Why Venison Rewards Patience

There is a particular sort of hunger that only arrives after a day outdoors. It comes back with you from a long walk along a ridgeline, a wet morning spent clearing a ditch, or an afternoon in the woods with a saw and a billhook. It is not the hunger of skipped lunch; it is deeper, colder, and it wants something dark and rich in a deep bowl. Venison stew answers it better than almost anything else.

Venison is lean, which is exactly why it needs slow cooking. Unlike beef, it carries very little intramuscular fat, so quick, high-heat cooking turns it dry and livery. Given an hour and a half in a low oven with wine, stock and root vegetables, though, those tough connective tissues melt into gelatine and the meat becomes spoon-tender. The flavour is mineral, faintly sweet and unmistakably of the landscape it came from. It is the most fitting meal there is for a cold February evening.

Choosing the Right Cut

For a stew you want the hard-working muscles. Ask a butcher or game dealer for diced shoulder, haunch, neck or shin — anything described as casserole or braising venison. Shoulder and neck give the deepest flavour; haunch is a little leaner but still excellent. Allow about 200g of raw meat per person, which sounds generous until you remember how much it shrinks.

Fallow and roe are the most common UK deer, and either works beautifully. Muntjac is small but sweet. If your venison has been hung well, it will smell clean and faintly grassy rather than sharp. Frozen venison is perfectly good for stewing — thaw it slowly in the fridge overnight rather than on a radiator, and pat it dry before it hits the pan.

The Browning Is the Recipe

Everything else in this dish is forgiving. The browning is not. If you rush it, you get grey meat and a thin, watery sauce; do it properly and the stew tastes as though it has been simmering for a day longer than it has.

• Take the meat out of the fridge 30 minutes ahead and dry it thoroughly with kitchen paper.
• Toss the diced venison in 2 tablespoons of plain flour seasoned with salt and plenty of black pepper.
• Heat a heavy casserole dish on the hob with a tablespoon of beef dripping or rapeseed oil until it is genuinely hot — a faint shimmer, not smoke.
• Brown the meat in three or four batches. Crowding the pan steams the meat, and steam is the enemy. Each batch needs five or six minutes to colour properly on all sides.
• Lift each batch out into a bowl and let the pan come back up to heat before the next.
• Finally, fry 150g of smoked bacon lardons or chopped streaky bacon in the same pan, then soften two sliced onions in the fat that renders out. Scrape the browned crust off the base as the onions release their moisture — that is pure flavour.

Root Vegetables and Herbs

Winter roots are what make this a countryside dish rather than a restaurant one. They sweeten the gravy and thicken it as they break down at the edges. Cut everything into chunks roughly the size of the meat so it all cooks at the same rate.

• 3 carrots and 2 parsnips, peeled and cut into thick coins
• 300g swede, diced — or neeps if you are north of the border
• 2 celery sticks, sliced, for a background savouriness
• 2 tablespoons tomato purée, stirred into the onions and cooked for a minute until it darkens
• 1 tablespoon plain flour sprinkled over the vegetables, stirred and cooked through

Then the aromatics. A bouquet of four or five juniper berries, lightly crushed, is the traditional partner to venison and worth seeking out. Add a sprig of thyme, a bay leaf, a few strips of orange zest and, if you have it, a small sprig of rosemary. Juniper, thyme and orange together are the flavour of a hedgerow in winter.

The Long Simmer

Return the meat and any resting juices to the pan, then pour in 500ml of red wine or a dark stout and 500ml of beef, venison or game stock. The liquid should come about three-quarters of the way up the meat — not swimming, not dry. Add a tablespoon of redcurrant jelly or a teaspoon of damson jam for a gentle sweetness that balances the wine, and a good pinch of salt.

Bring it just to a simmer on the hob, lid on, then move the whole dish to a 150°C fan oven (160°C conventional, gas mark 3). Leave it alone for 2 to 2½ hours. Check at the two-hour mark: the meat should yield to a spoon with almost no resistance, and the sauce should coat the back of it. If it is still tight, give it another half hour. If the sauce is thin, take the lid off for the last 20 minutes.

For the final flourish, stir through a knob of cold butter off the heat, taste for salt and pepper, and let it sit for ten minutes before serving.

To Serve, and to Keep

Buttered mash, champ, or a plain baked potato all do the job. A spoonful of creamy mash swirled into the gravy at the bottom of the bowl is one of the small pleasures of a cold evening. If you have made dumplings — 100g self-raising flour, 50g shredded suet, water to bind, dropped in for the last 25 minutes with the lid on — so much the better.

This stew is better on the second day, and it freezes for up to three months in a sealed container. Cool it quickly, refrigerate overnight, and lift off the cap of fat before reheating gently. Make a double batch on a Sunday, and the following week's post-walk supper is already waiting.