Pairings by Season: Autumn 2011
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Poached and roasted saddle of venison
Autumn, and my heart turns towards game. Partridge, teal, and pheasant are all fashionable, but how about venison for a fancy plateful? This a kind of smart dinner party dish, although it’s actually plain sailing, just so long as you have a jam and a meat thermometer. Lay out a piece of cling film a bit longer than the fillet of venison. Place the venison on top. Cover the fillet with overlapping slices of ham. Wrap the cling film around them both to form a long sausage. Poach the fillet in plain water at exactly 60 C for 20 minutes or until the internal temperature of the meat reached 50C. If you don’t have the requisite thermometers, don’t dispair. Poach the fillets in water that is just simmering for the same time. Take off the cling film cladding, transfer the fillets and pancetta to a roasting pan and gave it a blast in a really hot oven –n 220C/425F/ for 10 minutes. Let it rest for 30 minutes in a warm oven until it was time to carve and serve with the sauce below and stir-fried shredded carrot, swede and cabbage.
Serves 6
- 1 whole fillet of venison in the piece
- 100g slices of prosciutto or Jabugo ham
- pepper
chesnut sauce
If you make this with stock from the bones from the saddle, make the stock the day before. I just boiled the bones in water and then reduced it down until I got the concentration of flavour that I wanted. You could beef it up with pork (eg spare ribs) or unsmoked bacon or chicken bones or whatever.
- 565 ml stock
- 1 onion
- 1 medium carrot
- 55g unsalted butter
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tbsp black pepper corns
- 115 ml glass white wine
- 115 ml marsala
- 150g peeled, cooked chestnuts
Finely dice the vegetables. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the diced vegetables and stew until soft. Turn up the heat and add the white wine. Boil until there is hardly any left. Pour in the marsala and do the same. Add the bay leaves, pepper corns, bay leaves and stock. Cook over a fairly fierce heat for 20 minutes. Strain into another pan. Reduce until you have quite an intense flavour, but you need decent amount for 6 people. Whizz all but 4 of the chestnuts in the food processor until pretty much pulverised. Add to the stock. Stir until the sauce has thickened up. Just before serving, roughly chop the remaining chestnuts and add to the sauce.
Suggested wine: Crozes-Hermitage: Domaine Nouvelère 2007
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