Tag Archives: venison

Cooking

Venison Wellington

Originally featured on Hunting the Empire.

Preparing this recipe is somewhat time consuming and involves some pre-planning, actually cooking the meal is relatively easy.  So, don’t be afraid to give it a try.

Ingredients:

  • Half-length of venison backstrap

  • 3-4 green onions, minced

  • 8 oz. mushrooms, minced

  • 5 cloves garlic, crushed

  • Dijon mustard

  • ½ to 1 lbs. prosciutto

  • Puff pastry

  • 1 egg, beaten

  • Assault & Pepper from Tacticalories to taste

  • Canola or vegetable oil

  • 1 tbsp. butter

Preparation:

  1. Liberally season the backstrap with Assault & Pepper.

  2. In a cast iron skillet, heat up the oil and sear the backstrap on all sides, even the ends. Sear it long enough to get a nice dark brown crust.

  3. Once the backstrap is seared on all sides, remove from the skillet and brush the Dijon mustard on while it’s still warm.

  4. While the coated backstrap is resting, add the butter to the skillet with the onions, garlic, and mushrooms and cook over medium heat and stir occasionally.

  5. Once most of the liquid has been evaporated from the mushroom mixture, remove it from the pan and let cool.

  6. While the mushroom mixture is cooling layout plastic wrap on the counter.Make sure that it is at least twice as long as the backstrap.On the plastic wrap, layout the prosciutto, overlapping the pieces.

  7. Evenly spread the completely cooled mushroom mixture on top of the prosciutto

  8. Place the completely cooled backstrap on top of the mushroom mixture, and using the plastic wrap, tightly wrap the prosciutto around the backstrap, holding it in place with the plastic wrap.

  9. Tie the ends of the plastic wrap together and place in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes.

  10. While the wrapped backstrap is in the refrigerator, place another piece of plastic wrap on the counter and lay the puff pastry on top and allow to completely thaw.

  11. Once the puff pastry is thawed and the backstrap has been in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes, unwrapped the backstrap and lay it on top of the puff pastry.

  12. Wrap the prosciutto wrapped backstrap in the puff pastry, sealing off the ends and pinching the top edges to create a seal.Cut off any extra pastry.Use the plastic wrap to hold the pastry in place, tie off the ends and place back in the refrigerator for another 15 minutes.

  13. While the fully wrapped backstrap is cooling in the refrigerator, pre-heat the oven to 400°F.

  14. After the backstrap has been in the refrigerator for 15 minutes and the oven is up to temperature, remove the plastic wrap and put it on greased parchment paper.

  15. Brush the entire pastry with the egg wash

  16. Score the top of the pastry

  17. Bake until the backstrap is medium rare, about 125°F internal temperature.This will take about 30-40 minutes.

  18. Once the desired internal temperature is reached, pull from the oven and let rest.

  19. Slice and enjoy!

Continue reading →

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Cooking, Hunting

Venison Heart Stew

It was cold, and a steady rain had been falling all day, and there was no sign of it letting up.  The thought of being wet and cold in the woods just didn’t sound very appealing, so I decided to take a Saturday off from hunting and make a hardy (or is it hearty, pun intended?) stew to warm my bones and fill my stomach.

It has only been in the last couple years that I’ve started to save and eat the heart.  I attribute it to watching Steven Rinella on his “Meateater” show, he has inspired me to be more adventurous in how I cook my wild game.  While it’s not my favorite cut of meat, I’m learning to enjoy the heart.  I’ve cooked it a couple different ways, fried in bacon grease, smoked put on a cracker with cheese, but I wanted to try something different this time around, so I took stock of what was in the pantry and came up with this.  Enjoy! Continue reading →

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Cooking

Ginger Venison over Egg Noodles

Often times my wife and I find ourselves repeating the same 10 or 12 recipes for dinner.  We do it out of habit and convenience for the most part.  But this past spring we signed up for a CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture.  Our CSA is a small, organic farm in a neighboring town, and we get a delivery of fresh vegetables once a week.  There’s always an interesting mix of vegetables, some I’ve never heard of, some I’ve never tried, and many I enjoy.

I strongly dislike to waste food, so the weekly delivery forces us to cook more at home, be more healthy, and try new recipes.  Recently we’ve had fresh ginger in the deliveries, and with archery season now open in PA there’s a need to make room in the freezer for hopefully this year’s harvest.  So I did some research to find a recipe that would incorporate both ginger and venison.

I didn’t find a ginger venison recipe, but I did find a ginger beef recipe.  The recipe I used as a starting point was from Kitchen Stewardship and with a little re-arranging and substituting I made it my own.

All of the vegetables in the recipe were from our organic CSA. 

Ingredients:

  • 2 lbs venison steaks – cut into 1 inch chunks
  • 1/2 onion
  • 2 small red bell peppers
  • 3 garlic gloves – processed in a food processor
  • 1 small hand of ginger – grated
  • 1 cup beef broth
  • 2 TBS soy sauce
  • 2 TBS corn starch
  • 1 tsp salt
  • pepper to taste
  • red pepper flakes to taste
  • 3 leaves of Swiss chard chopped, with center stem removed

Preparation:

I threw everything into a slow cooker and put on low for about 4 hours and kept an eye on it to make sure it wasn’t overcooking.  We scooped the gingery goodness on top of some egg noodles once it was cooked and thoroughly enjoyed our newest dinner creation.  My wife said we need to write the recipe down so we can use it more often, so I think it was a success.

What changes would you make to the recipe?

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