Chef Salad with Big Game Meat

[WyoDoug]

When making chef salad with wild game meat, I use 3/8 grind and grind the meat only once, no fat added. Cook the meat in a skillet ahead of time, seasoned with kosher salt and coarse grind pepper.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds Romaine lettuce (you can use iceberg, but I use Romaine because my wife can't handle iceberg)
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup dressing of your choice, such as shallot or herb vinaigrette, ranch, or blue cheese. My wife likes ranch and I like blue cheese and both are great for this)
• 4 ounces cheddar coarse shredded
• 4 ounces cooked ground meat, coarse ground
• 2 hard-cooked eggs, shelled, cut into wedges
• 1 ripe Hass avocado, diced
• 16 vine-ripened cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
• 2 sweet cucumbers, sliced
• 1 can sliced black olives
• 1 small (1 - 1 1/2 pound) pkg sliced mushrooms
• 1 cup toasted croutons

Directions

1. Tear the lettuce into bite-sized pieces and put into a large mixing bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
2. Add the cheese, meat, eggs, and avocado, like the spokes of a wheel, on top of each salad. Scatter the tomatoes, cucumbers, olives and mushrooms and mix until evenly distributed.
3. Serve and pass the remaining dressing at the table.

You can mix the dressing into the salad but both my wife and I like different dressings so we add our own at serving time.