Okay, so I’ve had these photos saved on my phone since March which is when I actually made this stew; I just completely forgot they were on there. My brother got a kilo of raw venison from his work for free as it needed using up and so I decided to do a completely blind experiment and made a venison stew (I have never cooked venison before but this stew was an absolute treat!) I served the stew with steamed cabbage and rosemary, cheddar and garlic biscuits (using an American recipe so they’re light and fluffy like scones with a crisp outer shell- recipe for those are coming soon!)
This is just my standard beef stew recipe so you can substitute the venison for beef and alter the other ingredients if you wish ☺️.
Ingredients
- 2 heaped tablespoons of plain flour
- 1 pinch salt and pepper
- 1 kilogram of raw venison, cut into chunks.
- Drizzle of olive oil
- large knob of butter
- 1 teaspoon of sugar
- 2 red onions, peeled and diced
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 4 rashers of streaky bacon
- 3 carrots, peeled and cut into bite size chunks
- 8 small new potatoes, cut into bite size chunks
- 1/2 a bottle of red wine
- 2 beef stock cubes mixed with 350 mls of boiling water to make a meaty stock.
- 2 tablespoons of red currant jelly
- 1 teaspoon of mustard
- 1 heaped teaspoon of cornflour mixed in a little water to form a paste.
- 5 sprigs of rosemary and a small handful of parsley.
Method
- Before we begin, I used a zip lock bag for this first step but you could also use a large chopping board or make a parcel out of clingfilm! In a *zip lock bag* put your chunks of venison, plain flour, salt and pepper and gently move the bag around so that the flour coats the meat evenly.
- In a large pan, drizzle some olive oil and the butter and place on a medium heat. Add the onions and sugar and stir until they are softened and caramelised slightly.
- Add the bacon and garlic and continue to cook until the bacon is browned. Then add the red currant jelly and mustard and give a good stir. Add the carrots and potatoes to coat them in the pan ingredients for a couple of minutes.
- Grab a large casserole dish and pour the contents of the frying pan into the dish.
- Once the frying pan is empty, gently brown the venison for a minute. Then add the venison to the casserole dish.
- Pour the red wine and the meat stock to the casserole dish and give a good stir. Place the Rosemary and parsley on top of the stew and put the lid of the casserole dish on. Cook in the oven on 180C for 90 minutes.
- Once the stew is steaming hot, pour your corn flour paste in a little at a time to thicken up the stew. Put back in the oven for 10 minutes for the stew to properly thicken up.
- Serve and enjoy!
