Venison ragù

This dish was inspired by one of the entries to November's "In the Bag" blogging challenge. Phil, over at As Strong as Soup, chose venison for the challenge and made a tasty-looking venison pasta sauce. You can see his recipe here. I adapted it slightly for the ingredients I had in the house (I had already drunk all the gin). It also gave me an excuse to try out my new toy: a mincer attachment for the Kenwood Chef.

I ordered a selection of venison from Riverford Organic back in the autumn (it's only available for a short season) and had some diced venison in the freezer. Once it had defrosted, I pushed it through the medium mincer blade of the Kenwood. It worked a treat, but you have to watch out for sinew that will clog it up. If you don't have a mincer, you could follow Phil's lead and simply chop the meat finely (you could use a food processor for this).

Start by making a boquet garni by tying up some crushed bay leaves, juniper berries and black peppercorns in muslin. Pour about 1/2 bottle of red wine over the minced (or chopped) venison, and tuck in your boquet garni. Leave in the fridge for a few hours, or overnight, then drain over a bowl, reserving the wine and boquet garn.

Heat some oil in a wide pan, and fry 4 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, cut into lardons, until it starts to render its fat. Next add the drained meat and cook over a medium heat until it takes on some colour. Add a medium onion, two sticks of celery, and a large carrot, all finely diced. Give it a good stir, then add 2 crushed garlic cloves and cook for 5-10 minutes more. Pour over the reserved wine, add the boquet garni, a tin of chopped plum tomatoes and 1/2 litre chicken stock. Once it comes up to a simmer, reduce the heat to low and cover the pan.

Let it cook gently for at least 2 hours, stirring occasionally, and adding more chicken stock or water if it looks too dry. I removed the boquet garni about halfway through, as I was worried that the juniper was getting too strong. The flavours will concentrate as the sauce cooks, so it's best to season at the end. I added salt, freshly ground black pepper, and a glug of Worcestershire sauce.

This made a delicious and tender pasta sauce. I served it with spaghetti, but it would also have been great in a lasagne.

Afterthoughts

I'm not sure it was necessary to marinate the meat before cooking. It makes it difficult to get the meat dry enough to brown when you fry it, and there's plenty of cooking time for the wine and bouquet garni to contribute their flavours to the sauce. I'll skip the marinade next time (but that will have to wait for next year's venison season).

In the Bag: game

Submissions for November's "In the Bag" are now in, and Scott has collated the entries here. Along with my rabbit pie, there are two other rabbit recipes, a hare ragu from Scott, two pheasant recipes, a venison pasta sauce, pressure-cooked quail, and peri peri ostrich.

The venison pasta sauce looks good, and I think I'll have a go at that. I've got some diced venison in the freezer, and it will make a change from another pie.

I'm curious to know how the pressure-cooked quail turned out. It's quite a delicate meat and McGee, in his latest book "Keys to Good Cooking", tells us "...avoid pressure-cooking most meats. The high temperature does tenderize tough connective tissue, but also squeezes out the meat's moisture and leaves it dry and stringy." I'm quite a fan of pressure cooking and, if the quail isn't too dry after the pressure cooking, this would be a nice recipe to add to the repertoire.

Run rabbit, run!

November's "In the Bag" blogging challenge is hosted by Scott over at The Real Epicurean. The rules of the challenge are simple: cook something using the ingredients in the bag and write a blog post about it.

This month Scott has given us game. This gave me the perfect excuse to use my kitsch rabbit cutter for the first time and to dig out a recipe from one of my favourite chefs, Fergus Henderson.  The recipe, from Henderson's Beyond Nose to Tail, is one of several to use his trotter gear. This is a rich stock made from pig's trotters cooked in Madeira and chicken stock. It's easy to make (you can find a recipe here), but you will probably have to give your butcher a few days' notice to get hold of pig's trotters. If you're a regular customer, you might even get them for free. I tend to make a big batch of trotter gear a couple of times a year and keep it in handy-sized tubs in the freezer. I pulled out my last tub for this recipe.

The rabbits that found themselves in Andrew Northrop's butcher's shop on Cambridge's Mill Road - and thence my pie - hadn't run fast enough. The butcher offered to joint them for me, but I prefer to do this myself as I usually end up with fewer small fragments of bone to pick out. That said, rabbits have lots of tiny bones and I've yet to make a bone-free pie, so you need to be a little circumspect when eating.

To make the filling, brown the rabbit portions, a dozen peeled shallots, and a pound of diced smoked streaky bacon in goose fat. Add 1/2 bottle red wine, the trotter gear, and enough chicken stock to cover. I had some stock left over from cooking pork belly last week, so used this gelatinous goodness in place of the chicken stock. The pork belly had been brined before cooking which, along with the bacon, contributed enough salt that I didn't need to add any later.

Bring the liquid up to a simmer, then put a lid on the pan and transfer to a 160℃ oven for 2 hours. The meat should come away easily from the bones when it's done - if not, give it a bit longer in the oven. When it's cool enough to handle, pick the meat from the bones and tear it into bite-sized chunks. I usually find I have too much gravy at this stage, so I lifted out the meat with a slotted spoon and boiled the liquid to reduce it by about one third. Once you're happy with the proportion of meat to gravy, combine the lot, season to taste with salt and pepper, then cool and refrigerate overnight.

Transfer the filling to a large pie dish and cover with suet pastry -  made with fresh suet if you can get it. Brush with beaten egg and decorate liberally with pastry rabbits before baking in a 220℃ oven for 30-40 minutes. Made with two rabbits, this pie serves six.

In the bag: stuffed roasted squash, tomato sauce

Here's my contribution to this month's In the Bag food blogging challenge, hosted by Julia over at A Slice of Cherry Pie. The idea is to cook something using the ingredients "in the bag" - and any others you care to add. This month's ingredients are:

• mushrooms
• herbs
• nuts

My first thought was to make a nut roast with a layer of mushrooms running through the middle, served with a creamy mushroom sauce. But then I thought I should strive for something more original: how about a marrow stuffed with mushrooms and nuts, served with a vibrant tomato sauce? The only problem was, I didn't have a marrow to hand, but I did have plenty of squash. So here we have it: roasted squash stuffed with mushrooms, cashews, and fresh herbs, served with a quick tomato sauce.

To prepare the squash, peel and cut horizontally into generous 2.5cm slices; scoop out the seeds and any stringy bits with a spoon. If you're using a small round squash, you might just want to cut it in half horizontally and trim the ends (for stability). The idea is to put the stuffing in the space you make by scooping out the innards.

The squash takes longer to cook than the stuffing, so it is roasted for 20 minutes or so to part cook it before the stuffing is added.  Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle over some salt and pepper, and roast in a 190℃ oven, turning over half way through cooking. You can get on with the stuffing while the squash roasts.



For the stuffing

• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• olive oil
• 100g chestnut mushrooms, diced
• 150g cashew nuts, roughly chopped
• 30g fresh white breadcrumbs
• 1 tsp finely chopped fresh sage
• 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley
• 1 egg, beaten
• salt and pepper to taste

Gently cook the onion in the olive oil without colouring. After 3-4 minutes, add the garlic and cook for another couple of minutes. Put the onions to one side, wipe out the pan, and add some fresh oil. Bring to a high heat, add the mushrooms, and sautée until nicely coloured. Allow to cool slightly before mixing together with the other ingredients. Add enough egg just to bind the lot together, and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. You might want to fry off a spoonful of the mixture to check the seasoning.

Remove the squash from the oven, spoon the stuffing into the cavity, then return to the oven to finish cooking (another 15 minutes or so).

For the tomato sauce

• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic finely chopped
• olive oil
• 450g fresh tomatoes, peeled
• OR 1 400g tin plum tomatoes
• 280ml vegetable stock or water
• pinch dried thyme
• bay leaf
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• salt and pepper to taste

This sauce is made in a pressure cooker, and takes only 5 minutes to cook once it comes up to pressure. It can be made in an ordinary saucepan on the hob, but you'll have to add an hour or so to the cooking time.

Warm the oil in the base of the pressure cooker, and cook the onion gently, without colouring. After 3-4 minutes, add the garlic and cook for another couple of minutes. Add the remaining ingredients, put on the lid, and bring quickly to high pressure. Cook for 5 minutes at high pressure, then remove from the heat and let the pressure drop slowly at room temperature. Carefully remove the lid, take out the bay leaf, then blitz the sauce with a hand blender until smooth. Pass through a sieve into a clean pan. Check the seasoning, and reheat to serving temperature.

To finish the dish, spoon a ladle of tomato sauce into the centre of a warm plate, and carefully place the cooked, stuffed squash on top. If you like, garnish with some sliced sautéed mushrooms and crispy sage leaves. The quantities given here will make about 4 portions.

The verdict

The mushrooms, cashews, and sage are a great combination, and would stand on their own as a nut roast. They went well with the tomato sauce, as did the roasted squash, but there was something jarring about all three on the plate. I think the sweetness of the sqaush was just too much: the blander-tasting marrow would have worked much better, perhaps with some thyme or tarragon in place of the sage.

The tomato sauce is a handy recipe to have up your sleeve: it can be served with other vegetables, with pasta, or used as a pizza topping - and the pressure cooker makes it a really quick.

Thank you, Julia, for the inspiration; I had a lot of fun cooking for this challenge.