[Intro music plays]
Well Lauren, here we are on our sixth and final segment Wild Wisconsin. And one
of my favorites too, cooking wild game with the DNR's Jeff Pritzl and chef
Luke Zahm from Wisconsin Foodie. Hungry? Always, let's get to it.
[Music plays]
Hey, I'm Luke Zahm. I'm host of Wisconsin foodie on PBS and today I have a very
special guest, Mr. Jeff Pritzel from the Wisconsin DNR. Welcome! It is a pleasure,
Luke. So, we're gonna do some things today with venison that are a little bit
different than a lot of us have kind of grown up eating. How...what do you usually
do with venison at your house? Venison. Three things happen in my house. It's
either steak on the grill, it's ground meat gets mixed in for tacos or spaghetti. Or
we send some off to have brats and bacon made so I'm looking forward to upping my
game at home with a little more of this. What we're gonna do today is we're gonna
braise this. So, osso buco literally translates in Italian to bone with a hole.
And usually, we would take the cross section, with like the femur intact here.
But this actually is gonna work out really well, and it kind of quickens a
little bit of the cooking time for us. We want to get back out into the woods and
this is gonna help us do just that. So, first thing I want to do, Jeff, is I want
to take this silver skin off. It's gonna make it super tight and stringy and
really kind of unpleasant to eat. So, we want to make sure that we take our time
and get that off of there. And I honestly think that this is
something that a lot of hunters and cooks at home probably don't take quite
enough time with. When they eat it and say like, 'oh, I hate that flavor,' a lot of
what they're getting is this connective tissue, which makes it a little bit tough.
So, you know, trying to take this off without taking a lot of the meat. So, we
have these shank pieces here, and we're gonna take some gingersnaps today, right?
And I'm gonna take a little handful of these. I'm gonna put them on my cutting
board and I'm just gonna bust them up a little bit. And I think you're gonna be
pleasantly surprised if you followed this verbatim. But, I think Luke,
that's what's become attractive to a whole host of Wisconsinites that
that maybe didn't grow up hunting, but this actual the food attraction is
what's bringing people out into the field to collect their venison. And then
have the experience, to do something like this is ... is really growing and it's great
for us to see that as new people get exposed to the opportunities and the
experiences. This all has a story and that's exactly the type of food we
strive to cook here at the cafe, and it's what makes our culture so rich and proud.
So I'm gonna take these ... these gingersnap crumbs. I kind of mash them into a pulp,
you saw that with the side of my knife. We're gonna get those in here and we're
gonna start dredging this up. I'm gonna hit it with a little bit of salt and black
pepper too. What we want to do next Jeff I think is
is create the element for the braising liquid. And that for me is gonna equate
to some tomatoes. I have some Jimmy Nardello peppers. I have some onions, a
little bit of carrot and, you know, I have some mushrooms here too that I think
would be really great in this braise. We'll put that in the pan, brown it up
with some of this venison and then deglaze it with red wine and kind of let
her rip, how does that sound? That's awesome.
[Music plays]
We want to start this out by adding just a little bit of olive oil. All right,
so I can see this coming up now, I can see that smoke and I'm just gonna gently
lay these in. While we're browning this, I want to make sure that this is
complemented with something that's also indigenous to Wisconsin and delicious, so
I think what I'd like to do is put together a quick wild rice risotto. And
this comes to us from the Ojibwe nation.
[Sizzles]
I'm gonna turn it up to about a medium heat. What I want to do is I want to
toast that wild rice for just a minute. Let's check our venison.
So what we're doing is we're making sure that this is nicely brown. So I'm gonna
give these a nice flip. Over here, I can smell this posting up and it's rich and
nutty. I have stock. This is a combination of beef and pork stock that we put
together at the cafe, but I'm literally just gonna pour this on this wild rice.
Now that the venison is nicely browned on both sides, I'm gonna remove it from
the pan quickly. One of the things that I definitely want to do is let it kind of
cook down a bit. But this is the part for all of our aromatics and other
ingredients that we prepared on the table go into the pot. And this to me
smells like a memory. Anytime I get onions and garlic in a pan and a little
bit of tomato in there with a little bit of that venison, this is like eating
something directly from my childhood pages. So, I'm gonna hit it with just a
little bit of red wine. You're gonna add just a little bit more of that stock.
We're gonna take our venison and we're gonna place this right back in here in
this braising liquid.
So this venison has been braising for a while now. I think I'm about ready
because I can't wait any longer. So what I have here these are some red curly
mustard greens. We're gonna come back with this wild rice. Again, this is some
long grain wild rice. We've just adorned this with a little
bit of heavy cream, that stock, salt, black pepper. We're gonna come back with our
braised venison. Oh, that's that's the piece right there. Let's throw a little
bit of freshly grated cheese on here. Is this looking OK? It's looking better
and better. And then gremolata and this is simply parsley, lemon and orange zest,
garlic and I put a little bit of smoked trout in here. Just to kind of give it
some richness and some body. And we put olive oil with it. And I got a feeling
you're just about to take the word Wild Wisconsin and give it ... we're putting a
new definition on Wild Wisconsin. Have you ever tried a nasturtium? I have not.
Well I'm gonna make you try it. So, like an assertion when people come and they
eat the food here, a lot of times I see them push these to the side and I
honestly think that these are the stars of the plate. I think it's a wonderful
way to kind of accent the dish. It's beautiful, and again, it's... it's another
story in the chapter of us. Jeff, bon appetit, huh? Thanks Luke. Thanks for
bringing your skills to Wild Wisconsin. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me. You bet.
Well that looked tasty. I can't wait to get in the field and put some venison in
the freezer. Me too. Well Lauren, this has been a great season of Wild Wisconsin and
I hope all of you enjoyed it as much as we did. Thanks for hanging out with Aaron
and me, and hope to see you again for season number four of Wild Wisconsin.
[Closing music]