Emily's Mule Deer Chili Verde

Recently, my bride pulled together one of the more delicious preparations of stewing cuts of venison, chili verde.  About a month ago, we pulled the rest of the tomatillos off the plants in our gardens.  We would have had more of the green "husk tomatoes," but the variety we grew was popular with the toddlers in our social circle.  They would grab the fruit, which looked like little hot air balloons, rip off the husk, take one sweet juicy bite, then throw the rest in the bean patch.

If you are going to stew chunks of venison, I think neck and shank make the best cuts to use.  The connective tissues, which are prevalent in those parts of a deer or elk, are tough until they are cooked low and slow.  Two hundred seventy five degrees, two or three hours, and some kind of cooking liquid is the recipe to turn tough tissue in to tender, gelatinized, flavorful morsels.

Emily's approach for the chili verde was as follows (This is simple and wicked good):

• Brown about 1lb of stew meat seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, put it in crock pot with about enough tomatillos to equal roughly the same volume of the meat
• Brown 1 large onion and 6 small poblano, coarsely chopped
• When onions are translucent add them to the crock pot.
• Deglaze the skillet with half a can of beer and pour all the goodies and the rest of the beer into the crock pot.  If you don't want to use beer, use game stock, beef stock, vegetable stock, etc.
• Turn on the crock pot and try to forget about it for a few hours.  Soon enough, the dish will smell so good, you won't be able to forget about it anymore.  This is a good time to start sampling the broth.
• Serve with warmed tortillas.