Best venison stew recipe | Jamie Oliver venison recipes (2024)

FAQs

What part of the venison is best for stew? ›

Venison Rump

The rump offers a small piece of muscle, best for pot roast and stew meat.

Take great care not to overcook venison. As with all game, venison can become tough when overdone. Cook prime cuts like loin, haunch and saddle briefly on a high heat to medium-rare. Slow cook or casserole tougher parts like neck, shoulder and shank at a low temperature.

Loosen with 2 good lugs of olive oil. Pat the venison dry with some kitchen paper, and rub the oil mixture all over it. Sear the meat in a hot pan on all sides – roughly 6 minutes for medium rare, 7-8 minutes for medium, and you'd have to be a nutter if you wanted to cook it for any longer than that!

For the venison loin:

Use a neutral oil such as rapeseed oil for searing at high temperatures. Once the meat is nicely coloured, add the butter to the pan with the rosemary, thyme and garlic. When the butter has melted baste the loins continually for 6 minutes before removing from the pan. Rest the meat for 5 minutes.

The best way that I've found to make sure a venison roast (bone-in or out) tender is to cook it in the crockpot or slow cooker on low for 8-9 hours, or until it is falling apart. If you cook it on low you won't dry it out. Please note that I don't recommend cooking this on high for 4-6 hours.

Cooks often find that the stronger flavor of wild game meat can make the meat difficult to season well. Herbs offer the perfect solution. Bay, juniper berries, rosemary, sage, savory, and sweet marjoram all pair well with venison, as well as many other wild game meats.

Many hunters suggest soaking your game meat in vinegar. However, vinegar's acidity can often dry the meat, making it especially tough. Instead, try soaking the meat in milk or even buttermilk, which will produce better results with most wild animals, especially when dealing with backstraps.

Given that deer are leaner than cows, venison is generally healthier to eat than beef. An average cut of venison, in fact, has around half the calories and a sixth the saturated fats of a similarly sized cut of beef. It also has more proteins, vitamins and minerals than beef.

Large cuts of venison taste best when pot-roasted for several hours. If you have access to a crock pot, use any recipe for beef pot roast and you'll be pleasantly surprised. However, instead of cooking for two to four hours, venison may require substantially longer cooking time for the meat to become tender.

How do you thicken venison stew? ›

The flour helps to thicken a stew as it cooks. Whisk a teaspoon of flour in a little cold water to make a slurry, then stir into the stew as it's cooking. Don't add dry flour directly to the stew as it may clump. After adding the slurry, bring the stew to boil.

Soaking: The most common soaking liquids are buttermilk, saltwater, white milk, vinegar, lemon juice and lime juice. While some hunters swear by certain soaking methods to take the “gamey” flavor away or bleed the meat after processing, others don't find it all that helpful.

Let it sit in the refrigerator for at least four hours, and no more than 12, before proceeding to cook it as you normally would. The calcium in milk contains enzymes that will tenderize the meat, and the main protein in milk will neutralize the gamey flavor.