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| Best enjoyed together, with no rush to be anywhere else |
I can’t seem to get enough of reindeer right now! A friend of mine was up in Lapland a couple of weeks ago and sent me a text message: “Ann, I’m at a reindeer farm. Are you interested in getting some reindeer meat?” Oh, yes please!
Reindeer is something that feels essentially Finnish to me. I first ate it in a small village about 100 kilometers south of Rovaniemi, in a dish called “poronkäristys” or “shredded reindeer”. It was seasoned simply with salt & pepper, cooked until tender, and served with mashed potatoes and lingonberry. The flavor was slightly gamey, and the meal delicious. Shredded reindeer is the most common way that I’ve been served reindeer.
There are reindeer herders across Lapland, throughout Finland, Sweden and Norway. A reindeer herd can be quite large, and the animals are considered to be only semi-domesticated, as they roam freely across the pasture land – much like cattle on large ranges in the US. Don’t ask a reindeer herder how many reindeer he owns, though – it’s like asking your neighbor how much money he has in the bank – it’s considered very rude. While the industry used to be self-regulated for the most part, the increase in the size of herds led the Finnish government to regulate the herd size. Reindeer have been herded for centuries by the Sami people, and are in important part of their economy. Reindeer are used for the meat, hide, and more recently, and innovative startup from Oulu called ArteBone has created a way to use reindeer bone as a bone graft substitute. Reindeer are used in some cases for transportation, and much less commonly for milk. A versatile creature indeed! This is a food blog, not a reindeer blog, so I’ll leave it at that, but go here to learn more about reindeer herding.
Now back to the eating part…
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| Reindeer Shanks (potkakiekot) |
My friend came back with some new cuts of reindeer that I’d never used before: 500g of reindeer roast and 500g of reindeer shank (poron potkakiekot): it’s basically like veal shank, with the leg bone cut into little circles so that what you have are rounds of meat with a bone in the center. My father-in-law suggested Osso Bucco (Italian for Hole in Bone) as a way to use the reindeer shank, and though I’d never made nor eaten it before, how could I resist? We had a Saturday of spring cleaning planned, so what better time to put something in the oven that benefitted from hours of cooking, so that we could benefit by having a meal simmering away, ready whenever we were hungry enough to stop dusting and find some sustenance?
I don’t know what Osso Bucco is supposed to taste like. I found many different recipes online and cobbled them together to create something that took advantage of the local Finnish ingredients I had on hand: the reindeer shanks, juniper berries, dried porcini, Malmgård wheat flour fresh ground the day before. I had the greater portion of crushed tomatoes in the fridge from making soup earlier in the week, and some preserved lemon I’ve wanting to use with something, so my Reindeer Osso Bucco was born. Feel free to adapt for your tastes and available ingredients. Let it simmer in the oven on a medium temperature until the meat is falling off the bone. Serve with mashed potatoes and Gremolata (recipe follows) for a meal that is so deeply satisfying, you’ll wonder where it’s been all of your life.
Plan for 3 hours total for this meal: 1 hour (more or less) of prep time and 2 hours in the oven. Traditional Osso Bucco calls for straining and pressing the vegetables and catching the liquid in a bowl, and then cooking the liquid with a thickening agent and pouring it back over the shanks. I rather like the look and flavor of the vegetables with the reindeer shanks, so I served my Osso Bucco up rustic style.
Reindeer Osso Bucco
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| Osso Bucco, Mashed Potatoes and Gremolata – this is slow food! |
Preheat oven to 160°C/325°F
Step 1. Mix together in a small bowl:
1/2 cup wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
Dredge
500 g reindeer shanks (veal, deer, moose, elk or other shanks would also work well)
in this mixture so that both sides are coated with flour. Set aside.
Step 2. In another small bowl combine:
10 g (about 3/4 cup) dried porcini (herkkutatti)
1/2 cup boiling water (or enough to cover the mushrooms)
Set aside so the mushrooms can soak for at least 15 minutes.
Step 3. Pour into a large frying pan over medium heat:
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Add
1 onion, halved and sliced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
Step 4. Cook until the onion is translucent and tender, remove from pan and set aside in a small bowl. Add to the pan:
1/4 cup bacon, diced (about 4 slices)
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| Frying the flour-covered shanks |
Fry until the bacon is slightly crisp and the fat rendered. Remove the bacon from the pan with a slotted spoon, leaving the fat behind, and add it to the bowl with the onion. Add the flour-covered reindeer shanks to the pan in a single layer, and fry on both sides until they are browned, about 5 minutes per side.
Step 5. Place the reindeer shanks in a single layer in the bottom of a dutch oven or casserole pan. Arrange the onion bacon mixture over the top of the reindeer shanks. Set aside.
Step 6. In the same frying pan as before, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil and add
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 tablespoons of Homemade Bouillon
1 cup water
or
1 celery rib, diced & 1 teaspoon salt
(note: the flavor will be better if you use Bouillon. If you don’t, replace all of the water in this recipe with vegetable broth to retain the flavor balance).
Cook until the carrots are tender; about 7 minutes.
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| After 2 hours of slow simmering |
Add to the pan:
1 can crushed tomatoes
2 cups of water
1/2 cup red wine (optional)
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
8 juniper berries (frozen or dried)
Squeeze the porcini (from step 2), reserving the liquid, and roughly chop them. Add the porcini and their liquid to the pan as well. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for 5 minutes over low heat.
Step 7. Pour the vegetable mixture over the reindeer shanks in the dutch oven/casserole pan. The shanks should be covered by the liquid. Cover the pan with a lid or tightly with aluminum foil, place in your preheated oven, and cook for at least 2 hours, so that the meat is tender and falling off of the bone.
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| Gremolata with Preserved Lemon |
When there is about 15 minutes of cooking time, boil your potatoes to make mashed potatoes and mix together the Gremolata, recipe below.
Gremolata
1 cup fresh parsley, roughly chopped
4 garlic cloves, diced by hand
1/2 preserved lemon, diced or grated rind of one lemon
(I used preserved lemon and the flavor was incredible.)
Mix together in a bowl at least 10 minutes before serving to allow the flavors to blend.
Serves 4 hungry people.