I’m using one of my current favourite ingredients again for this recipe! I found the original recipe here, and as usual there are a few minor differences – the biggest being that the original recipe serves 8, but the amounts given below will serve 4.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
600g diced venison
2 tablespoons plain flour
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce (I used Henderson’s Relish)
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon of freshly chopped thyme
1 tablespoon salt
450ml boiling water
3 small potatoes, peeled and quartered
3 carrots, peeled and chopped

Method

1. Put the plain flour into a bowl and coat the venison. Heat oil in a large casserole or stockpot and brown the meat. Add onions, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, bay leaf, thyme, salt and 750ml water. Stir well.

2. Cover the pan and simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until meat is tender.

3. Stir in potatoes and carrots and cook until tender (you could parboil them first to make this a little quicker if you wish). Remember to remove the bay leaf before serving!

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Venison is such a lovely meat, and I recently discovered that they sell it in our local supermarket. It’s a lean and tasty meat, and as I’d found some diced venison I decided to try out making a pie with it. I found the original recipe for this on allrecipes.co.uk but that one serves 10 people, which is a bit much for just me and Tom! So I’ve adapted it here, adding a few of my own ingredients too.

Ingredients

300g diced venison
2 rashers unsmoked bacon (you could use streaky bacon if you wish)
1 medium brown onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
about 500ml beef stock (you need enough to cover the meat in the pan)
1 medium potato, diced
2 small carrots, diced
3 mushrooms, chopped
220ml (1/2 can) Guinness
1 sheet puff pastry
Flour to dust the pastry and venison

Method

1.Heat the bacon in a dry frying pan to render the fat. Remove and set aside.

2. Cook garlic and onions in the bacon fat until caramelised. Remove from pan and set aside.

3. Dredge venison with flour and brown in a hot pan. Return onion, garlic and bacon to the pan. Pour in stock, stir and bring to a very slow simmer. Let simmer for 1 hour.

4. Add vegetables and simmer until tender. Remove from heat and pour in Guinness, stirring well. If the gravy is too thin, thicken it with a little cornflour mixed with water.

5. Transfer contents into a baking dish and cover with puff pastry. Pierce a few steam holes in the pastry (there were holes in the side of mine so I didn’t bother – but I did put a pastry deer on the top!).

6. Bake at 180 C / Gas 4 for 15-20 minutes or until the pastry is golden and puffy. Serve with some green vegetables and enjoy!

I like this picture – he looks like he’s coming out of a forest!

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