The Third Card...

The third card I picked out from the Ye Olde Recipe Collection was Slow Cooked Venison with Red Wine and Rosemary. In the past I generally have been successful when cooking with wine and this dish read simple enough, so why not?

An early hurdle was to get hold of venison. Sadly neither of the local supermarkets had any, nor did I manage to get to the butcher's before they closed to ask. Thus the Chantenay carrots and huge button mushrooms got to sit in the fridge for a few days on their own, until Lundulph suggested we use the moose roast we had in the freezer. One of the trophies I brought home from Sweden, Lundulph had not been able to think of a way to cook it. And it's game too and it's a fairly near relative of the deer that provide venison.

Said and done, moose was thawed and the casserole finally cooked last Friday. Against instructions on the card, I kept the carrots whole (that's why I bought Chantenay) and I added mushrooms, since only carrots and onions would not be enough.

Ingredients

1 kg moose roast cut in 3 cm chunks
3 tbsp olive oil
500 g Chantenay carrots
1 large onion, coarsely cut in 2 cm pieces
300 g large button mushrooms, peeled and quartered
75 cl (1 bottle) red wine
5 dl chicken stock
the leaves of 3 sprigs of fresh rosemary, chopped
4 tbsp tomato puree
Salt and pepper

Method

1. Pat the meat chunks dry, then heat up the olive oil on high heat in a large pan.


2. Brown the meat chunks in the olive oil, in 2 - 3 batches, so that they don't crowd each other in the pan. Turn now and then so they get a nice colour all over and remove when done to a large casserole dish with a lid.


3. When all the meat is done, add the carrots, onions and mushrooms to the pan. Fry until they start to soften a little. Remember to stir from time to time.


4. Transfer the vegetables to the casserole dish as well and stir in to mix with the meat.


5. Add the wine, chicken stock, rosemary and tomato puree and bring to the boil.


6. Cover the casserole and let simmer on low heat for 1.5 h. Stir a couple of times.


7. Remove the lid and let the casserole simmer a further 30 minutes to reduce the liquids.


8. Finally add salt and pepper to taste.


9. Before serving, use the stirring spoon to shred the meat a little.

The casserole looked pretty and smelt very nice, but when we tasted it, it tasted very strongly of tomato and was very sweet, so we were disappointed. In general it could have done with more herbs and spices, the way it was, it felt like there were gaps in the overall flavour palette.

The meat on the other hand was fabulously tender and shredded very nicely.

The above amounts should be enough for 6 people. Looking at the comments people have left on the Waitrose website, I think that it would do better with mashed or boiled potatoes, rather than pasta.

So not a recipe to keep, in fact I think Lundulph may already have tidied it away to the recycling bin.

I didn't take any pictures either, though given that we didn't like this dish much, it's not a big deal.