Wild Venison Casserole Recipe
Slow cooked wild venison casserole, richly flavoured with red wine, onion, garlic, bay, juniper berries, homemade rowanberry jelly and seasoning.
Glen Dye Recipe Series
Caroline Gladstone, co-founder and 35 year resident at Glen Dye, can really cook. As co-founder and curator of food at Hawarden Estate and Glen Dye, Caroline’s passion for good food runs deep. So, when the opportunity arose to source, prepare and sell our very own wild Glen Dye venison Caroline didn’t hesitate.
In this series we share her favourite recipes that are tried, tested and universally adored.
Caroline’s Glen Dye Wild Venison Casserole
I’d never cooked venison until I moved to Glen Dye in 1990 and had rarely eaten it, but I was curious, and in the spirit of embracing and learning everything I could about where we had moved to, I began to experiment. I started simply, with venison sausages, usually served with buttery mash, braised Puy lentils and salsa rossa. Then came venison sausage casserole, sometimes with mushrooms, sometimes with butter beans, sometimes with nduja and the experimentation began in earnest. Juniper, mace, bay, all spice, star anise, cinnamon, rowanberry jelly, fennel seeds, thyme, rosemary, flat leaf parsley have all played a part in the development of my recipes. Sometimes experiments fail and there are certain ingredients I wouldn’t use again, like tarragon or cardamom, raisins or beer. But on the whole, venison is very forgiving and is happy to be paired with most herbs and spices, which is what makes it such a fun and satisfying meat to cook with, and why my recipes are ever evolving. The recipes I have produced for these recipe cards are my favourites, but feel free to change up the ingredients and make the recipe your own!
A note on Wild Venison
A thriving population of red and roe deer roam freely on the hills and in the forests of Glen Dye, grazing on heather, wild plants and grass. But because they have no natural predators, these populations need to be managed to ensure they remain healthy and are kept in balance with their habitat.
This makes venison one of the most sustainable meats available in Britain. Not only is it delicious, but it is also incredibly healthy: it’s naturally low in fat and high in iron, potassium, zinc, and vitamins B6 and B12.
By buying local venison, you are also ensuring the lowest possible carbon footprint.
If you’ve never cooked venison, the thing to remember is that because it is very low in natural fat, it can become dry if it is overcooked. Use it instead of beef in bolognese, in casseroles, in chilli or in a cottage pie. Whatever you make, you can rest assured it will be delicious.
Wild Venison Casserole
Slow cooked wild venison casserole, richly flavoured with red wine, onion, garlic, bay, juniper berries, homemade rowanberry jelly and seasoning.
Ingredients
- 2 onions, roughly chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, peeled and squashed with a pinch of salt
- rapeseed oil
- knob of butter (optional)
- 4 bay leaves
- 1-2 tsps freshly ground juniper berries
- 1kg wild venison, diced
- 2 large glasses red wine
- 10 carrots, peeled, halved lengthways and sliced into 1cm slices
- 1 tbsp rowanberry jelly
- 500ml venison stock (or chicken stock)
- salt and freshly ground pepper serve with
- buttery mash and greens
Equipment
- Ovenproof casserole dish
- Greaseproof paper cartouche
Directions
- Heat the oven to 150˚C.
- In an ovenproof casserole dish, sauté the chopped onions in a couple of tablespoons of rapeseed oil over a medium heat until they are soft, sweet and translucent. You could add a knob of butter which makes the onions sweeter.
- Add the garlic, bay leaves and ground juniper berries and cook for another 5-10 minutes, stirring so that the onion and garlic don’t catch and colour. Remove the dish from the heat and set to one side.
- Heat a tablespoon of rapeseed oil in a frying pan. Season and sear the diced venison, making sure that the meat has browned on all sides. Do this in batches, removing the seared meat to the casserole dish with a slotted spoon each time. When all the meat is seared, deglaze the pan with the wine and let it reduce by half. Add the reduction to the casserole dish and give everything a good stir. Stir in the rowanberry jelly, add the carrots and stir in the stock.
- Bring the casserole dish to a simmer and then remove it from the heat. Cover the meat with a cartouche of greaseproof paper, put the lid on the dish and transfer to the oven.
- After an hour, give the contents a good stir and check the seasoning. You may want to add a little more rowanberry jelly for a bit more tart sweetness. Return to the oven for another hour, then remove the lid and cook for a further 30 minutes.
- The meat should be falling apart and tender, and the carrots should be soft. Serve with buttery mash and greens.
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