Phil’s Moose Stew
Ingredients
About 2 pounds of meat
Potatoes
Carrots
Celery
Stew seasoning
Mushrooms
Worcestershire sauce
Photo by John Earle
STEW
Contributed by Philip Nielson
Nuclear Pharmacist, Radioligand Lab
Servings: 6
Method
1. In your InstantPot, set it at “Stew”, add water, meat, and seasoning. Leave the lid off until after the stock starts
to boil, stir gently so the InstantPot does not have a chance to burn any piece of meat that may sear to the
bottom of the pot. Generally, you want enough water to cover the meat at this point.
2. Set the timer to 13 minutes. Do not “brown” the moose in a pan, just put it in the InstantPot. If you are using
lamb or beef, brown the meat. Browning the meat helps the more tender meat to stay together, which is not
what you want with moose.
3. After the timer has ended, vent the InstantPot and add the potatoes and mushrooms. Put the lid back on and set
the timer to 17 minutes. Some people “don’t like mushrooms.” They are wrong. If needed, add water at this
point.
4. After the timer has ended, vent the InstantPot and add the carrots. Put the lid back on and set the timer to 5
minutes.
5. After the timer has ended, vent the InstantPot and add the celery and 1 or 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire
sauce. Put the lid back on, change the setting to “Keep Warm,” and set the timer to 10 minutes.
6. After the timer has ended, eat the stew. I like to add pepper at this point, have a side of bread, and typically a
glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. If that’s not a wine you like, go with Merlot or Malbec. Adjust cooking times or
size of the pieces of food to your desired level of texture.
This recipe will work with any game meat, it doesn’t need to be moose. I also included how to alter
this for lamb or beef. The issue with moose, or any other game, is that they are never fed grain and
they run. This means that the meat is much leaner and if prepared wrong, it can be tough.
I can cook a great steak out of game meat, but here we just go over how I make stew. The issue I
have with most stew is that it is a big bowl of mush. There is no texture difference between a potato,
carrot, or celery. It’s all mush. This recipe fixes this issue. Remember to cut up all of a single
ingredient into bite sized pieces and do your best to make the pieces the same size so they all cook
the same.
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