Solamnic Feast Dish: Stag on Steel

Join me as I make the Solamnic Feast Dish: Stag on Steel – From Tika’s Cookbook for the first time! This is a recipe from Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home sourcebook, originally released in 1987. The recipes are compiled by Tika Waylan Majere. You can buy Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/309152/Leaves-from-the-Inn-of-the-Last-Home?term=leaves+from+the+inn+of+the+last?affiliate_id=50797

From Tika’s Cookbook

Solamnic Feast Dishes

Stag on Steel

Marinade:

1 ½ cup red wine (Burgundy is excellent. Do not use cooking wine; it’s salted.)
2 large pinches dried sage
3 juniper berries, crushed
2 garlic cloves, crushed (or 2 shakes garlic powder)
¼ cup pineapple joice
1 shake powdered ginger
2 pinches rosemary
2 pinches thyme
3 pinches dried parsley flakes
2 pinches celery leaves
Salt
Pepper

For the Skewer:

2 to 3 pounds venison tenderloin or pork
2 sweet onions
1 green pepper
1 16-ounce can chunk pineapple
24 cherry tomatoes
24 fresh mushrooms

A day before serving, mix red wine and pineapple juice in a large, non-metallic pan. Stir in the rest of marinade ingredients for at least 1 minute. Let mixture rest for an hour so flavors can meld. Slice tenderloin into 1-inch by 2-inch chunks. Rub meat with salt and freshly ground pepper. Stir marinade after its hour is up and add meat. Stir meat to coat all pieces. Cover and refrigerate overnight, stirring occasionally so all sides are coated and soaked equally.

Prior to grilling, wash all vegetables. Peel onions and cut them into 1-inch by 2-inch chunks. Destem tomatoes. Core pepper and but it into 1-inch squares. Drain pineapple. Toss meat, vegetables, and fruit a final time.

Alternate meat, vegetables, and fruit on skewer. Onions and pineapple are the best neighbors for the meat. Onions should be skewered from inner to outer layers through all layers, mushrooms through the stem’s center axis.

Grill over medium charcoal for 10 to 12 minutes, turning often. Remove food from skewer with a fork and serve immediately. Serves 6.

Transcript

Cold Open

With this recipe feeding six people, and only having three in the house, I ended up halving the actual Shish Kabob ingredients.

Intro

Today I am making the Solamnic Feast Dish: Stag on Steel from Tika’s Cookbook in Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home. If you have made this recipe, share your thoughts in the comments below!

Discussion

This recipe can be broken into two sections and prepared in two days. The first day is the marinade and the second is cooking the Shish Kabobs. While collecting the ingredients, I came across two problems. First, it is not deer hunting season in Utah, so I substituted pork as the recipe suggests. And second, there are no Juniper Berries in any of the farmers markets or naturalistic stores anywhere around town. Looking online suggests that you can substitute Gin for juniper berries with one teaspoon for two berries. It also lists a couple brands that are known to exclusively use Juniper only, and Tangeray was at the top, so that’s what I used.

I collected the ingredients, for the marinade, one and one-half cup red wine, two large pinches dried sage, one and one-half teaspoon gin, two garlic cloves, crushed, one-fourth cup pineapple juice, one shake powdered ginger, two pinches rosemary, two pinches thyme, three pinches dried parsley flakes, two pinches celery leaves, salt and pepper. For the skewer, two to three pounds pork, two sweet onions, one green pepper, one sixteen ounce can chunk pineapple, missing from the frame, twenty four cherry tomatoes, and twenty four fresh mushrooms.

Again, I halved the skewer ingredients and substituted the dried Parsley and Celery leaves with fresh ones. So I added the red wine and pineapple juice to a glass bowl, helpful tip, the remaining juice mixed with the remaining gin is a wonderful cooking aid for the cook to sip on. As those flavors mixed, I added the remaining ingredients of gin, sage, ginger, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper, crushing the garlic and adding it, then chopping the parsley and adding it, and finally chopping the celery leaves and adding that. Mixing it all for one minute.

Then I let the marinade sit for an hour so the flavors can meld. After the hour, I cut the pork into one inch-ish by two inch-ish chunks and added it to the marinade. I covered it and let it sit overnight…. Twice. Look, I went on a six hour hike up a mountain and it destroyed me. So I didn’t feel like doing anything until the following day. However, the following day, I washed the vegetables, cut the onion into one-inch-ish chunks, added it to the marinade, cut the pepper into one-inch-ish chunks and added it into the marinade and stirred it up just to coat it a bit.

Then I put a portion of the pineapple chunks in a bowl to prevent cross contamination with the remainder in the can, and went to work assembling the skewers. There is a suggested order in the recipe, but I have made shish kabobs for years, and it really doesn’t matter. After the skewers are assembled, I prepare my charcoal grill, because only monsters use propane or propane accessories to cook their bar-be-que. When it was properly heated up, I added the skewers and cooked it for about sixteen minutes, rotating every five to seven minutes.

My final conclusion was that the marinade stained the pork, but the flavors didn’t come through at all. I would suggest eliminating the marinade and after cooking, slather the skewers with your favorite bar-be-que sauce and let it cook for a few minutes, then serve.

Outro

Thank you for tuning into this Dragonlance Recipe episode. This has been Adam with DragonLance Saga and until next time Slàinte mhath (slan-ge-var).