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How to cook reindeer from frozen: recipe

The Local Sweden
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How to cook reindeer from frozen: recipe
Tjälknöl, served with vegetables. Photo: John Duxbury/Swedish Food

Cast Rudolph and his friends to the back of your mind and feast on this traditional dish known as tjälknöl in Swedish. Our recipe was recommended by food writer John Duxbury.

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Tjälknöl is an ingenious way of cooking a large piece of meat. Tjälknöl is really two words: tjäle means ground frost and knöl means tuber, like a potato tuber.
 
The result is an absolutely stunning piece of meat, quite dense, slightly salty and delicately flavoured. 
 
Summary
 
Serves: 8 or more people
 
Preparation time: 15 minutes
 
Cooking time: At least 12 hours
 

Sami reindeer herding. Photo: Hans-Olof Utsi/imagebank.sweden.se
 
Ingredients
 
At least 1kg (2lb) frozen boneless piece of reindeer
 
1000 ml (4 cups) water
 
250g (1 cup) salt
 
2 tbsp sugar
 
1 bay leaf
 
1 tsp crushed black pepper
 
2 tbsp crushed juniper berries
 
Method
 
1. Put the frozen meat on a rack in an oven heated to 75C (170F) or as near to that as you can get.
 
2. After two or three hours insert a meat thermometer into the thickest part of the meat. The meat will be ready when the thermometer reads 65C (150F). Allow about one hour per 100 grams (15 minutes per ounce), but be guided entirely by the meat thermometer as ovens vary so much at low temperatures.
 
3. When the meat is cooked, mix the water, salt, sugar, bay leaves, black pepper and juniper berries in a saucepan and bring to the boil.
 
4. Place the cooked meat in a bowl just big enough to hold it or use a large polythene bag and pour the hot marinade over the meat, ensuring that all the meat is covered. Put a lid on the bowl or tie the bag and leave to cool completely for 4 or 5 hours.
 
5. Remove the meat from its marinade, pat dry and slice as thinly as possible.
 
Serving
 
Tjälknöl should be served cold and sliced as thinly as possible. It is usually accompanied by potatisgratäng (potato gratin) and/or fried diced root vegetables and rårörda lingon (stirred lingonberries) and/or syltad svamp (pickled mushrooms).
 
Tips
 
- As ovens vary a lot, particularly at low temperatures, keep an an eye on the meat the first time you try this dish. Once you know your oven you should be able to cook the meat overnight.
 
- Although this recipe was originally developed for cooking reindeer it also works well with venison, elk (moose) or beef.
 
- The meat keeps well for several days in a fridge if wrapped in foil.
 
This recipe by Christer Frånlund was originally published on food writer John Duxbury's website Swedish Food

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