Category: 2.13 Venison

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Pizza Toppings

This is a list of the toppings and mixes I use for my pizza base. I’ll typically pick two different ones to do at once.

Venison and Blue Cheese: 1/2 onion sliced; 100g of venison fillet into thin strips; 100g soft blue cheese as small chunks; 1/2 a mozzarella as small cubes.

Add the onion first, then venison, then cheese. First had this in Finland – awesome combo.

Balsamic Onions: finely slice an onion and soften with olive oil and 1dstspn of really good balsamic – drive off the acetic acid, then top the pizza and sprinkle 1/2 a mozzarella as small cubes.

If you use a watery balsamic add 4-5times as much and cook it off part way before adding the onion to the pan.

Ham and Pineapple: 1/2 onion finely sliced; 3 slices Parma ham torn into pieces; 2 pineapple rings cut into small pieces and patted dry; 1/2 a mozzarella as small cubes.

A classic, you can do it like this or if you want you can use a tomato base as well – cook down passata to 1/3 to 1/2 volume and a couple of tblspn will cover the base.

Partridge and Pear: 2 partridge breasts cut as thin strips; a ripe pear, peeled cored and cut into ribbons with a potato peeler; 2 smoked streaky bacon rashers cut as tiny pieces; a 1/4 onion or shallot finely sliced, 1/2 a mozzarella as small cubes. (optional add a few cubes of soft blue cheese or goats cheese)

Smoked Bacon and Mushroom: 3 rashers smoked bacon cut into thin strips, fine slices of 1/2 a portabella mushroom, small handful of fresh basil leaves ripped in half, 50ml thick tomato sauce, 1/2 a mozzarella as small cubes

Partridge and Chilli: 1 partridge breast as small batons, 1 chilli finely chopped, 50ml thick tomato sauce, 1 small sprig of thyme finely chopped, a small handful of rocket, 1/2 a mozzarella as small cubes. (optional – goats cheese)

Margarita: 50ml thick tomato sauce, small handful of torn basil leaves, pepper, grating of parmesan and 1/2 a mozzarella as small cubes.

Courgette and Bacon: 1 or two small (baby) courgette as ribbons (use a potato peeler), one or two courgette flowers ripped, small handful of basil leaves ripped, 2 slices smoked streaky bacon as fine baton. Tiny drizzle of tarragon oil, 1/2 mozzarella as small cubes.

Rocket, pear and ham: 3 slices Parma ham torn, 1 small dessert pear peeled cored and as fine slices, handful of rocket, 1/2 a mozzarella as small cubes.

Venison tomato and chilli: 100g venison sirloin as thin batons, 1 finely chopped chilli, 1/2 finely sliced onion, a few fine slices of a beef tomato patted dry, 1/2 mozzarella as small cubes.

Prawns, rocket and garlic: 1/2 pack of prawns, 1/2 onion finely sliced, 30ml olive oil with 2 crushed garlic cloves, handful of rocket, 1/2 mozzarella as small cubes.

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Venison Wellington

A twist on a classic, and frankly one with oodles of online recipes telling you how. This one is mine.

That’s dinner sorted…

This is a recipe where you need to use fillet – venison fillet is much smaller than beef, so I use 12cm sections for individual wellingtons. This recipe is for 2 individual wellingtons.

Prep: 10-15min Cook: 18min

Ingredients

2 sections of venison fillet

175g puff pastry

4 slices Parma ham

175g mushrooms finely chopped

English mustard

Ground pepper

Egg whisked for an egg wash

Method

  1. Dry fry the mushrooms to remove as much liquid as possible, do not let them brown, you want concentrated flavour, not fried flavour. Add a grind of pepper.
  2. Pre-heat the oven to 225c (fan)
  3. Seal the venison by searing each side for 15sec in a hot pan (with a tiny bit of smoking olive oil). Just enough to seal and colour. Make sure the pan is really hot.
  4. Lay out some cling film, then 2 pieces of Parma ham as a sheet, spread half the mushrooms. Smear the venison with 1/2tsp mustard, places on the bed of mushrooms and wrap in the ham (using the cling film helps).
  5. Roll out half the puff pastry and wrap the venison parcel (minus the cling film…) seal with egg wash, wash the parcel and gently score with a knife.
  6. Cook for 18 min.

If you do this right the venison is rare but not at all bloody and cuts with a fork. No salt is needed – it all comes from the ham, and the other flavours add an earthy note, keeping the venison as the star.

The pastry is thin – on purpose, its to seal and support, you don’t want to cut in and just get pastry – well if you do use more.

Serve with luxury, Dauphinoise potatoes perhaps, maybe mushrooms in a brandy cream sauce – you get the picture.

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Venison and Pumpkin pie

Venison and pumpkin is a great combination. I use a hard squash (crown prince) so butternut is a good substitute.

waiting for the veg…

Prep: 10min Cook: 40min overall, 20 on the stove, 20 in the oven

Ingredients

200g venison (leg) as cubes

200g pumpkin cubed

1/2 onion chopped

175g puff pastry

50ml red wine

1 dstspn bisto gravy granules

1tsp Worcestershire sauce

salt and pepper

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 225c (fan)
  2. put the onions, pumpkin and venison in a hot pan and soften the onions, seal the venison and slightly colour the pumpkin.
  3. mix the bisto with about 150ml water, add the wine and Worcestershire sauce, stir well and add to the pan.
  4. cook for 15 min on a medium heat, either reducing the gravy or adding a little water to ensure a good thick consistency. Salt and pepper to taste.
  5. Top with rolled puff pastry and is you like you can wash this with a little milk or egg white. Make sure you pierce it a few times.
  6. Place in the oven for 18-20min until the pastry is risen and crispy.

You can see there is not masses of gravy when it’s cooked – that’s to stop the pastry going soggy. It also means the flavours are concentrated.

Pre-frying the pumpkin also intensifies the flavour, but if you use a softer squash it can make them break down more in the mix. I cook the filling on the stove in a cast iron pan so I can just lay the pastry on top and cook it without transfer – less washing up, but up to you.

You can play with the recipe. If you want to bulk it up and make it a one dish dinner you can add cubed potato. I wouldn’t recommend adding neep (swede), but mushrooms also work as an addition.

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Venison and pumpkin curry

A simple and quick curry, I use a courgette base for the sauce, but you can use tomatoes or lentils, both work really well. You can cook the whole thing while the rice is cooking…

Prep: 5min Cook: 12min

Ingredients

200g venison, cubed

200g pumpkin, cubed

1/2 onion chopped

250ml courgette puree (base)

2 chillies (chopped)

2 garlic cloves (crushed)

6 cumin seeds (husks discarded)

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp corriander

1 tsp garam masala

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 dstspn sour cream

salt & pepper

Method

  1. in a hot frying pan with a little olive oil seal the venison, colouring the outside and reserve in a bowl.
  2. Add the onions and pumpkin to the pan, fry until they just start to colour.
  3. Add all the spices and fry for 20 sec until you can smell they have cooked.
  4. Add the courgette and a pinch of salt, cook for 8min on a medium heat until the pumpkin is cooked.
  5. Turn down low. Add the venison, cream and season with salt and pepper to taste.
  6. Serve on a bed of rice or with naan bread.
Simple and tasty
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Winter Lasagne

I’ve got two lasagne recipes, one for winter and one for summer. They differ in the richness of the sauce and the use of seasonal veg. This is the winter one, and has a couple of variations. The cooking times are based on using fresh pasta sheets. If you use dry you’ll need to soak/pre-cook I guess.

Prep: 10min Cook: 10min Making the layers: 3min Cooking: 18min

Lasagne just out of the oven

Ingredients white sauce

25g butter

1 heaped dstspn plain flour

500ml milk

50g grated cheddar

1 chopped mozzarella

20g grated parmesan

2 sheets Leerdammer chopped

Ingredients for layers

200g venison mince (can use beef)

200g cubed squash (crown prince/butternut)

1 chopped onion

500ml passata

1 basil cube

2 crushed garlic cloves

50ml red wine

Method sauce

  1. melt the butter into a small pan, mix in the flour and cook gently.
  2. slowly add in the milk stirring the ensure a smooth white sauce. Add the cheddar, Leerdammer and 1/2 the parmesan.
  3. Season with salt and pepper.

Method filling

  1. Fry the onion, mince and squash in olive oil. When the mince is browned add the garlic and basil.
  2. After a few second to fry off the garlic add the passata and red wine and cook until you have a thick bolognaise type sauce. Season with salt and pepper.

Method – layering up and cooking

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 225c (fan)
  2. put a thin layer of the bolognaise in the bottom of a lasagne dish,
  3. cover with fresh sheet pasta.
  4. repeat this (so two layers of bolognaise) then do one layer with about 1/2 the white sauce.
  5. Follow this up with 1 more layer of the bolognaise before topping out with the rest of the white sauce.
  6. Sprinkle of the parmesan and mozzarella.
  7. Cook for 18 min until golden.
Just going in the oven

This is a winter dish – the cheeses and the red wine add lots of richness. I use about 300g fresh pasta rolled into sheets to give me the right amount for this dish (see the pasta recipe), and remember that weight includes the water…

I always like to add one layer of the white sauce into the middle – to me it adds something to the overall unctuousness. If you want to (and it’s great), for the layer of white sauce, mix this with 150ml of courgette base/soup. You heat the courgette, make sure it’s seasoned then mix with some white sauce. This bulks the dish up and makes it even richer.

To tone down the richness you can omit the red wine, and mozzarella.

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Shepherds / Cottage Pie

Okay so this is the basic ‘mash on top of a pie’ dish. Shepherds is when it’s lamb, cottage is when it’s beef. You’ll be unsurprised to know I make the cottage pie with Venison…

The key difference between the two is the gravy. For cottage pie you want a richer gravy, so I use venison stock and add red wine. For the shepherds pie I keep the gravy simpler, using a pheasant stock as the base, or just a bouillon base. You can substitute carrots for squash (especially a firmer squash like crown prince, but don’t be tempted by swede or turnip – they change the taste way too much.

Prep: 10min Cook; 40min (20 on the hob and 20 in the oven)

Ingredients – Shepherds pie

200g lamb mince

300g peeled potatoes roughly chopped

1 onion chopped

1 good sized carrot diced or 120g squash diced

250ml stock (pheasant or veg)

1 heaped dstspn bisto

1 dstspn Worcestershire sauce

salt, pepper, butter

Ingredients – Cottage pie

200g venisonmince

300g peeled potatoes roughly chopped

1 onion chopped

1 good sized carrot diced or 120g squash diced

200ml stock (venison or beef)

50ml red wine

1 heaped dstspn bisto

1 dstspn Worcestershire sauce

salt, pepper, butter

Before the mash

Perhaps the most important thing to get the pie right is the gravy. You don’t want too much or it cooks through the mash and makes it sloppy. But too little is just as bad – a dry pie is no fun at all. The picture shows a shepherds pie pre mash – I cooked it in the cast iron pan so I can get the gravy just right before adding the mash – no guessing – if I transfer it to a crock pot for the oven I can subtly change the balance and I don’t want that.

The filling is a firm layer, the gravy comes up to a few mm lower than the top of the layer – for me that’s perfect. And then…

Just out of the oven

You can see that even with that little gravy some has bubbled up and onto the mash and browned – that’s fine, because there is still plenty in the pie and the mash hasn’t gone watery at the edges – so now I tuck in.

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Rustic pasta

This is a firm favourite of mine, simple, lots of taste and warming for a winters night after a hard day outside. I use either meatballs made from venison or lamb, or if it’s a quick meal I’m after then I’ll chop up some sausages into 2cm pieces and use them as my meatballs.

The thing to remember here is a good quality balsamic vinegar, I use Belazu – it’s a real luxury but you only need a teaspoon for this dish, for basic balsamic you’d need at least a table spoon and it would take a lot more cooking down. If you’ve not got Balsamic then use a good glug of red wine – the richer the better, claret or rioja. Add this with the passata and cook it for an extra couple of minutes.

Ingredients

200g pasta (shells or twists ideally)

200g meatballs

1 onion finely chopped

1 finely chopped pepper

500ml passata

a generous teaspoon of balsamic vinegar

1 clove garlic

grated parmesan, salt, pepper

Method

  1. Cook the pasta in boiling salted water.
  2. While it’s cooking heat some olive oil with the balsamic vinegar in a frying pan, to drive off the acetic acid.
  3. Add the onion and pepper and soften them, then add the meatballs and seal and brown them. It will all take a glorious colour from the balsamic.
  4. add the garlic for 20sec to cook before adding the passata. Cook this for 5min to thicken the sauce and ensure the meatballs are cooked through.
  5. Season to taste, mix through the drained pasta and serve with parmesan and a good grind of black pepper.

If you want to use fresh pasta then I use linguini, it’s easy to make and works well with the sauce. I’d make 175g flour plus the egg to make a portion.

If you want to be chefy about it seal the meat balls first then put them aside, adding them back in a couple of minutes before the end – it keeps them very tender, but if your meatballs are good it makes less difference.

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Venison Tandoori

This completes my tandoori recipes, similar but different to my pheasant recipe , so not trying to be authentic – just after something that tastes good to me.

Best starting the marinade after breakfast and cooking that evening, awesome from the BBQ.

Prep: 5 min Marinade: 2+ hours Prep: 5 min Cooking: 24 min

Ingredients

  • 300g cubed venison (leg or blade)
  • 1 green pepper cut into large squares
  • 1 onion cut into large squares
  • 250g tomatillos (halved or as a cooked paste)

For the marinade

  • 1/2 tub sour cream (about 125ml)
  • 1 tsp coriander
  • 2 cayenne chilli finely chopped or 1 tsp chilli powder
  • 2 tsp cumin
  • 1 dstspn garam masala
  • 2 garlic cloves crushed or chopped
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika
  • juice of 1/2 a lime
  • salt and pepper

Method

  1. Mix all the marinade ingredients in a bowl then add the pieces of meat and stir to give them a good coating. Cover and put in the fridge for as long as you like (6 hours is good). When your ready start on step 2.
  2. Preheat the oven to 225oc (fan).
  3. Make up skewers of onion, pepper and the marinaded meat. place these over a baking tray and pour on any remaining marinade. Drizzle with a little vegetable oil.
  4. Add 50ml water and the tomatillos directly to the baking tray – this is to steam the meat as it cooks and with the marinade drips makes the sauce.
  5. Place in the oven to cook for 24min, baste every 6 minutes and turn at least once during the cooking time.
  6. Take out of the oven and empty the skewers onto the plate, put the baking tray on the hob on a high heat (8/10 on my induction) and stir briefly to mix the remaining water, sauce and roasted tomatillos. Remove the skins and drizzle on top of the tandoori.
Ready to go in the oven

Things to think about…

I normally serve it with a little rice (often flavoured with a cardamon pod in the water), a potato or pumpkin curry and poppadum’s or naan, along with dips – basically I love to have a taps style curry rather than a one dish meal.

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Simple Venison Couscous

Warm and wonderful on a cold night. A one pot dish that takes very little prep and is packed with flavour. Best cooked in a Tagine, or failing that a wide risotto pan with a lid.

Prep: 5min Cook: 10min

Ingredients

200g couscous

200g venison rump cut as batons

1 pepper chopped as small slices

1/2 onion finely sliced

50g chopped dried fruit (apricots, dates, figs, sultanas – any or all)

1 dstspn cumin

1 dstspn rose petal paste

1 or 2 chillies finely chopped

500ml stock (ideally venison)

Salt and pepper

Method

  1. heat some olive oil in the pan, when it’s really hot sear the venison for 10-15 sec before turning – be brave. reserve the venison.
  2. Add the onion and pepper, cook in the olive oil until softening, then add the spices and fry for a further 30sec.
  3. Add the stock, fruit and couscous, turn the heat down and cook for 5-6 min until the couscous is cooked and the juices are all absorbed.
  4. test for salt, add the venison and some fresh black pepper and serve immediately.
Venison Couscous ready to eat

This is a basic and very tasty couscous. The rose adds a lovely flavour, you can use rose harissa instead of the rose and chillies – up to you. If you want more bulk you can add some small cubes of squash. For a bit of crunch you can mix a few pine nuts through hat the end, or for a richer nuttier flavour add a dstspn of ground almonds with the couscous.

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Venison Chilli

One of the few ‘ready meals’ I make in big batches and freeze. While it does rob it of a little heat, you can always add fresh chilli either at the end or during the reheating, and it’s best cooked for a long time – so making batches is the right thing to do.

Prep: 30min Cook: 100min Cool: 90min

Ingredients

1.5 kg venison mince

3.5 l passata or 9 tins of chopped tomatoes

8 onions, diced

4 carrots, diced or grated

3 tins of kidney beans washed well

12 chillies, chopped, ideally two types

1 tblspn cumin

1 dstspn paprika

1 dstspn fresh ground pepper

1 dstspn salt

50ml olive oil

75g dark chocolate (optional)

Method

  1. Add the olive oil and onions and carrots to a large pan and cook until the onions start to turn translucent and soften.
  2. Add the venison, and cook until the venison mince is browned and starts giving up juices.
  3. put the cumin, chilli, pepper and paprika into the pot stirring well. After about 30 seconds you’ll smell the change in the cumin and chilli –
  4. Immediately add the pasata/tomatoes, stir, bring to the simmer then turn right down (3/10 on induction), with the lid nearly on and cook for 90min stirring occasionally
  5. If you’re adding the chocolate add it now grated and stir through.
  6. Add salt to taste, and check the depth of flavour, add more cumin if needed, and more chilli until it’s almost too hot for your taste.
  7. Place the pot to one side, off the heat, stir through the kidney beans and leave to cool before bagging as 400ml potions (you should have 10-12 of these)

Serve with rice (brown rice is good), sprinkle extra chilli if you want it or black pepper, then grated cheddar, then sour cream, and finally a dust of paprika.

Venison is the king of meat for chilli in my eyes, you can use beef mince, but venison packs a greater flavour. If you use beef add a couple of stock cubes and halve the salt to get more flavour in there.

The chocolate add an extra layer to the taste, it also tones down the chilli a little, so mix it before you test for heat. And talking of heat, I tend to use whatever chillies I’ve grown. My ideal is 2/3 cayenne and 1/3 a hotter variety like a pubescens chilli. Or if I buy them in then a couple of scotch bonnet. Mixing chillies really improves the flavour as each pepper is distinctive, but you have to taste it through the heat to really get that.

If you’re not a fan of hot you can reduce the chillies, but to keep the flavour I would add a couple of finely chopped sweet peppers with the onions. Marconi peppers for preference but red bell peppers will do just fine. That’s a personal taste thing, I think Marconi peppers go better with chilli hotness than red bell peppers, and green peppers would be the wrong taste.