Venison fillet with red wine sauce

Such a delicious piece of meat! We bought ours from an independant seller at Tatton Food & Drink fair.

Season the fillet and then brown on all sides in a little butter. Bake in a pre-heated oven for approx 10-20 minutes. This really will depend on how hot your oven is and how thick the fillet is - check after 10 minutes as you don't want to over cook it.

We made a red wine sauce using 250ml stock, thyme, 150ml red wine and a tea spoon of red currant jelly and reduced it down by half.

When the venison is cooked to your liking slice it into medallions and then pour over the sauce. We served ours with dauphinoise potatoes and steamed cavalo nero and carrots.

Venison sausages braised in red wine

This is the latest dish we've made using the sausages from Alternative Meats. It was based loosely on a Delia recipe and it was really, really good!

Ingredients:
Pack of venison sausages
1 sml pack of diced pancetta/lardons
1 large glass of red wine
150ml beef stock
1 tbl sp redcurrant jelly
Fresh thyme leaves
Bay leaf
1 handful of chestnut mushrooms, sliced
6 shallots, peeled and roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
2 celery sticks, chopped
Black pepper
Olive oil

• Heat a splash of olive oil in a deep, non-stick pan. Brown the sausages in the oil and then remove them from the pan and set aside.
• Fry the shallots, garlic, celery and pancetta until browned. Return the sausages to the pan.
• Add the stock, wine and herbs. Turn the heat down to a low simmer, cover with a lid and leave to cook for about an hour.
• After an hour, add the redcurrant jelly and some black pepper. Remove the lid and allow it to simmer for a further 30 minutes.
• We served ours with mashed potato and braised red cabbage.

Venison pie

We bought the venison from Alternative Meats (see website below). It was as good as all the other meat we've tried from there. This was very filling so we just served it with extra veg and a little extra gravy. It smelled and tasted fantastic!

Ingredients:

500g diced venison

white onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, diced

pack of mushrooms, sliced

1 carrot, diced,

2 sticks of celery, diced

tea spoon of dried thyme

tbl spoon of redcurrant jelly

tbl spoon of plain flour

200ml red wine

200ml beef stock

100ml port

olive oil

salt and pepper

• Marinade the venison in the wine and port overnight
• Remove the meat from the marinade and pat it dry with a paper towel. Add the flour to the meat and mix thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper.
• Brown the venison in a little oil in a large non-stick saucepan, in stages if necessary.
• Remove the browned meat from the pan and set aside. Fry the onion, garlic, carrot, celery and mushrooms for 5 minutes or so.
• Add the venison back into the pan, followed by the herbs, marinade liquid and stock.
• Leave to simmer on a low heat for about 1.5 hrs. Add the redcurrant jelly and cook for another 30 minutes.
• Pre-heat the oven to about 200 degrees. Line a pie dish with shortcrust pastry so that it covers the bottom and the sides.
• Spoon the venison filling into the pie dish before placing another piece of pastry on top and pinching the edges to seal it. Egg wash the top of the pie before putting it in the pre-heated oven for around 30 minutes.