Winter happens to be one of my favorite food times of the year. After filling the freezers throughout the fall, it's finally time to dive in and enjoy a warm hearty meal. This venison chili verde recipe is one that I put together when I was looking for a new use for shanks (I hate throwing them into the grind pile and quite frankly I'm not a huge fan of osso bucco). I was looking for something that would allow me to leverage all the great collagen in the shanks as well as avoid being too tough. This recipe is great because it works fine on its own - dressed up with some cotija cheese, pickled onions and some avocado - but it also works great served on top of something else like a burrito, mashed potatoes or pasta!
Ingredients
- 2 to 3 shanks
- 5 poblano peppers
- 1 large white onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- 4 jalapenos
- 1 can each of white and yellow hominy
- oil
- salt to taste
- 1/2 cup fresh chopped cilantro
Instructions
- Braise 2 or 3 shanks in a large pot for about 3 hours (make sure they are completely covered in water, you'll be using the resulting "stock" as the liquid base for the rest of the chili)
- In the meantime, roast 5 poblano peppers, scrapping the charred skin off, then dice the peppers
- Dice 1 whole white onion
- Mince 3 cloves of garlic
- Seed and dice 4 jalapenos
- Remove the shanks from the braising liquid and reserve the liquid for later
- Remove the meat from the shanks and cut in to small pieces
- In a cast iron pot, add a little oil and sauté the onion, add the garlic once the onion is translucent
- Add the roasted peppers and jalapenos, salt to taste
- Add the meat back
- Add enough braising liquid (or if you have any venison stock on hand that is more flavorful feel free to use that) to cover everything by about 2 inches
- Bring to a boil and then turn down to simmer for about an hour, stirring often
- About 30 minutes before serving, add a can of white hominy and a can of yellow hominy
- Right before serving, add about a half cup of chopped cilantro
Enjoy!
About Dane Rider
MT BHA Board Member based in Lewistown, MT - living the dream.