the freezer for 4 months.

Notes

MUSTARD AND WHITE WINE MARINADE:

• 1 cup dry white wine
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 3 tablespoons Dijon-style mustard
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled, and chopped roughly
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• Pinch crushed red pepper

Whisk marinade ingredients together in the bottom of a glass 8-9 -inch casserole or container you’ll marinate the meat in.

QUICK ELK STOCK:

To a four or six-quart saucepan, add the bone from the roast — it should have a bit of meat on it — along with any extra pieces of meat you’re not going to cook. Cover it with water plus an inch or two. Add a tablespoon each kosher salt and peppercorns, a small handful of parsley or parsley stems, a skin-on onion cut in half, along with a stalk of celery and a carrot cut into pieces. You can also add some of the greens (chopped) from the leeks, chopped and well-washed. Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer, and cook for an hour or so, skimming the foam off the top as needed. Pour the stock through a fine mesh strainer into another pan, discarding solids.

COOK’S NOTES: Need a quicker method for making the stew? While I like the first few steps of browning the meat (please do that no matter what), cooking the leeks and onions with the marinade and then simmering the wine a bit in the skillet, you could certainly simplify it and only brown the patted-dry meat in oil with the flour, adding all else to the slow cooker, stirring well before cooking. Do cut down the wine to perhaps only a ½ cup (increase stock/water by 1 1/2 cups) as wine doesn’t evaporate in the slow cooker like it does stovetop. If you try this, I’d like to know.

Happy slow cooking!