Immediately following Chris's trip up to Delaware, a television crew from Discovery Channel came to shoot the pilot for a new series called Cosentino Unleashed. It features Chef Chris Cosentino travelling around to visit purveyors and have food experiences. The crew was really nice and personable and we enjoyed visiting and working with them.
Chef Chris is passionate about offal - organ meat and other internal animal bits most of us don't even consider eating. He came to the ranch, shot a Sika with the harvest team in the morning, skinned it and picked all the parts he wanted from it right on site. I wasn't there but he fixed a blood pancake of sorts after the kill and served it up to the harvest crew with good reviews.
To say the least I was totally nervous to have this chef cook for me. I have been served some weird things in my time as part of the Hughes family (..ahem...catfish terrine) and I was sure this was going to blow all of those out of the water. Watching the chef prepare all the ingredients was great. They cooked back at the spring on the first really gorgeous day in a long time. It was a bit chilly and windy, but the sky was blue and the light was wonderful. Of course, my Chris did a wonderful job of explaining what he does and our products while Mike jumped in with the 'offal' joke right on cue.
After a few hours of preparation and cooking we were treated to a serious feast around the fire pit. My Chris prepared an antelope rack with garlic and rosemary that was soooooo good, quail legs, stuffed quail and sausage. Chef Chris offered up sika heart tartar, sika kidneys and lentils, liver cooked right on the fire and a spice rubbed antelope loin that was wonderful.
Yes I tried them all.
As Elizabeth and I decided, if we were going to like these dishes at all then this would be the time and place. The kidneys were totally edible and had a suprising crunch on the first bite . I don't think I would order them from a menu, but I could certainly eat them if required. The liver actually tasted a lot like elk meat, but with a creamy center that I didn't enjoy. According to Chef Chris, never eat spongy kidneys or granulated liver. It means poor quality, poor handling and/or poor preparation. Probably excellent advice.
Tartar is never my favorite and I was especially skeptical about heart, but had I not been told it was heart I would have thought it was just a really tender cut of classic muscle. It was pretty amazing and a testament to how well our harvest crew handles and cares for the animal during processing.
My first reaction on hearing that Chef Cosentino was headed our way was admittedly "oh no," but I was pleasantly surprised by his food and really enjoyed hearing him speak about his food philosophies and his food passions. You can learn more about Chef Cosentino on these links below.
I will definitely let you know when you can watch the show though I am betting it is still a ways off. Don't worry we aren't putting these into heavy rotation in our dinner party menus, though maybe....
Awaiting the feast
Kidneys, background, waiting to be cooked in their own fat, foreground.
Heart Tartar is going, going, gone????
Antelope Rack, some quail and sausage
Liver and raw beets
Kidneys and Lentils
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