Cooking with Kokanee Quinn: From Elk Camp to Italy, A Seriously Good Elk Ragu

Kokanee Quinn spends a whole lot of time searching the internet for the best wild game recipes to share here, because a freezer full of wild game deserves a better fate than the same three dinners on repeat. Today, she found a real winner: Elk Ragu from Mike Shreckengost of Primal Pioneer. This one takes ground elk and sends it straight to Italian comfort-food country, simmering it low and slow with red wine, tomato sauce, beef stock, onion, carrot and celery before piling all that goodness onto a load of pasta. It’s so flavorful, filling, simple, and exactly what makes you look at that ground elk in the freezer and think, yep, tonight’s the night. The original recipe serves 8 and takes just under three hours, with most of that time spent letting the ragu do its thing.

Elk Ragu

Recipe by Mike Shreckengost of Primal Pioneer

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 carrot – chopped
• 1 white onion – diced
• 2 celery ribs – chopped
• 1 pound ground elk
• 2 cups tomato sauce
• 1 cup red wine
• 4 cups beef stock
• 1 tsp. sea salt
• 16 ounces tagliatelle or other broad, flat pasta
• Parmigiano Reggiano – grated
• Chopped fresh Italian parsley – optional garnishment

Instructions

1. Heat the olive oil in a medium-sized dutch oven over medium heat. Add the chopped onion, carrot, and celery; cook and stir until the onion becomes translucent. 
2. Add the ground elk; cook until browned.
3. Add the red wine and reduce by half. Once the wine has reduced by half, add the tomato sauce and half of the beef stock and a pinch of salt.
4. Stir the sauce and let it simmer on a low heat for 2.5 hours, stirring occasionally. About halfway through, add the remaining stock. 
5. When finished cooking, season with additional salt to taste, if needed. 
6. Serve tossed with cooked pasta and top with grated Parmigiano Reggiano and chopped fresh Italian parsley.