A delightful dinner from yesterday. 🐻
Wild bear stew, black salsify, and a salad of black salsify leaves, dill, and chive flowers with a simple vinaigrette.
Peeling black salsify is a challenge, but we still had some frozen from last year's harvest so most of the work went into the meat. The bear meat was cooked low and slow in a Dutch oven until very tender. The sauce made from the lard it was cooked in and the juices released during the cooking process really carries the dish. It is rich and deeply gamey 😋
A tip for freshening up frozen salsify:
Since black salsify is such a pain to peel, freezing it peeled and fully cooked is very handy. It does become much softer after thawing, though. Cut into bite sized pieces before freezing so you don't have to fight the fibres once the root is too soft to comfortably cut.
Once mostly thawed, heat through in a pot. Add a dab of butter or margarine and mix to coat. This is both for flavor and to keep the roots from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Then leave it in the warm pot and stir occasionally until most of the juices lost from freezing and thawing have evaporated. This leaves behind soft, but not mushy roots.
I do not recommend pouring off most of the liquid as this will reduce the flavour of the final product. Let it evaporate to leave behind the flavour compounds.
