Chuckwagon: Cowboy Beans
Cowboy Beans
Ingredients:
2 cups dried red beans
2 cups dried pinto beans
1 large yellow onion, chopped
3 tablespoons garlic, chopped
3 green chile peppers, grilled and diced
3 vine-ripened tomatoes, grilled, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
7 quarts water or vegetable stock
1 smoked ham hock
1 teaspoon toasted coriander seed
1 bay leaf
2 whole dried red chile peppers
Salt and pepper, to taste
Soak beans overnight in water to cover, changing water once; drain.
When cowboy beans are ready, saute onion, garlic, green chiles and tomatoes in oil in a large soup pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add water or stock and ham hock; bring to a boil. Add beans, coriander seed, bay leaf and dried chiles. Continue to boil for 30 minutes, then lower heat, cover and simmer for three to four hours, until beans are tender. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Makes 16 servings.
Chuckwagon: Fricasseed Racoon Recipe
Fricasseed Racoon Recipe
1 Raccoon
1 onion, sliced into rings
1/2 C vinegar
1 1/2 C water
2-3 T lard or other fat
1 bay leaf
For the Fricasseed Racoon Recipe skin the raccoon, remove the musk glands and dress out the carcass. Soak in salt water overnight to draw out the blood. Baking soda can be added to the water to remove any gamey smell. Cut raccoon into serving pieces and dredge in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Brown in hot fat. Add remaining ingredients. cover and simmer 2 hours or until tender. Thicken the juice with flour and water mixture for gravy. Serve hot with cornbread.
Chuckwagon: Dutch Oven Trout
The following recipe is for Dutch Oven Trout: As soon as possible after catching your trout, clean them and wipe the inside and outside of the trout with a cloth wet with vinegar water. Don’t put the trout in the water. Roll the trout in a mixture of flour, dry powdered milk, cornmeal, salt and pepper. Heat deep fat in a Dutch oven and fry until crisp and golden brown.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper.
Chuckwagon: Southern Fried Apples
To make Southern Fried Apples:
Fry 4 slices of bacon in a Dutch oven. Remove bacon.
Peel and slice 6 to 8 Granny Smith apples.
Put apples in Dutch over with bacon grease, cover and cook down the apples, but not to mush.
Serve topped with butter or cream and crumbled bacon. They’re great for breakfast or desert.
Chuckwagon: Cowboy Corn Muffin
COWBOY CORN MUFFIN FOR BREAKFAST
Farmer’s Almanac 1885
Pour one quart of boiling milk over one pint of fine cornmeal. While the mixture is still hot, add one tablespoonful of butter and a little salt, stirring the batter thoroughly. Let is stand until cool, then add a small cup of wheat flour and two well-beaten eggs. When mixed sufficiently, but the batter into well-greased shallow tins (or, better yet, into gem pans) and bake in a brisk over for one-half hour, or until richly browned. Serve hot.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Chuckwagon: Cowboy Pickled Eggs
Because it was difficult to keep eggs fresh without refrigeration, cowboy pickled eggs were a delicacy while on the trail. Once a cowboy got into town, he was able to get pickled eggs at his favorite tavern to add a little solid food to offset the beer and whiskey.
1-cup tarragon vinegar. ½ tsp celery seed.
1-cup water. 1 clove garlic, minced.
2 Tbs sugar. 2 bay leaves.
½ tsp salt. 12 shelled hard-boiled eggs.
Combine all ingredients in saucepan, except eggs. Simmer 30 minutes. Remove bay leaf. Cool. Pour over eggs in a crock or jar. Cover and refrigerate 2 to 3 days before eating.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Chuckwagon: Mincemeat Pie
With the holidays just around the corner we wanted to come up with something festive. So, here’s an “old timer’s” recipe for mincemeat pie.
Boil the neck meat of a cow, deer or elk until tender. Grind the meat. Cook with a cup of vinegar for about three hours. Add cooked apples, raisins, some allspice, cinnamon, cloves, molasses and black pepper. Heat thoroughly all ingredients. If you want a little kick, add some brandy or whiskey.
The ingredients can be stored in a covered bowl in a cool place until you are ready to use them. Just before placing the mincemeat in a pie crust you can add some freshly diced apples.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Chuckwagon: Chocolate Cowboy Caramels
Below is a candy recipe from the October 23, 1893 Albuquerque Evening Citizen.
Chocolate Cowboy Caramels – boil together a pound of white sugar, a quarter of a pound of chocolate, four tablespoons of molasses, a cup of sweet milk, and apiece of butter as big as a walnut. When it will harden in water, flavor with vanilla and pour on a buttered slab. When nearly cold, cut in squares.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Chuckwagon: Simple Cowboy Chicken
This is a recipe for simple cowboy chicken (when they had them) or any other game bird, used often by the frontier settlers. Start with 3 to 4 pounds of foul.
¼ tsp sage ¼ tsp pepper
½ tsp salt ¼ tsp allspice
¼ tsp basil ¼ tsp coriander
Wash the bird or birds, and pat dry. Sprinkle cavity with mixed seasoning, except basil. Place in Dutch oven and sprinkle with basil. Cover and bake for 4 to 6 hours until tender.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Chuckwagon: Lazy Cobbler
Here is an updated version of an old cowboy dessert Lazy Cobbler, sometimes called dump cake.
Use a 12” Dutch oven. (Serves 12.)
Prepare 15 charcoal briquettes for the bottom and 10 for the top.
2 cans sliced peaches with syrup. (You can also use pineapple.)
1 package of white or yellow cake mix.
1/3 stick of butter.
Ground cinnamon.
Place oven over hot bottom briquettes. Pour contents of peach cans into oven. Spread dry cake mix evenly over peaches. Sprinkle on cinnamon. Cut butter into thin slices and place on top. Put lid on top of oven, add hot briquettes and bake for about 45 minutes or until done.
If you would like to mix the peaches into the cake, do so when the cobbler is about half done, and continue baking until done.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Chuckwagon: Sourdough Cornbread
Here is a recipe to use some of the Sourdough starter you made from a previous post. This recipe for sourdough cornbread comes from the Hashknife Outfit of Winslow, Arizona.
1 cup starter.
Enough cornmeal to make a beatable batter
1 ½ cups milk
2 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs beaten
¼ cup warm melted butter, or fat
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon soda
Mix starter, cornmeal, milk, eggs and stir thoroughly in large bowl. Stir in melted butter, salt and soda. Pour into a 10 inch greased frying pan or Dutch oven, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Chuckwagon: Cowboy Sourdough Starter
Cowboy Sourdough Starter
Sourdough biscuits were a delicacy whether on the trail or at the ranch. Once a cook got a good sourdough starter he cherished it like a baby. On the trail he would store it in a dark, cool place in his chuckwagon. Here is one cooks recipe for a sourdough starter.
2 cups of lukewarm potato water.
2 cups flour.
1 tablespoon sugar.
Make potato water by cutting up 2 medium-sized potatoes into cubes, and boil in cups of water until tender. Remove the potatoes and measure out two cups of the remaining liquid. (The potatoes can be used for the evening meal.) Mix the potato water, flour and sugar into a smooth paste. Set the mixture in a warm place until it doubles its original size.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Chuckwagon Vocabulary
As with everything the cowboy did, when it came to eating, the cowboy developed his own chuckwagon vocabulary. Sometimes it was a perversion of a commonly used word. Other times it seemed to have no relationship to anything other than what was in a cowboy’s mind.
Here are a few of the terms cowboys used for various aspects of eating:
Airtights: Canned goods. Usually corn, peaches, tomatoes and milk.
Arbuckle’s axle grease: Arbuckle brand of coffee was the one most used on the range. Axle grease referred to the strength of the coffee.
Cow Grease: Butter.
Hen Fruit: Eggs.
Padding Out His Belly: Someone who eats anything, anytime.
Slow Elk: Someone else’s steer slaughtered for food.
Swamp Seed: Rice. A staple on the trail.
Texas Butter: Gravy made from steak grease and flour. If available, milk was used.
Chuckwagon: Baked Indian Pudding
BAKED INDIAN PUDDING
5 cups milk, scalded 4 cups
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
2/3 cup dark molasses
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp salt
4 tsb butter
To scalded milk, add sugar, cornmeal, molasses, spices, salt and butter.
Cook until thickened.
Put into greased baking dish.
Bake at 300 for 3 hours.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Curing Cowboy Bacon
For curing cowboy bacon add one peck salt to five hundred pounds pork. To five gallons water add:
4 pounds salt.
1 pound sugar.
1 teaspoonful salt petre.
Mix, and after sprinkling the fleshy side of the ham with the salt, pack in a tight barrel. Hams first, then shoulders, midlings. Pour over the brine; leave the meat in brine from four to seven weeks.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Chuckwagon: Cowboy Catsup
To make Cowboy Catsup take one gallon skinned tomatoes, three heaping tablespoonfuls of salt, some black pepper, two of allspice, three of ground mustard, half dozen pods of red pepper and add to a large pot.
Stew all slowly together in a quart of vinegar for three hours. Strain liquid, and simmer down to half gallon. Bottle hot and cork tight.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Chuckwagon: Graham Bread
GRAHAM BREAD
From an 1891 cookbook
Sift together one and a half pints of Graham flour, half pint wheat flour, one teaspoon salt, one teaspoon sugar and two teaspoons of baking powder. Stir in one and a quarter pints of milk until it becomes a soft dough.
Pour into a well-greased bread pan and bake in rather hot oven for forty minutes. Cover the pan with brown paper for the first fifteen minutes. Remove and continue baking.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Chuckwagon: Old West Cornbread
Old West Cornbread Recipe From an 1891 cookbook
Scald one quart of sifted corn meal with boiling water to make a thick batter. Add two tablespoonfuls of lard, half teaspoonful of salt, one tablespoonful of light brown sugar. Beat well.
When it is lukewarm add one cake of compressed yeast, dissolved in one cupful of lukewarm water. Beat together and set it to rise.
When light, pour in greased tins about half an inch thick. Bake in a moderate oven fifty minutes.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Chuckwagon: Making Tough Beef Tender
Here is an old west recipe for making tough beef tender:
1886 Daily Bee, Sacramento, California
Lay meat out smoothly and wipe it dry. Take a coffee cup full of fine breadcrumbs, a little salt and pepper, a little powdered thyme or other sweet herb, and just enough milk to moisten to a stiff dressing. Mix well and spread over the meat. Roll it up and tie it up with twine. Brown in salt pork fat, then put in half a pint of water. Cover and cook.
The toughest meat is made tender and nutritious when cooked in this way.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Chuckwagon: Scotch Cookies
SCOTCH COOKIES
1 cup sugar ¼ cup molasses
1 beaten egg ¾ cup melted shortening
2 tsp ginger 1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda 2 cups flour
Mix well; roll into balls. Roll balls in sugar and bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Chuckwagon: Old West Omelet
Here’s an 1883 receipt for making an old west omelet:
Break all eggs into one plate. Stir rather than beat them. For each three eggs add one teaspoon cold water. The cold water makes the omelet light and moist. Salt and pepper, and place finely chopped parsley on the eggs.
Put two ounces of sweet butter in pan. When the butter is very hot, pour in the eggs. The instant it is cooked on one side, turn it quickly and cook the other side. Double it over when you serve it, on a very hot plate.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Chuckwagon: Railroad Cake
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoonful of butter beaten to a cream
3 eggs beaten to a froth
1 cup flour
3 tablespoonsful sweet milk
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoonful soda
1/2 teaspoonful salt
Cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add eggs, blending well. In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt and baking soda. Add to creamed mix slowly, alternating with lemon juice and buttermilk. When well blended, turn out into two 8-inch cake pans that have been well-greased and floured. Place in a preheated oven. Done when an inserted toothpick comes out dry.
(from an 1888 cookbook)
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Chuckwagon: One Shot Pot
One Shot Pot:
Early in the morning cut up stew meat
in small pieces (beef or venison),
onions, garlic, celery (celery salt will do fine).
Cook until tender which will take about two hours.
Then add a can of tomatoes, 1 can of corn,
1 can of green beans and 1 can peas.
If no canned goods available you can add one cup macaroni,
1 cup rice and several diced potatoes.
This is called Slum-gullion in some parts of the West.
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
Chuckwagon: Apple Water
Apple Water:
Roast two tart apples until they are soft;
put them in a pitcher,
pour upon them a pint of cold water,
and let it stand in a cool place an hour.
It is used in fevers and eruptive diseases,
and does not require sweetening.
From An 1888 Cookbook
*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.
