Tag: venison

Hungarian style venison cutlets

This is another dish from George Lang’s book. The Cuisine of Hungary. My daughers loved it because of the green peppers. I have adapted slightly, as the original recipe did not suggest skinning the tomatoes, and I regretted not doing it. I served this with plain rice. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 600g venison, for example boned leg, sliced into cutlets and pounded to make them flat
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 2 tbsp lard
  • 1 large onion, peeled and diced
  • 1/2 tsp caraway seeds
  • 2 tsp hot paprika
  • 2 medium tomatoes, skinned and sliced
  • 800g large potatoes, peeled and cut into long segments.
  • 3 green peppers, sliced

METHOD: 

  • Prepare the cutlets, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Fry them in 1 tbsp lard and put them into the bottom of a large pan.
  • In a frying pan, melt the rest of the lard, and fry the diced onion until it starts to brown. 
  • Add the caraway seeds, and then a minute later add about 100ml cold water, stir and add the paprika. Cover the pan and cook for a couple of minutes.
  • Pour the onion mixture over the meat, as well as a little water, and cook over a low heat. Check every five to ten minutes, topping up with a little water if required.
  • Once the meat is almost done, add the tomatoes, peppers and tomatoes. The cooking time will depend on the meat, but if you gave it a good bashing, then it won’t take too long. 
  • Continue to cook for another half an hour or so, so that the potatoes are done. Adjust the seasoning before serving. 

Venison Tagine

I have no idea if this is authentic, but it is very good. It could be made with the spices listed here, or by substituting Ras el Hanout, a mixed spice blend from Morocco. It is derived from a similar recipe in Norman Tebbit’s book, The Game Cook. 

INGREDIENTS: 

  • 1kg diced venison
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 2 tsp hot paprika
  • olive oil
  • 2 onions, chopped
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • a handful of chopped mint
  • 1/2 tsp allspice
  • 2 tsp ground coriander
  • 1.5 tsp ground ginger
  • 2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 
  • (or use 2 tbsp ras el hanout instead of all of the spices)
  • 600ml stock
  • 250ml red wine
  • 4 tbsp tomato puree
  • 250g carrots, chopped into large chunks
  • 250g chopped butternut squash
  • Sweet peppers, chopped into large pieces. 
  • 250g ready-to-eat dried apricots
  • juice of a lemon
  • 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

METHOD:

  • Mix the venison with the salt, a pinch of black pepper and 1 tsp paprika, and leave to allow the flavour to develop for at least an hour. 
  • Set the oven to 160C
  • Heat the oil in a large casserole dish, and fry off the meat, remove and set aside. 
  • Add the onions to the oil, and as they start to soften, add the garlic, and fry for another five minutes or so. 
  • Add half of the mint and all of the spices, mix well, fry for a minute, and then add the red wine, stock, and tomato puree. Bring to a simmer and add back the venison, and the chopped carrots. 
  • Cook in the oven for around an hour and half to two hours. 
  • Add the butternut sqush, apricots and peppers, along with the lemon juice, the rest of the mint and cayenne pepper to taste. Return to the oven for another 30 minutes, so that the vegetables are done. 

 

Venison goulash

This is inspired by the excellent shops online, selling Hungarian food. I tried out ‘best of Hungary’ which did me proud, but there are many others. I would love to visit Hungary, I am googling the methods on ‘the man in seat 61’.  I bought a tube of goulash seasoning to appease my longing. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 tbsp beef dripping or lard
  • 1 large onion, diced
  • 200g celery, diced
  • 1 1/2 tsp caraway seeds, ground for preference
  • 2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 2 bayleaves
  • 2 1/2 tbsp hot smoked paprika (or use mild smoked paprika if you prefer) 
  • 900g stewing venison, in small cubes
  • 1 can tinned tomatoes
  • 2 red peppers, skinned and sliced into rings (or use 2 tbsp red pepper puree)
  • 1 tbsp goulash paste
  • 1 litre beef stock
  • 2 large carrots, peeled and sliced
  • 2 parsnips, peeled and sliced
  • 400g waxy potatoes, diced
  • 5 cloves of garlic, chopped
  • A bunch of parsley stems
  • a litre of hot water
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 100g csipetke – Hungarian pinched pasta – or use Italian soup pasta or orzo pasta. 

That seems like a lot of ingredients, but the recipe is easy. 

METHOD:

  • Heat the lard in a very large saucepan or casserole dish. Add the onions and celery and cook over a low-medium heat for around 8 minutes, stirring so they don’t burn.
  • Add the caraway seeds, black pepper and bayleaves and cook for a further two minutes.  
  • Turn off the heat, and add the paprika, and stir in well. Add a little stock or hot water to help it mix. It is a lot of paprika. 
  • Add the venison and garlic, stir it all together and cook over a medium heat until the meat starts to brown. 
  • Add the tomaotes, peppers, goulash paste and the stock. The meat should be covered well buy the stock. 
  • Cover and simmer for an hour and a half. 
  • Add the carrots, parsnips and potatoes, along with the parsley, and add enough hot water to cover the ingredients by a couple of centimeters. Season with salt, bring to the boil, and then simmer, uncovered, for around 15 minutes.
  • Add the csipetke pasta and boil uncovered for another 15 minutes. Check the seasoning before serving.  

This is excellent with red wine, and cabbage as a side-dish. 

Venison stew

This is a delicious stew with a lot of sauce, excellent with cous cous. I used a lot of celery, which went well with the rich taste of venison. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 700g diced venison e.g. from haunch or leg
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 4 sticks of celery, diced
  • 2 small onions, or one large onion, diced
  • 4 carrots, diced
  • 2 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 2 tsp herbe de Provence (I used a mixture of dried basil, dried oregano, dried savoury, dried thyme, dried rosemary, bay leaves)
  • 1 scant tsp salt
  • black pepper
  • 1 400g tin of tomatoes
  • 3 dashes of Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 litre of stock

METHOD:

  • Dice the venison, and fry in a casserole pan in hot oil until browned, and then set aside.
  • In the same pan, fry the onion, celery and carrots over a medium heat for around 10 minutes.
  • Add the garlic, herbs and salt and pepper, and fry for a minute or two, before adding the tomatoes, stock and Worcestershire sauce, and bringing to a simmer. 
  • Add the venison, stir together and then cook in the oven at 140C for 3 hours, or until the venison is tender.

You could add dumplings or potatoes. The potatoes are best added to the stew about 40 minutes before serving. Dumplings take about 30 minutes to cook in a stew. 

Venison slow-cooked in red wine

This is a very simple French recipe for cooking a piece of venison weighing around 1kg all in one piece. There is the small matter of remembering to marinade it for a day first, but there is remarkably little fuss. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 900g venison for stewing, all in one piece and tied in an oval shape. 
  • 4 tbsp port
  • 4 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tbsp white flour
  • 1 large onion, sliced finely
  • pork or bacon rind, in one piece
  • A little red wine if required, around 200ml
  • salt and pepper

METHOD:

  • Put the venison into a container with a lid, along with the port, vinegar and olive oil. The venison should just fit. Marinade for 24 hours.
  • Take out the meat, pat it dry and coat it with white flour. Put it into a dish with a lit that is just the right size, and pour over the marinade and season with salt and pepper. Cover with a layer of sliced onions, and then the pork rind. 
  • Cover with a lid and cook in a slow oven, around 130 to 140C for 4 hours. You may need to check up on the venison during the cooking. If it is looking a little dry, add some red wine. 

When it is cooked it will be very tender and shred easily. Serve on hot plates with celeriac mash, a green vegetable, and with red currant or rowan jelly on the side. 

Venison Pörkölt (Hungarian venison and onion stew)

I have quite a bit of South Uist Venison in the freezer, so be prepared for some variations on this theme. I made this rich Hungarian stew last night, and it is delicious. It is usually served with dumplings. The key is to stew the onions very slowly, preferably in lard, and to add the paprika fairly late in the proceedings. There will seem to be an unfeasibly large quantity of onions, but don’t worry, this works. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 60g lard
  • 900kg venison, cut into slabs about 1 inch thick, and about the size of half a postcard
  • salt and pepper
  • 4 onions, chopped (about 750g)
  • 2 tsp caraway seed
  • 2 tbsp sweet paprika
  • 2 tsp hot paprika 
  • 1 tsp dried marjoram
  • 1 can chopped tomatoes
  • 500ml beef stock or venison stock
  • 300ml red wine

METHOD:

  • Melt the large in a large casserole dish, and brown the venison in batches, and set aside on a dish. You can season the venison as it cooks
  • In the same pan, add the onions and caraway seeds, and cook over a medium heat. Stir often and cook until the onions are browned. This might take up to 30 minutes. 
  • Add the venison, and all of the other ingredients and bring back to a simmer. Cook in the oven at 140C for a couple of hours
  • Make your favourite dumplings, if this is your thing. I had mashed potato and celeriac. 
  • When the stew is done, break up the meat a bit with a pair of forks. Serve with the dumplings and sour cream for those that wish to add it. 

Spicy venison meatballs in a tomato sauce

I made this with some left-over roast venison, but you can also make it with venison mince. I have found that having a mechanical mincer is a game-changer. I think this would also work really well with minced beef. The recipe is from Norman Tebbit’s book, The Game Cook. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 450g minced venison
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 50g breadcrumbs (I used panko)
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 red chilli, finely chopped
  • 1 egg
  • ground black pepper
  • chopped parsley
  • salt 
  • olive oil
  • Another onion, finely chopped
  • 1 can of chopped tomatoes
  • 4 tbsp tomato puree
  • 300ml red wine
  • 2 tsp sriracha sauce, or 1/2 tsp paprika and 1/4 tsp chilli powder
  • salt and pepper

METHOD:

  • preheat the oven to 180C
  • Start making the tomato sauce. Fry one of the chopped onions in olive oil over a medium heat. 
  • When the onion is soft and beginning to brown, add the tomatoes, tomato puree, red wine and sriracha sauce. Season with salt and pepper if required. Simmer over a low heat while you make the meat balls. If it looks too thick, add a little stock or water. I like to blend the sauce with a soup blender. 
  • Mix the minced meat with the onion, beaten egg, cumin, coriander, chilli, chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Mix well by hand and then mix in and combine the bread crumbs. 
  • Form the mixture into golf-balls (or slightly smaller). Fry in olive oil until browned. They should be handled carefully as they have a tendency to fall apart.
  • Put the meatballs in a casserole dish with the tomato sauce, put the lid on and cook in the oven for around 40 minutes. 
  • Serve over spaghetti, with a green vegetable on the side, and a grating of parmesan on top. 

Roast Venison with red wine and rosemary

I’ve made this twice now, using a large piece of loin from a red deer. This is a very easy and quick recipe, good with mustard mashed potatoes, and green vegetables. The timings given are for a rare to medium rare roast. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 700 to 800g venison loin or haunch
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 to 4 carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks
  • 1/2 celeriac, peeled and cut into large dice
  • 1 red onion, peeled and cut into 8+ wedges
  • 2 tsp red current jelly
  • 1 to 2 large sprigs of rosemary
  • 100ml red wine
  • 250ml stock
  • 1 tsp cornflour (optional)

METHOD:

  • Preheat the oven to 220C
  • Heat the oil in a large oven-safe pan, and brown the meat on all sides, and season with salt and pepper.
  • Pack the chopped vegetables around the meat, and roast in the oven for 15 minutes
  • After 15 minutes, turn the heat down to 180C and roast for another 20 minutes (less for a smaller cut of meat)
  • Remove the pan from the oven, and take the meat out. Put it on a dish and cover with a lid or tin foil.
  • In the pan, add the wine, redcurrant jelly and rosemary to the vegetables, and bring to the boil, stirring to mix in any bits of meat from the bottom of the pain.
  • Simmer for a couple of minutes, and then add the stock and cornflour. Simmer for another ten minutes and adjust the seasoning.
  • Serve the venison sliced with the gravy and vegetables, mustard mash and a green vegetable such as cabbage or broccoli.

Venison in red wine

This is a recipe from Elizabeth David ‘French Provincial Cooking’. We are making our way through the prodigious quantities of food in the freezer, and this time I hauled out a stew pack of venison. This was easy and tasty, I used the timer function on my oven to cook it slowly through the afternoon. 

INGREDIENTS: 

  • Around 900g to 1kg venison. If it is in one piece, tie it to a sausage shape
  • 4 tbsp full-bodied red wine
  • 4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp flour (I used gluten-free flour)
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 3 rashers of streaky bacon 
  • 1 onion, sliced

METHOD:

  • Put the venison in a container with a lid, and add the red wine, vinegar and olive oil. Leave to marinade overnight. 
  • Put the meat in a smallish casserole dish with the marinade. In a small cup, mix the flour with a little marinade to make a paste, and stir that in, also add the bay leaves and salt and pepper. 
  • Over the top of the meat, layer slices of onion and then streaky bacon. 
  • Cover, and cook at 150C for four hours. 

We served this with fried mushrooms and potato and celeriac mash. 

Slow-cook shank of venison

I made the weekly raid on the freezer for my birthday evening meal, and pulled out a shank of red deer venison. I hadn’t cooked this cut before, so I did a bit of googling, looked at the ingredients in the fridge and then made this braised venison. I think it would have worked well for up to two shanks, so we have ended up with a very tasty gravy for a second meal. 

I’ve got really into using gluten-free flour as a thickener for stews and soups, the consistency of the gravy is good, not gluey at all. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 or 2 red deer venison shanks (see above)
  • 2 shallots or 1 small onion, finely chopped
  • 1 large carrot, peeled and diced
  • 2 small or 1 large stick of celery, diced
  • approx 50g butter
  • olive oil
  • 1 can chopped tomatoes
  • a bay leaf
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • 250ml red wine
  • 250ml vegetable stock
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 tsp juniper berries, bruised in a pestle and mortar
  • 1 tbsp gluten-free flour

METHOD:

  • Season the venison well with salt and pepper. 
  • In a pan that is big enough to cook the shanks, melt the butter in the olive oil. Set the oven to 150C
  • Over a moderate heat, brown the shanks, one at a time, and then set aside. 
  • Reduce to a low heat, add the onions, carrots and celery to the same pan, and cook until softened.
  • Add the red wine, and reduce 
  • Add the stock, bay, thyme, and juniper and tomatoes and cook down for around 15 minutes. This will give a better consistency and taste at the end. 
  • Add the venison shanks, bring back to a simmer and then cook in the oven for 4 hours. For the last 30 minutes of cooking, prepare any side dishes such as mash, cabbage, etcetera. 
  • At the end of cooking, remove the shanks from the pan, and mix the flour with a spoon or two of the gravy before adding to the pan and bringing to a simmer for around 5 minutes. 

And serve.