Wild abandon stew – Taste Scene

I have a renewing appreciation for venison. As a seasonal bounty and one which is as wild as wild as can be (ie, not farmed on an industrial scale), I have venison quite seldom compared to other meats and as such, I find it all the more of a treat when it arrives on my plate.

I see them (sika deer) around my house all the time, munching on grasses and wild herbs and most often, when I clap my hands, they spring to attention, ears alert and after a long moment’s consideration of the noisy human, they dance away into the heather and furze, their white tails flashing in defiance. They are elegant creatures and quite beautiful in their own wild, way and I find myself wondering about their life among the heather and furze, in all weathers and seasons.

Last summer, I took the executive decision that we would camp out the in the garden, the biggest little human and I. All went swimmingly at first. We lit a camp fire, we sizzled up some sausages on sticks, we marvelled at the Milky Way sparkling in its infinity and after an IPA or two we tamped out the fire, zipped up the tent and settled in for the night with a ghost story.

That night, the ghost story in question was a watered down version from what I could remember from Sleepy Hollow, insofar as, I couldn’t remember much at all apart from the fact there was a horse and a man without a head. Halfway through the telling, just as the horse in the story began galloping through a sleepy village, there came another galloping from just outside the tent.

Now, as a person of middle years and with multifarious experiences of the world at large, I am fairly immune to bumps in the night. However if a person is outside, astride the witching hour and half way through a retelling of the headless horseman, when that bump in the night arrives as a cacophony of thuds on the very ground that person is wont to recline upon, even a fairly level-headed person of middle years is bound to straighten themselves up and take notice. To say my underpants were worried would be an exaggeration and yet, there was undoubtedly a frisson of excitement as I extricated myself from the sleeping bag, illuminated the torch and unzipped the tent to peek outside. The resultant view was a veritable herd of sika deer coursing past the millimetre-thick fabric of my flimsy sleeping arrangement, tails and hoofs and a-thunder in abundance. The resultant physical reaction to this was not insignificant. It was like being caught in a charge of wildebeest in the dead of night in the Serengeti. It was as explosion for the senses – I could smell the deer and even, I thought, feel the heat from their bodies, as they charged past in wild abandon.

I know not how many deer ran past the winter of my discount tent but I do know there were many. The charge lasted for at least half a minute and by the end, the two faces peering out of the slit of blue nylon were fairly wide-eyed with the spectacle. Suffice it to say, there was scant need for another ghost story after we were re-ensconced in the sleeping bags.

Last week, and in honour of the wildness of that night last year, I fired up the dish you can see in the pictures.

It was a venison stew, the steak pieces procured from the shop at Baronscourt Estate outside Newtownstewart.

It was a cinch to fashion and of the eating, I can attest to the fact that it reminded me perfectly of that night, astride the witching hour, outside and halfway through a telling of the headless horseman.

This is a very simple stew and all the better for it, in my view. The venison pieces were slowly braised in red wine and stock and with an assortment of veg over the course of two and a bit hours and by dining time, the meat was as tender as pâté. Even the little humans asked for seconds.

INGREDIENTS (serves four)

100g of plain flour

salt and pepper

600-800g of venison steak pieces

1 tbsp of goose fat

1 leek, roughly chopped

1 onion, roughly chopped

1 parsnip, roughly chopped

2 carrots, roughly chopped

1 or 2 sticks of celery, roughly chopped

400g of baby potatoes, ideally new ones, halved or left whole

scant tbsp of tomato purée

half a glass of red wine

1 litre of chicken stock

1 tsp of mixed herbs

salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper

THE PLAN

Dredge the venison pieces in the seasoned plain flour to coat and then fry briefly (two or three minutes – just to give the meat a bit of colour) in the goose fat.

Add in all the veg and fry for another minute before adding the tomato purée. Stir fry for 30 seconds, then add the red wine and stir fry some more.

Lastly, add in the stock, herbs and some seasoning and then retire the whole shebang to a low-ish oven (150C) for an hour and a half to two hours until the meat is meltingly tender and/or you can’t wait any more because you’re mad with the hunger.

Check the seasoning before serving into deep bowls with crusty bread and that’s it.