[Sca-cooks] back from war - siege cooking Sca-cooks Digest, Vol 34, Issue 52

[Cat .]

> Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:49:26 -0600
> From: Stefan li Rous <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com>

> Cailte said:
> 
> <<< anyhoo, siege cooking was great.   very
> challenging.
> congratulations to the cooks of artemesia on their win.
> the outlands came in second, followed by atenveldt.  caid
> did not  mount a team. >>>
> 
> This was at the recent Estrella War, right?

Correct, at Estrella 25, held February of 2009.

> 
> Was each kingdom limited to a single team each?

Yes (though I dont know if it is expense (we did have venison tenderloin) or perhaps to spare the judges from even more stewed prunes ;-)

> 
> <<< we got a few ingredients that stymied us (why,
> o why do we
> outlanders have such a problem with farm raised venison?
> perhaps our stalwart hunters have us spoiled with the
> wild stuff!) >>>
> 
> What do you mean you had a problem with the farm raised
> venison? You  
> didn't get the flavor you expected? You had trouble
> figuring out what  
> to do with it?
> 

Part of the challenge is in correctly identifying the many unlabled ingredients in your box.  The farm raised venison did not have that GAMEY scent or flavor of wild game.  So the cooks, upon tasting slivers of it, finally decided it must just be beef.  

We had lots of options for the meat, making suateed in sauce bits, roulades/beef birds and the tartare.  Actually, I dont know that I would have made Steak Tartare for the zarkuska plate had I thought it was game (though I assume the farm raised did not have the 'mad cow' issues that local wild game now poses.)
For the record, the tartare was DELICIOUS! 

In Service
Gwen Cat