Recipe update: Pilaf, now with cabbage

And not made from a recipe on the back of an instant rice packet!

Additional influences are:

Samin Nosrat's recipe for tahdig, which kayloulee made for me back in... 2018 maybe? Something like this one from the saltfatacidheat website, except there was parsley involved and also meat, unsure how much was from the cookbook and how much from K.

Budget Bytes curried cabbage

The "Nine-Spice roast vegetables with couscous" recipe in Campion and Curtis' In the Kitchen.

( Dietary and access notes )

A general note on pilaf / tahdig: if you wash the rice thoroughly, and then put it in the oil-base and (unlike risotto) do not touch it, you should get a nice crispy layer (per Samin Nosrat) called Tahdig in Farsi. I've futzed around and this is easier to achieve with meat fats: fry your meat briefly, put it aside, cook the pilaf, and then sort of ... sow the meat into holes in the rice to finish cooking. But you CAN achieve it with vegetable oils, especially if you have enameled or stoneware pots. My ikea fryingpan does not do the job.

( What you need and what you do with it )

Serves: eh... 2-3? 4 as a side?

ALTERNATIVE to incorporating meat: works as a good base/side for a not-leftover meat dish (eg, tonight I made venison in red wine sauce with leftover pilaf).

Honestly I'm not quite satisfied with the spice mix at the moment: it's pretty good with the saltiness of haloumi bit becomes bland if eaten alone. Sweet rather than smoked paprika, definitely; maybe a tiny dash of chili. Or just add salt? I never add salt, which is weird but also means that the most mundane restaurant soup entrée is exciting to me.

Veinison steaks in red wine sauce

Liberally adjusted from the Women's Weekly 1970 (1972 reprint) 'steak in red wine sauce' recipe. I didn't have the added ingredients for most of the venison-in-red-wine-sauce recipes I could find online, so I went back to the Reliable Ancestral Cookbook (which has no recipes for venison, but does have steak recipes, and so here we are)

( Dietary and accessibility notes )

( What you need and what you do with it )

1. WINE SAUCE STAGE 1: After dicing the onion, put half of it in a small saucepan with ... somewhere between 25 and 50g of butter, I eyeballed it. Melt butter and sautée the onion.
2. OPTIONAL MUSHROOM STAGE 1: place the remaining onion, the diced garlic, and sliced mushrooms in a small frying pan, with more butter (eyeball; add more if they soak it all up). Fry on medium-high until the mushrooms start to brown, then turn over to low.
3. When the onions in the wine sauce start to glisten (ie, after at least 5 min), add the wine. Keep at about medium heat, bring to boil. Add ground pepper as you're starting step 4.
4. Coat both sides of the venison steaks in ground pepper.
5. The wine needs to reduce by half. When it starts visibly reducing, add MOAR BUTTER - lashings of butter - to a larger frying pan. Sear the venison steaks on each side, no more than 3 min.
6. When you're done, the sauce will not be done. Turn the power off the steaks, and/or remove them entirely, depending on your ~vibes~ for where they need to be between med-rare and medium (you do not want to take venison further than medium).
7. Sift 1-2 tsp of maize flour over the mushroom mix. Pour the wine sauce into this pan. Turn heat up to boil off rapidly. If you're not using mushrooms sift directly into the wine pot.
8. When, as seems inevitable, this doesn't thicken enough, repeat sifting the flour. SIFT I SAY. Your alternative is to mix a bit of maize flour with cold water, then slowly integrate it into the hot sauce. If you do neither of those things, you get weird floury globs. Take it from me, a person who only sifts for Christmas Cake or sauce.
9. When the sauce looks like a pleasing texture / enough to go around, pour it over your steaks and nom.

A traditional side would be potatoes and steamed or braised veg. I ate mine with leftover cabbage and carrot pilaf, and enjoyed it greatly.

Also, while venison was nice, I'm 100% sure this recipe would be 300% tastier with kangaroo, if you can access kangaroo steaks. Serve those no more than medium rare!