Shannon Kelly has an ellie in her belly

Firstly, I have to give credit to my mother for the title of this blog!

Secondly, an explanation. What?! An ellie in my belly? Yes, it is true. How do I even begin to explain? Did I not become a vegetarian 5 years ago from a story I read about elephants?! MY WORD. I was vegetarian for 2 years, only to give it up upon coming to South Africa and henceforth bought/ate as little meat as I could get away with. Until I came to this farm. Now, almost all I eat is venison (and thanks to Mozambique, prawns).

Two nights ago we became the recipients of a 20kg bag of elephant meat. Some foreign hunter came to the next door farm to hunt an elephant for approx a million rand -- and no, he didn't want to take the meat home with him. Thus, it appears the meat is being healthily distributed amongst the community.

So last night, in celebration of my last day at school Wednesday and watching the Opening Ceremonies for the World Cup, Johannes and I supped on rice, elephant stew & J.C. Le Roux bubbly to the sounds of cheering & Vusi Mahlasela (one of the South African treasures who sang at the opening last night).

I have to share, that in preparation of making elephant stew, I decided to peruse the internet for recipes. Ha, ha, ha! All I could find, on multiple sites:

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Ingredients:
1 Elephant, 10 Warthog, 100 kilogram tomatoes, half ton potatoes, 100 kilogram salt, 1 wheelbarrow onions (heaped), 10 liter vinegar, 20 liter chutney, 4 Guineafowl

Method:
Hunt the elephant, warthog and guineafowl. Hang guineafowl to ripen. Cut elephant into edible chunks, (will take about a month). Boil the warthog with other ingredients (except guineafowl) till nice and juicy. Now boil elephant chunks over high flames till tender. (will take about 4 weeks) and add everything together. Boil for another 5 to 7 days.

Produces about 3,500 helpings.
Note: If the above isn't enough, add the guineafowl as well.
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Although I would never buy elephant meat or kill an elephant or want to watch one die, because we were given meat that would have been a sin to throw away, we had to do SOMETHING productive with it. I ended up adapting a Jamie Oliver recipe and thought I should be the first to produce a legitimate Elephant Stew Recipe, for the masses that might be interested. It was incredibly tasty, actually, though the meat was still a might bit tough.

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Hearty Elephant Stew Recipe

ingredients
• 4 tablespoons plain flour
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 800g stewing elephant (or any other type of venison), cut into 2cm chunks
• olive oil
• 2 onions, peeled and roughly chopped
• 3 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
• 2 sticks of fennel, trimmed and roughly chopped
• 2 sprigs of rosemary, leaves picked and chopped
• 4 sprigs of thyme, leaves picked and chopped
• a knob of butter
• 6 sprigs of fresh parsley
• 2 vegetable stock cubes
• 1 steak bone
• 600g quartered potatoes
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped

First, make a broth with the stock cubes + any leftover bones if you have them handy. Since I didn't have any beef stock cubes as Jamie suggested, I used a left-over beef-chop bone to make a broth. Boil in 3 cups of water, along with 2 veggie stock cubes for approx 2 hours. Set aside.

Dust a chopping board with 2 tablespoons of flour and a good pinch of salt and pepper, and toss your chunks of meat through this mixture until well coated. Heat a large pan on a high heat, add a few lugs of olive oil and fry your meat for 5 minutes to brown it. Add your chopped onions, carrots, fennel, rosemary, thyme and the knob of butter. Add a few tablespoons of the broth, give everything a good stir, then pop the lid on the pan and let everything steam for 4 to 5 minutes so the flavours really mingle together.

Take the lid off so your meat and veg start to fry, and stir every so often for 5 to 10 minutes. Chop your parsley stalks finely, and once the onions start to caramelize, add them to the pan with your remaining 2 tablespoons of flour. Stir, and pour in enough broth to cover the mixture by a couple of inches. Put the parsley leaves aside for later.

Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down to medium low so that the stew is just simmering. Add your potatoes and slow cook for at least 2 hours with the lid slightly askew, or until the meat falls apart easily. Keep an eye on it as it cooks, and add splashes of water if you think it looks too dry.

Put your chopped garlic in the middle of a chopping board. Add most of your parsley leaves with a teaspoon of sea salt and ½ a teaspoon of black pepper. Chop everything together so you get a kinda chunky paste. Add this to the stew and stir through. Chop the last of your parsley leaves and sprinkle over before serving.

Adapted from http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/venison-recipes/venison-aamp-juniper-stew
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