Venison Stew - Recipe

Rowan Cameron’s Venison Stew*

*non-hunters may substitute beef

1 to 2 pounds of venison haunch or flank cubed

3 medium potatoes, peeled and diced

1 can baked beans (you’ll have to trade for this)

3 medium tomatoes (if they are out of season, the white man has them in cans, too)

3/4 cup minced green onion (tops and all)

1 Leaf of Miracle (bay)

1 tsp. Dried sage

1 tsp. Dried garlic

Salt to taste.

Water as needed.

Heat medium sized rocks in your camp fire until they get red hot. Trim all tallow from the meat. Deer tallow can taste rank, especially it the deer was old, or a buck. Slice and dice a good sized haunch round, or flank steak into 1 inch pieces. And place in leather pot. Add spices, water to cover plus 6 inches, and enough red hot rocks to make the pot boil hard.** When venison is good and tender and rocks have cooled to make the pot simmer, add the other ingredients.

**

You can use a stove and a soup pot, but you have to let it boil hard until the meat falls apart at the touch of a fork. Then reduce the heat, add the vegetables, and simmer until done. This recipe works equally well with elk.

Contributor’s note: This is the stew Christy serves to her sister and ex-fiancé when they arrive from the east in Ghost Dancer.

Contributed by Arline Chase, author of GHOST DANCER, After a broken engagement, Christy goes west for “her health” and meets a medicine man.... Rowan Cameron, a Blackfoot captive scheduled for a hanging, escapes and then ignores her attempts to “civilize” him. But Rowan does his best to heal Christy’s spirit, and mend her broken heart.