Eating Bambi

Sounds good to me apart from the wine - not a wine lover I'm afraid.

In fact I may just have to go and make a cup of tea and have a very small slice of home made granary bread with some reduced sugar jam 8)

Chris

They say venison is especially good for you, but that's probably because it's low in fat. they were talking about using rabbit on the radio a while back. It's low fat too.
Your recipe sounds good. I would have put some of the wine in the meat.

Do you hang the meat before using? We used to hang pheasants for two-three days till the feathers begin the fall off before cooking.Venison should hang as well to tenderise the meat a bit.

Unless you shot it yourself, venison will have been hung before purchase. A lot of what you get in the supermarkets is farmed. Same goes for supermarket rabbit, pheasants, quail etc. That said, Lidl do a good frozen hare, hare being as rare as hens teeth nowadays.

However, best marinading venison in red wine, a couple of bay leaves and some black peppercorns for at least 24 hours before cooking. Drop in some gin if you like the aroma! Depending on the cuts available you can then either drain and roast (carefully and slowly covered in the foil wrap of butter or a decent bit of suet from the butcher) or casserole, again slowly is best. For the latter add the strained marinade and some decent quality red wine.

Best ever sauce or gravy is to remove the juices from the casserole, or deglaze the roasting tin into a saucepan and add the strained marinade. If there is insufficient liquid, add red wine, bring to the boil and reduce to about half. Drop in small cubes of unsalted butter until a 'gloosy' thicker consistency is acquired. For a casserole, add some redcurrant/blueberry jelly or if you prefer and like the taste some Juniper jelly. For a roast add redcurrant jelly, the cubes of unslated butter, a couple of squares of dark chocolate and led it dissolve - probably the best sauce of all for venison.

If you are doing Pheasants, bests remove the breasts and coat with plain flour with a reasonable dose of freshly ground black peppercorns. (Pheasant spend a lot of time running about so the legs are very sinewy and are better used to make a game stock or as the base for a decent winter vegetable soup.) Finely slice an onion or two (or a good handful of shallots) and peel, core and chop 2 cooking and 2 eating apples. Melt some butter in a frying pan (use a little olive oil as a starter to prevent the butter from burning). Brown the breasts and if you are up to it flame with a little Brandy or Calvados. Set the meat aside and soften the onion or shallots in the pan (add a little more butter if necessary), add the apple and slowly let the mix stew until soft. Tip the mix into a casserole and put the breasts into the mix. Deglaze the pan with a little Brandy or Calvados and add to the casserole. Cover with foil and cook for around 25 - 30 minutes in a preheated oven. When done stir in a small tub of cream and bring back to heat. We serve with corn bread and roasted root vegetables.

Feathers falling of Pheasants? Been shooting and hanging birds for nearly 40 years and never witnessed such an event. Most people will purchase pheasants - about £1 each unplucked - and they will most likely have been hanging for a few days. So unless you like a really gamey flavour and are happy to handle well rotted guts don't hang for any longer. Unless you are happy with eviscerating the 'fresh' birds best buy already plucked and drawn from the butcher.

Today for us its Partridges larded with good smoked back bacon and braised with cabbage. leeks and onions. Probably the best bird of all with pigeon coming a close second.

If you are buying game, go to a game dealer/butcher rather than a supermarket as it tends to be a lot cheaper and is unlikely to have been farmed.

Bon appetit.

Pleeeeeeease can I come and live at your house?

caitycakes x

This is going to sound stupid but what does venison taste like? I've never tasted it before. Rabbit is nice but as I have pet rabbits i don't think I'd be too popular eating their relatives!!

I love venison. It tastes like the other red meats, beef and mutton( if you're old enough ever to have eaten mutton!). Venison is very low in fat, so doesn't roast particularly well, unless WELL basted.
Venison stewed or casseroled slowly in a wine based gravy with veggies, is wonderful.
Oh well It's chicken thighs in my slow cooker now, with onion and tomato.*( and some wine if I can find an open bottle.
Funny, I don't like to drink wine, but I love to cook with it.
Nectarines or peaches, poached in red wine are delicious. Use arificial sweetener of your own choice(mine is Splenda) remove fruit from pan when done and reduce the sauce down to a thick syrup consistency. Add a little water, if you must, and serve over the nectarines with whipped cream. Fabulous, decadent and low carb. I don't have bread, but I do have good stuff

mmmmm I'm a fan of veneson (even if i can't spell it). I Don't care much for beef.

Duck as well, i like duck.

Venison can have a very 'gamey' flavour if you are not used to strong tastes. If you have not tried it go for the cheaper bits and casserole or stew - but marinade beforehand, and don't be shy with what you try. Don't go for haunch/saddle or collops which will cost a good bit more. But do try it and if at first you are not fond try it again. Venison sausages can be a good starter; stewed with caramelised onions and winter root vegetables. Use red wine as the base for gravy - or Newcastle Brown Ale - or for that matter any good naturally fermented dark beer.

Venison has no fat (sausages obviously have some added fats). Portions can therefore be smaller but full of flavour and, because of this, very filling - you will find it hard to overeat. Same goes for all four legged game, but treat them carefully in the kitchen.

If you have not tried game birds have a go at pigeon to start with as its very cheap at about 50p to £1.00 per bird. Many years ago we would go out to the pub on a Friday night. Four pigeons were put in a self baster and sprinkled with reasonably good olive oil. Couple of bulbs of garlic were split into cloves (the loose papery cover removed) and sprinkled in with the birds. Oven timer set for 20 minutes before closing time. Arrive home to roast garlic pigeons served with toast to mop up the juices. The roasted garlic is very sweet and squeezed from its 'skin' it delicious. No smelly breath either.

Its the best time of the year. Birds are shot in an abundance; mostly for 'sport'. Sadly, because of the prices offered, many are discarded and buried to rot -I heard from a beater of one shoot last year when nearly 1,000 pheasants went into the pit to be covered by the bulldozer. Don't waste good, natural free range foods.

We eat game in season, I am not a fond freezer of wild meat. You need a smaller portion size to satisfy. When I do venture out with the gun I shoot for the pot using the dogs to 'raise game' within the 'killing frame'

Mutton was mentioned above. Fast Castle farm do mutton. Tried a proper 'Scotch' pie recently? Or ever had a real one?

Never mind the width, taste the quality. Feel the benefit.

If you know anyone who gets Snipe - that's another story.

I was going to post this as a new thread, but it seems to fit in here just as well. I love cooking and eating venison, rabbit, pheasant, wild boar and almost any other type of game. We've just returned from a tour of South Africa and while there I had the opportunity to eat impala sausages, kudu steaks, ostrich steaks and crocodile tail. I had never eaten these before so I quickly added them to my list of exotic foods I have eaten. When we got back we found our local supermarket was selling small cuts of springbok, which I prepared by simply searing in a hot pan and serving with red cabbage.
My list of exotic foods consists so far of: snails and frog legs in France; fern shoots in Sarawak; snake soup in Hong Kong; jelly fish in Singapore; raw violet (a Mediterranean shell fish) in France; wild boar in Germany and France.
Oh dear, my mind seems to have gone blank as there are quite a few more but I can't remember them. I think I'll go and lie down with a stiff whisky.
What other exotic dishes have others here tried?

Chestnut stuffing! Not the roasting and peeling kind. Someone, being or trying to be, oversmart. Roast pigeons are finger food. Roasting, just plain with any additives done outwith cavity please.

However, being or trying to be posh and doing just the breasts pan fried is another matter. You can drop puree de marrons or marrrons from a tin into the pan once the pigeons are done and removed.

Add to the Billb list above there is also Grasscutter and Congo Chop from Africa. Ostrich and Croc can be had easily in the UK; there is an Ostrich farm a few miles down the road. UK snails are also brilliant and the weather this year has provided us with a bumper crop. Big thing at the moment is wild mushrooms.

Just had a flash of memory - in Tahiti I ate breadfruit cooked in an earth oven and last year in Tibet I had roasted yak. The yak wasn't bad, like a rather strong beef, but I spent two weeks suffering from the most awful alititude sickness. And the Tibetans have to be the grubbiest people in the world. I think soap is an unknown substance there.

I love smoked shark (tastes a lot like mackeral) Cant have duck anymore Used to love Mutton stew or pie.

I tried shark once when I was on a weeks course. Didn't think much of it. Also tried quails eggs, feta cheese, grapevine leaves but didn't like them either. :wink:

I haven't tried venison but I've eaten buffalo and ostrich in Australia. I noticed on a cookery programme today that someone was making a squirrel pie!!!! No way could I eat that.....even if it did make me bright eyed and bushy-tailed.