The good part about the dead of winter is that I can run all the heavy stuff the line cooks like to make, or as we call it: fat kid food. Braised meats galore, pastas layered with cheese, sausage and breadcrumbs, different types of lasagna, ragus of beans and smoked meat, sauces made with cream, butter and cheese. Yes. Winter makes me want to eat and cook it all.
This year I was looking at a pile of bison trim left from cutting hunks of pot roast, and I thought I would make a stew for the cooks to serve for lunch the next day.
Dried birch boletes.
I wanted it to be dark as night, rich, thick, and mushroomy. Dried bolete mushrooms all smell different, but there’s this quality to them that always makes my toes curl a little. No matter what bolete it is, it will smell dark and”boletey”. Their woodsy scent will vary, but I always like them with things like red wine, dark beer, and similar rich flavor profiles.
At the restaurant, we like grating fresh horseradish on a microplane, but as my line cooks say: “you’ll have to work the grater like it owes you money”.
At the end of the day, it’s another way to use up those dried boletes hanging out in my cupboard before the mushrooms start popping again, the growing season gets closer every day.
Bison Stew With Coffee and Dried Bolete Mushrooms
Ingredients
- 2 lbs bison or beef chuck boneless shortrib, or stew meat
- 2 cups strong coffee
- 3 cups strong chicken stock preferably homemade
- 1 ounce dried porcini roughly 1.5 cups of dried mushrooms
- 1 cups shallot diced ¼ inch
- All purpose flour as needed for dredging (optional)
- Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
- 1 teaspoon dark unsweetened cocoa powder
- Flavorless oil for browning the meat, as needed
- Bouquet garni of 5 fresh thyme sprigs 10 black peppercorns, a few cloves of garlic, and 1 fresh bay leaf (tie this in cheesecloth before adding to the braise)
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter for serving (optional)
- Fresh horseradish grated on a microplane grater for serving (optional)
Instructions
- Rehydrate the mushrooms in the stock for 30 minutes, then agitate to remove any grit, remove the mushrooms and chop roughly. Strain the stock through a fine chinois or mesh strainer and recombine the two.
- Trim sinew and silver skin from the meat, then cut into 1 ounce pieces about the size of a quarter. Season the meat liberally with salt and pepper, then allow to sit for 15 minutes, or overnight if you have time, this helps the salt to penetrate the meat.
- Heat ¼ cup of the oil at a time in a large rondeaux or brazier, then dredge the meat in flour, tap off the excess, and, working in small batches, brown the meat deeply, then remove the meat, add more oil if needed, and continue to brown the meat. If the bottom of the pan looks like it getting brown, deglaze with some stock or water, scrape off the brown bits and add to the reserved, browned meat, then add some more oil to the pan and continue browning the meat.
- After the meat has been browned, sweat the shallot in a little oil until translucent in the same pan the meat was cooked, then add the meat, mushrooms/stock, coffee, cocoa and bouquet garni then cover the pan and simmer until the meat is tender, uncovered, stirring occasionally, about 1 hour. Transfer the stew to a container to cool, remove the bouquet, then label, date, and refrigerate until needed.
- When re-heating the stew and preparing to serve, stir in the cold unsalted butter to thicken the sauce and give it a glossy sheen, adjust the seasoning for salt to taste if needed, then serve immediately, grating a little fresh horseradish over each serving.
This sounds amazing! …. nothing like late winter meals!
I have a bunch of Suillius in the freezer (americanus, greville and granulatus) that would be perfect for this!
Thanks!
Sounds great.
Alan, This looks fantastic—dark and dangerous and delicious. But how do you incorporate the mushrooms into this dish? That step is missing in the instructions. Thanks!
Damnit I need a copy editor. Thanks Pete, I adjusted the recipe.
Alan, I am a full-time professional writer (mostly novels) and occasionally I try my hand at writing recipes. It’s astonishingly difficult! Not only the leaving out of obvious steps, but tailoring the instructions to the (presumed) sophistication of the reader is a challenge. I mean, to some people what seems like a simple direction (“season to taste”) might as well be written in Martian.
Anyway, you are very good at it. I’ll be making this recipe tomorrow using some elk haunch and a bunch of chestnut boletes I scored last fall here in the metro.
Okay, I liked this concept enough that I tried it again using elk shoulder (rather than elk haunch, which I used on my first attempt). Much better! I really like the idea of a super-rich meat/mushroom stew served over lightly cooked vegetables with some sort of carb. Thanks again for doing this. If you ever decide to write a book, we should talk. I’d love to know what you have in mind, and who knows? It may be worth a conversation.
Big thumbs up for this recipe! Even better the next day.
When are you gonna do a cook book? I think you’ve got enough talent to pull it off!