Wild food chef Mike Robinson shares one of his delicious venison recipes with us.
Ingredients
For the venison
1 haunch of venison
Butter
Garlic
Thyme
For the sauce
4kg venison bones
3kg venison trimmings
1kg shallots, sliced
2.5 litres red wine
6kg chicken stock
2kg veal stock
6 juniper berries
500g sliced button mushrooms
Redcurrant jelly
For the red cabbage purée
1.5kg red cabbage, shredded
200g red onion, sliced
40g ginger, diced
10g red chilli, diced
50g garlic, diced
100g dried apricots
80g raisins
8g mixed spice
5 juniper berries
3g cinnamon
80g brown sugar
130ml sherry vinegar
1 litre chicken stock
600ml red wine
For the dirty mash
1kh waxy potatoes
500g butter
Double cream
Method
Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees.
Place your venison in a large roasting pan. Melt butter with garlic and thyme until foaming. Cover your venison in the butter and roast until the core temperature reaches 47 degrees, which will take around5 minutes per portion. Rest the venison until the core temperature reaches around 56degrees, which will take around 5 minutes per portion.
Meanwhile, make the red cabbage purée. Sweat the cabbage, onion, ginger, garlic, chilli, apricot and raisins together for 5minutes. Add the spices, sugar and wine and cook for a further 10 minutes. Add the chicken stock and when the cabbage is completely cooked, blitz in a blender until smooth.
For the sauce, roast off the bones in hot oven. Sweat the shallots down until they’re golden in a heavy based pan until soft, once the bones are roasted add to the pot. If the bottom of the pan begins to get dark, add a little water to deglaze.
Reduce the wine over a low heat by around four-fifths and add this with the stocks to the bones and cook for 45 minutes.
Add the sliced mushrooms and cook for 20 minutes before straining. Add 2tablespoons of redcurrant jelly and reduce to desired consistency and taste. Season with Minus 8 concord vinegar to taste.
For the dirty mash, bake the potatoes in the skins for 90 minutes at 140 degrees sat on top of rock salt. Once cooked, scrape the flesh from the skin and pass through a ricer. Weigh the potato and then weigh 50% of that weight of salted butter. So for 1kg of potato you will need 500g cold butter, cubed. Add a small amount of cream to loosen the mix slightly over a hot stove then add the butter in small cubes one at a time beating together with a spatula. If the mash becomes greasy add a touch of milk to help emulsify. Do not get the mash hotter than 70 degrees otherwise the butter will spilt out. Once all the butter is emulsified, whisk the potato for 3 minutes to thicken up and taste. You can add milk and cream to your taste and consistency. The more you add the more whisking you will have to do to thicken the mash back up. Finally, top the mash with some gravy, croutons and truffle.
To serve, slice the venison and season, plate with vegetables of your choice and a large spoon of the cabbage purée. Serve the dirty mash on the side.