Foragers Diary; Smoked Venison Pytt i Panna

After the weed quiche yesterday I thought I had better do something for the carnivores among us today.

Pytt i panna is something I used to eat regularly while living in Sweden; it is a very simple dish made traditional from leftovers, like bubbleandsqueak here in the UK. It normally consists of potatoes, onion, korv (sausage) or beef, there are even vegetarian versions and it is sold in just about every Swedish supermarket and as I understand is also popular in Norway, Denmark and Finland.

Rraditional pyttipanna with brussel sprouts.
Picture By Triceratops (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

So in the spirit of leftover meals I took some of the 'cheap' cuts of meat from the fallow buck I shot on the 1st and which you can read about on the . These were all cuts from around the neck which I would normally stew or casserole or sometimes mince up for sausages. First they were roughly sliced, not into pieces but just to increase the surface area of the meat so it would soak up a marinade, this would also help the smoking process later. They were marinaded in a mixture of spices (shop bought on this occasion I'm ashamed to admit) and soy sauce for a couple of days in the fridge then they went in the hot smoker.

Two of the pieces in the smoker, it really doesn't take long to cook in here. I can just about fit a whole Chinese Water Deer haunch in this smoker for special occasions. 

Once smoked the meat was diced, as were about a dozen new potatoes and one large onion. The onion went into the frying pan first to soften and then the rest was added until the potatoes just started to go golden. Served with lingon berry sauce (another Swedish favourite, and well worth a try if you're passing an IKEA) and salad it went down a treat. 

The amount of meat shown in the picture above (just over a pound raw weight) and those twelve small potatoes and one onion made a filling meal for two adults and two children (with enough for a second helping for me!)  

Announcement; I am happy to take requests for wild foods to cover in the foragers diary. I can cover preparation, cooking and eating of wild foods but also identification tips, how and where to find them and techniques for foraging. So please let me know.