Curry Buffalo

Though I've been wanting to curry a buffalo for a while, it took me a while to get to it. It's not that easy to find bison meat in Toronto, or anywhere, I imagine. I knew that I could get it at The Healthy Butcher (www.thehealthybutcher.com) but avoided doing so because I suspected, correctly, that it would be outlandishly expensive. Instead, I spent three months poking into mom & pop butcher shops in my neighborhood (Dufferin/Rogers/Oakwood/St. Clair) and politely asking for bison meat. No one has it. At least I made a friend: the beautifully ham-handed butcher at Macelleria Atlas (800 St. Clair Avenue West), who gave me a super recipe for stew beef and a rich explanation of why it is important to brown meat and vegetables separately. I finally hit up Healthy Butcher today; $50 later, my most giant saucepan is full of curry bison and my veins are full of iron and "good" cholesterol. $16.99/pound, people. Oh well. It's Christmas.

Bison are super cute animals, so it's no surprise that they're also delicious. And yeah, prairie folk definitely get down like that; I know people back in Winnipeg who keep a buffalo hump in the freezer and eat the stuff regularly. Bison burgers are pretty commonplace on the prairies, and some people are into the prairie oyster/tendergroin/cowboy caviar situation...oi! As for me, I'd never tried the stuff before today. No, I know bison from the diorama in the first display one walks through at the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature; fluffy beasts, like hoofed teddy bears, with soulful eyes that seem to be full of tears even after being stuffed and standing in a museum for 25 years. I know the stories of buffalo running, in which a bold adventurer would risk his life to lead a humble herd of trusting beefalo to their death over the edge of a cliff, poor things. I know that there were once something like 50 million bison, seriously, on this chunk of land that I live on - before they were hunted for their hides and tongues, tasty meat left to rot by money-hungry colonizers. Governments on both sides of the border actively encouraged extermination of the indigenous bison herds, which were the main food source for another indigenous group that was being actively exterminated...the humans. Lucky for me, bison are now being farmed sustainably and herd sizes are healthy, though nowhere near what they were when they fed entire nations of people.

A quick look at www.bisonbasics.com will tell you that bison meat has never been genetically modified, is 100% grass-fed, and is lower in fat, calories, and cholesterol than lean beef, pork, or turkey. Has more protein too. Awesome, right? As a person with Caribbean blood, I was pretty confident that any meat could be curried, and the bison didn't disappoint. I wasn't sure whether to prepare it like a curry goat or curry beef, so I kind of split the difference. If I can ever afford to do this again, or if I get a line on some cheap bison meat (bison farmers: holler at me) I will make it more closely to the way I curry goat, and see how that turns out. I'd also slap it into a roti skin next time instead of serving on rice. Bottom line - it was rich and juicy with an earthier taste than any other curry dish I've had. The mister says delish, but he's easy.

RECIPE

Curry Buffalo
Serves 4-6.

3 lb bison, cut to bite size
2 tbsp lemon juice
Salt to taste
Dash of thyme
Double dash of Seasoning
3 tbsp curry powder
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 potatoes, cubed
1 tsp pepper sauce

1. Wash bison with lemon juice, then season with salt, thyme, Seasoning, and 1 tbsp of curry powder. Leave to sit for 30 minutes.
2. Combine onion, garlic, remaining 2 tbsp curry powder, and 1/4 c water. Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat, add onion mixture, and brown.
3. Add bison and stir. Add 2 c water, cover, and cook 40 minutes over medium-low, stirring occasionally.
4. Add potatoes and pepper sauce; cook another 20 minutes.

Enjoy, peoples!

Oxtail Borscht with Coconut Bannock

Borsht, borshch, borscht...I personally have a soft spot for words containing way too many consonants for only one vowel. This soup probably originated in the Ukraine but is eaten in most central and eastern European cultures, and definitely on the prairies. I have a distinct memory of a school field trip where all us kids brought money from home to buy lunch at a museum cafeteria. While all my classmates ate pizza and hot dogs, I was SO EXCITED that the soup was borscht; I was so focused on my styrofoam bowl that I barely noticed the strange looks. Thinking back, even the teacher must have thought I was one odd duck. Borscht is sort of sweet, based on beets, and a beautiful reddish-purple colour. I was surprised to learn that there is a Slavic version called "green borscht", which is made with sorrel - an herb that I distinctly associate with the Caribbean. The Polish also make a "white borscht" containing fermented rye, chopped hard boiled eggs, and horseradish! Sounds yum, right? There are hearty and light borschts, as well as cold borscht for summer. I based the prairie side of this soup on a traditional hearty borscht, since I love beets. Incidentally, beets are known to be both a laxative and an aphrodisiac (!).

Oxtail stew or oxtail soup is one of my favourite Caribbean meals - so thick and savoury. So, I was surprised once again when I learned that there is also a German version of oxtail soup, spiced with paprika and thickened with cream. I mean, it definitely makes sense to eat the tails of cows - I just didn't realize that anyone outside of the islands was on to that. People who aren't in the know usually express disbelief when they hear about oxtail soup - "It's not actually the tail, is it?". Yes. Oh, yes. Yes, indeed it is.

Borscht is usually eaten with rye bread, but bannock seemed like a good choice for this meal because of it's similarity to bake. Corn bake, coconut bake, Johnny bake, fry bake, or just bake - bake is a round, flat, biscuit-type bread eaten by Trinis, and is almost identical to bannock, which is a simple flat bread historically eaten by indigenous people as well as white settlers on the prairies and in the north. In Trinidad, bake is most often eaten with avocado or fish, especially shark, and some pepper sauce - mmmkay, getting hungry now. Time to finish this up and get some seconds...which brings me to:

The verdict: good stuff! Super healthy, hearty, winter food. The fancy boy toy says "deelish". He has a cold and his taste buds are impaired, but what little he could taste, he liked. I think this soup is gonna cure him...

RECIPE

Oxtail Borscht
Serves 6-8.

5 l water
2 cubes beef bouillon
2 lb oxtails
4 beets, diced
2 medium potatoes, diced
1 large carrot, diced
2 cups red cabbage (about 4-5 large leaves), finely sliced
2 small onions, sliced in rings
2 pinches dry thyme
2 tsp dry dill
1 hot pepper
4 cloves garlic, quartered
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. In a large pot, bring water, bouillon, oxtails, beets, potatoes, carrots and cabbage to a boil. Reduce heat and cook over medium-high heat until tender, about 30 minutes.
2. Add onions, thyme, dill, hot pepper, and garlic. Reduce heat, and cook over medium heat until the flavours have combined, about another 30 minutes.
3. Discard the pepper. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Coconut Bannock
Serves 6.

2 c flour (I use whole wheat)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp instant yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c grated coconut
1 tbsp margarine
1 tbsp shortening (I like the combination of margarine for good flavour and shortening for good texture, but 2 tbsp margarine would work fine, too)
2/3-1 c warm water
(note: bake is normally made with sugar; if you're into that sort of thing, add 2 tbsp sugar.)

1. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl.
2. cut in margarine and shortening.
3. Add water and mix with your hands until a ball forms.
4. Knead on a floured surface for about 5 minutes. Roll into a ball, place in a bowl, cover with a cloth and let rise for 10-15 minutes.
5. On a floured surface, roll into a circle that is 1/2" thick.
6. Place on a greased baking sheet. Prick with a fork several times. Use a pretty design, since it's fun.
7. Bake at 400F for 25 minutes, until it's starting to brown. Cut into wedges.

Goat Shishliki!

I was driving around in Saskatchewan last summer with my honey. In a small town somewhere near a Doukhobor settlement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doukhobor), we stopped for gas. Looking around in the gas station store for snacks, we found a huge chest freezer labeled "Terry's Shishliki". Hoping for some kind of Eastern Euro ice cream sandwich, we looked inside - and instead found a pile of frozen, shrink-wrapped meat skewers! Unfortunately we couldn't bring any home with us, but I found a recipe for Shishliki on a Ukranian website. This gas station was not the last place we saw Terry's wares - you can actually trace a path as for north as Hecla and as far east as Selkirk. A trail of Shishliki guided us back to Winnipeg like stars in the night sky.

I thought I'd try it with goat meat, which is really common in Caribbean cooking, instead of the typical lamb. To me, there's not much that's tastier than a nice piece of mutton. I could eat stew goat or curry goat 8 days a week. Goat Shishliki? Why not!

It turns out there's a good reason why not. Even after tenderizing in a nice piquant marinade from 2 to 10pm, the goat meat came out really tough when grilled. Apparently goat needs to be simmered in a big stewing pot of curry for hours in order to be chewable. I have never chewed so hard in my life. The flavour was nice, but not worth the jaw workout. We had this with some brussels sprouts, quick-boiled and tossed with a splash of lemon juice, fresh black pepper and sea salt. These, at least, were yummy and masticatable. Sometimes you hit, sometimes you miss...

I am posting the recipe below but do not take responsibility for any TMJ issues arising from the consumption of Goat Shishliki. It's Just Not A Good Idea, people!

RECIPE

Marika's Goat Shishliki
Serves 2-4.

2-3 lb stew goat
1/2 c cooking oil (the Ukranians didn't specify, so I used 1/4 c olive and 1/4 c canola)
1/2 c vinegar (I used balsamic)
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup dry red wine
1 large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
20 peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp salt

1. Put the meat pieces in a bowl.
2. Combine all the ingredients, pour over the meat, and mix.
3. Cover and let stand for 2 hours or longer at room temperature to marinate. I imagine that if you used lamb or beef, this would serve to tenderize the meat. In the case of goat, it just makes the meat oily and vinegary. Which is better than dry AND tough.
4. Drain the meat and pat dry each piece.
5. Arrange the meat cubes on a skewer. Brush the filled skewers with cooking oil.
6. Place the skewers under the broiler close to strong heat. Turn the skewers every few minutes and baste frequently with cooking oil or with the fat that drips into the pan. Total broiling time will be about 12 minutes.
7. Slip the meat off the skewers onto a hot plate and season with salt and pepper.

Pieroti!

Pierogy, pirogi, pyrizhky, variniki...fabulous little dumplings from the east of Europe. When I think of perogies, I think of my dear friend Leigh-Ann, 7 months pregnant and seated at a kitchen table at a cottage somewhere on Lake Winnipeg, clapping her hands and chanting "Pi-Ro-Hee! Pi-Ro-Hee!". I think of the freezer bags of no-name potato & cheddar perogies, 2 for a dollar, that my brother used to boil up for him and me late-night after our respective dance class & swim practice. And I think of a Ukranian granny in a farmhouse east of Foam Lake, Saskatchewan, a circle of silky dough in one hand and a spoon full hot mashed potatoes in the other, standing over a giant boiling pot of water. Good images!

Roti brings other pictures to mind - breakfast with my mom in the hot sun outside a laundromat in Port of Spain; dinners to stay at the front table at Caribbean Roti Palace; eating steaming paratha from a white paper bag at Ali's West Indian Roti Shop; the looks on the faces of the two little white-bread girls my parents were minding when my dad decided to take us all out for goat roti, bone in. Another happy food. The hot, doughy packages, oozing spicy gravy, are one of the greatest comfort foods I know.

Curry potato is the most common and basic filling for roti, and easy to substitute for the usual bland potato/cheese stuff that goes inside perogies. It was a little odd to bite into an innocent-looking boiled flour dumpling and find spicy-hot curry inside - but it was a good surprise. Me and the bass-playing bear found it confusing but good. Good-confusing.

The verdict: pieroti is pretty labour intensive but massively delightful. Tasty enough to eat 3 nights in a row.


RECIPE

Pieroti
Makes about 4 dozen pieroti.

Dough
2 eggs
0.5 c vegetable oil
1.5 c warm water
1 tbsp salt
5 c all-purpose flour

1. Beat eggs and oil in a large bowl; add water and salt and blend well.
2. Gradually add flour to make a soft dough.
3. Knead on a floured counter for about 5 minutes.
4. Cover in a bowl and let stand for 15 minutes.
5. Roll out on a floured counter until very thin, and cut out with a 3" round.

Filling
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1.5 tbsp curry powder
1 lb potatoes (about 4 small), chopped
1 tomato, chopped
Salt and hot pepper sauce to taste

1. Heat oil in a large pot; saute garlic and onion for 1 minute.
2. Add curry powder mixed with 1/4 c water and cook for a few minutes.
3. Add potatoes and stir to coat.
4. Add tomato, salt and pepper sauce and cook for a few minutes.
5. Add about 3/4 c water, cover, and cook at low heat until potatoes are tender.
6. Mash well.

To make the pieroti:
Place 1 tsp filling on each circle. Fold in half and pinch edges together to seal. Drop 1/2 dozen at a time into a pot of boiling salted water. Boil for about 5 minutes, or until they float to the surface. Place in a bowl with a little oil.

Serve with fried onions and bacon, which are delicious everywhere, and sour cream. And pepper sauce. Obviously.

Jerk Rabbit with Wild Rice n' Peas

Dinner tonight combined jerk (a classic Jamaican and Caribbean process for flavoring and grilling food, usually chicken) with rabbit (an animal that hungry prairie people have been known to stew, barbecue, or cut up in little pieces and put into casseroles). I remember my mom cooking rabbits for a dinner party when I was in elementary school, to serve to my father's friends Clyde and Irene. And, jerk chicken is actually THE reason I quit being a vegetarian (after 10 years), after I moved to Toronto in 2003.

Rabbit meat is an acquired taste - but quickly acquired! The first few bites felt like we were eating chicken that had gone off; then, before I knew it, we had devoured both the hind and fore legs and were happily gnawing the bones. Thanks for dinner, Mr. Bunny! The jerk rabbit turned out spicy-sweet and fantastically tender.

I sided the jerk bunny with another Caribbean classic, rice n' peas, prairie-i-fied by substituting Canadian wild rice for the usual white rice. The coconut milk, onion, garlic, thyme, and hot pepper gave a fantastic party-time flavor to the chewy, substantial grains.

Healthy, too: rabbit is apparently a source of high quality protein and lower in fat than beef, pork, or chicken. Wild rice has tonnes of good stuff, like fibre, iron, and B vitamins. Which are good for your stress. Rabbit farming is increasing in Canada, and you can easily get locally produced wild rice anywhere from the rockies to Dryden.

Verdict: Superlicious! Didn't even need any hot sauce. The boy-toy liked it too - "Delicious!" - and remains my willing guinea-pig.

RECIPES


Jerk Rabbit
Serves 4-6.

3-4 lb rabbit, cut up into pieces (note: the rabbit was surprisingly easy to butcher; quicker than a chicken and also way more freaky! you end up with hind and fore legs, 2 racks of little ribs, and a big fleshy belly that is referred to as the saddle, split into two halves.)
1 large onion, chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
4 sprigs thyme, leaves removed from stems
1.5 c soy sauce
1 c white vinegar
0.5 c vegetable oil
4 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp each cloves, nutmeg, and allspice
(note: some people like to use green onions in their jerk. I'm not into that sort of thing, but if you are, add 6-10 chopped green onions.)

1. Place rabbit parts in a bowl.
2. Combine all ingredients except rabbit in a blender for about 15 seconds.
3. Pour mixture over rabbit.
4. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours.
5. Preheat oven to broil and place rack at the top.
6. Broil about 20 minutes, turning meat 2-3 times until browned and crispy on all sides.

Wild Rice n' Peas
Serves 6.

2 small onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 sprigs thyme, leaves removed from stems
1 tsp oregano
3 tbsp vegetable oil
3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 tsp pepper sauce
1 c coconut milk
2 c wild rice
2 c red kidney beans (canned or cooked)

1. Saute garlic, onion, thyme and oregano in oil until soft.
2. Add stock, pepper sauce, coconut milk, rice, and salt and pepper to taste.
3. Cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes.
4. Add beans, mix, and simmer for another 20 minutes.

Why The Prairibbean Cookbook? A History.

I grew up in various Prairie cities including Calgary, Regina, and (mostly) Winnipeg, Manitoba. I lived with my white dad (born and raised in a Northern Manitoba mining town) and my black mom (born in San Fernando, Trinidad and raised in Montreal, Quebec).
At home, the variety of foods that my brother and I grew up on was astronomical. Pelau and pierogies both appeared on the dinner table regularly - sometimes together. Christmas Day essentials included Angostora bitters and buljol at breakfast, then local wild rice, brussels sprouts, and a bird from the Mennonites at dinner. Cold bottles of ginger beer and Labatts (or, more often, my dad's sketchy home-brew) chilled side-by-side in the fridge. For treats, us kids sometimes got a sarsaparilla and sometimes got a Pic-a-Pop - my favourite flavour at the locally owned pop outfit was Blue-Bomber blue. Birthday dinners out often went down at Deen's Caribbean Restaurant and Patio where we'd devour curry goat (bone in); contrast that to Schwandt family gatherings where we noshed on Old Dutch chips with ranch dip, cheese cubes (mild cheddar only), sliced kielbasa, and dainties. Ohhh, Dainties - the ubiquitous matrimonial squares, peanut-butter marshmallow treats, and frosted cupcakes found at almost any Prairie event. For the other side of my family, dessert meant black cake and cooked puddings - dense, heavy creations containing copious amounts of sugar, butter, and booze. I grew up equally acquainted with "white people food" as with Island flavours, and I came to love my doubles and roti just as much as my holobtsi and pierogi.
Fast-forward 20 years. I am a grown-ass woman with my own kitchen. I have a man to feed, friends to cook for, and an appetite for the North as much as for the South.
Over the years, I have added the following to my kitchen bookshelf: Tropical Cuisine Caribbean Style; the Naparima Girls' High School Diamond Jubilee Recipe Book (a class project from my Auntie's alma mater in San Fernando); Homegrown Favorites Cook Book by the Manitoba Genealogical Society (with submissions from people with names like "Ostrowski"); Nothing More Comforting: Canada's Heritage Food; and a recipe card for Auntie Carol's Coconut Bake.
I have learned to prepare foods that connect me to all sides of heritage, and may be the only black woman in the world who makes a mean cabbage roll. I am also likely one of very few people who eat their cabbage rolls with NuPak Barbados Hot Pepper Sauce...the very quandary which has led me to the creation of this cookblog. Why do I have to choose? Why can't I enjoy the tastes, textures, spices, meats, and produce that represent all of my mixed blood - all at once? Think about it. Cabbage rolls stuffed with rice & peas. Classic date squares made with mango and coconut. Pieroti? YES! Bring it on! As an experienced cook in both styles with a taste for the unknown and a willing tester, I am in the ideal position to get this experiment started. Check in with me as I attempt to marry the comfort foods of the Prairies with those of the Islands - and I'm not talking about Hecla Island. Recipes will be tested, tasted, reviewed, photographed, and posted for your enjoyment. Please enjoy, and be inspired! Food is a beautiful thing. And this is gonna be fun.