Strattons Head Chef Dan Freear will be demonstrating in Mary Kemp’s Cookery Theatre this April and this month he shares a delicious recipe of Seared Norfolk venison loin, slow braised shin, sautéed Jerusalem artichokes, pickled black berries and kale crisps.
Serves four
Venison
For the venison head towards your local good quality butcher. Here they will be able to tell you when venison is available in your area and best to eat typically this is from October to February but is dependant on what deer are around in your area. Allow 120 g or just over four ounces of venison loin per person if asked nicely your butcher should portion and trim it up for you ready to cook.
Cooking the venison
Take the venison loin out of the fridge and leave on the side at least two hours before you are intending on cooking it. Put a heavy based frying pan on the heat on full, while the pan is getting hot rub rape seed oil on the venison making sure it is all coated and season heavily with sea salt and cracked black pepper. When the pan is smoking hot add the venison, you want to cook the meat for 2 minutes on each side this will give you a medium rare steak. when cooked allow to rest for 2 minutes on a chopping board before slicing or serving.
Braised shin
Ingredients
800g venison shin
1 onion finely sliced
2 cloves of garlic finely diced
4 sticks of celery finely diced
4 carrots peeled and finely diced
1 litre beef stock
250m red wine
2 bay leaves
Recipe
Drizzle 1 dspn of rape seed oil into a heavy bottom pan and fry the venison shin, your intentions here are to seal the meat and gain a nice brown colour on the outside. Once you have a nice colour remove the shin and place on a plate on the side. Throw in all the diced vegetables and cook on a medium heat for 5 minutes ensuring you’re constantly stirring. After five minutes add the red wine to the pan, allow this to reduce by half before adding the beef stock. Now place the shins back in the pan along with the bay leaves, place a lid on top and cook in the oven at 140 degrees for 5 hours. After five hours remove the pan from the oven the meat should now bee tender. Remove the meat from the pan and using two forks pick the meat of the bone. While doing this put the stewing juices on a medium heat to reduce down and produce a thick sauce. When all the meat has been picked and the sauce is a thick consistency add the meat back to the pot and stir, once seasoned this is now ready to serve.
Sautéed artichokes
ingredients
400g Jerusalem artichokes
Cracked black pepper
80g good quality butter
Recipe
Wash the artichokes under a cold tap and shake dry in a colander. Cut these into quarters and steam for 5 minutes. Once the five minutes is up transfer the artichokes into a hot frying pan that has 1 tbsp. of rapeseed oil in it. Fry the artichokes on high in the pan for 4 minutes making sure you’re constantly stirring. Now add the butter to the pan and put in a oven at 180 degrees for 10 minutes after this season well with black pepper and sea salt and serve.
Pickled black berries
Ingredients
250g blackberries
200ml white wine vinegar
150ml cold water
175g caster sugar
5 juniper berries
Recipe
Place the sugar, vinegar, water and juniper berries into a pan and bring up to the boil. Leave to simmer for 3 minutes to make sure all the sugar has dissolved then remove from the heat. Leave pickling liquor on the side for 20 minutes we don’t want it to be to hot when we add the blackberries is they’ll break down too much, we’re aiming for the liquor to be roughly between 65-75 degrees. After 20 minutes the liquid should be cool enough so add the black berries. Leave on a side to come room temperature then transfer to a kilner jar and chill these can be done a few days in advance.
