Food - Wild at heart

Warning: content may disturb vegetarians! | By Nicola Galloway


I once had a friend who was vegetarian for many years. He was quite happy being a vegetarian until one day he started having a recurring dream. In his dream he was hunting a wild deer and tackling it to the ground with his bare hands then proceeding to take bites out of the animal.

Not long after he decided this must be a sign to start eating meat again. Another friend, also a long-term vegetarian, decided she needed more iron in her diet but didn’t like the idea of eating farmed animals so instead introduced pest-meat only … the likes of wild goat, venison, and rabbit!

It’s not just vegetarians adding wild game to their menus; it is on the rise in popularity across the country. I am not talking just venison and pork, but also goat, Tahr (mountain goat), rabbit, hare, and even wallaby are gracing our plates. In the Top of the South this is largely thanks to the folk at Premium Game, based in Blenheim.

Started by four hunters 13 years ago, this MAF inspected and approved outfit contracts licensed hunters to bring in the wild game. The meat is then butchered in its processing plant in Riverlands Estate and supplied to farmers’ markets, supermarkets, and restaurants around the region. Product is also sent around the country to top restaurants, as wild meat is more and more accepted as a delicacy to the educated palette.

While my palette may not be the most educated, I have been eating wild meat for some time now. Using the tender meat for stews, curries, and barbeques. Wild meat is generally very lean and, as people familiar with venison will know, it needs only a short cooking time for cuts such as leg steaks or fillets.

It also lends itself nicely to slow cooking in a crock pot or low heat oven – made into a simple stew with onions and carrots, or my favourite has been experimenting with Indian recipes including Rogan Josh (tomato-based sauce) and Sagwala (spinach sauce). Marinating the meat overnight in yogurt tenderizes the flesh and I swear the end result tastes just like it came from an Indian restaurant.

As a student of nutrition, I learnt to appreciate that the poly-unsaturated fat omega 3 is one of the most important and necessary nutrients to acquire in the modern diet. In her book The Omega Diet, Dr Artemis Simopoulos discusses not only oily fish as an excellent source of omega 3, but also wild greens.

The likes of nettle, borage, purslane, burdock, and dandelion have been eaten for centuries in traditional diets and all have a high omega 3 content. And what do wild animals eat? Wild greens, lots of them; therefore omega 3 is believed to be concentrated in their flesh. Wild meat is also rich in iron as it is leaner and the flesh is generally darker red than farmed beasts.

The other benefit of wild meat is the low environmental impact compared to farmed animals. For a start, they are not mass-produced on cleared farmland leading to agricultural run-off into our precious waterways.

As discussed above, they eat wild greens rather than imported grains and feed-mixes. And they are not subjected to routine dredging like their fenced relatives, leaving the meat cleaner and healthier. Also many wild game animals are in fact pests in our natural environment, so reducing their numbers is beneficial for the preservation of our native bush.

I am sure there must be some negatives I am not aware of, but the positives would far outweigh them, so let’s finish on a positive note; I encourage you to give wild game a taste. The meat is not strong flavoured as the stereotype of wild game suggests, but full-flavoured and nutrient-dense.

Goat Rogan Josh

Diced goat is available from the Premium Game stall at Marlborough Farmers’ market or the Chook Farm stall at the Nelson Saturday market. It is worth using the whole spices and grinding them fresh if available for the most authentic Indian flavour.

Ingredients - Serves 4
500g goat – diced or leg steaks cut into 2cm cubes
¼ cup plain yogurt
2 tbs ghee or oil
1 onion, chopped
5cm ginger, grated
5 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp turmeric
3 tsp garam masala
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground cumin
chilli powder to taste
400g can tomatoes, chopped
chopped coriander to serve

Method
Combine the lamb and the yogurt in a container and refrigerate overnight to marinate.

Heat a large saucepan and add the ghee and onions.

Sauté over a moderate heat until soft but not coloured.

Add the ginger, garlic and spices, mixing over the heat for a minute to combine the flavours.

Add the meat and colour quickly.

Add the tomatoes and simmer gently for 1½ hours, or transfer to a crock pot for 3–4 hours on HIGH.

Serve with basmati rice and garnish with chopped coriander.