Need recipe/method of cooking help

[Dave Hatfield]

This is from the post I did on the French forum. By also posting here I'm hoping to get a wide variety of suggestions.

Should this go into the daube cookoff, perhaps? You tell me.

I've just been given a lovely frozen shoulder of chevreuil ( roe deer in English as best we can tell.)

Not quite the same as biche or cerf I'm told by Jacques who gave it too me. He says that it will be far more tender than either of those.

Anyway, he's aged it well before freezing it and I'm looking for advice on the best way to cook it. I'm thinking that a daube type preparation might do well, but....

- marinate in wine first? If so, just wine or wine & ??

- Herbs? juniper? thyme? what?

- mirapoix base?

- what should I serve with it?

I've never cooked this before, in fact have hardly ever cooked any game so I'm really open to any & all suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

[budrichard]

If true wild game and not a farm raised species of wild game, it will be very lean. For roasting, barding with leaf lard is the way to go. Roast and then let rest, you will have to judge by the total weight of the roast and the ratio of bone to meat. Any other type of preperation that involves moist heat can benefit from a marinade. For wild game we always include Juniper Berries.

If farm raised it will be like a cross between wild and domestic, milder in flavot but still relatively lean but will still benefit from the any of the above.

I have worked with farm raised venison and it is much milder than wild venison. -Dick

[paul o' vendange]

This is from the post I did on the French forum. By also posting here I'm hoping to get a wide variety of suggestions.

Should this go into the daube cookoff, perhaps? You tell me.

I've just been given a lovely frozen shoulder of chevreuil ( roe deer in English as best we can tell.)

Not quite the same as biche or cerf I'm told by Jacques who gave it too me. He says that it will be far more tender than either of those.

Anyway, he's aged it well before freezing it and I'm looking for advice on the best way to cook it. I'm thinking that a daube type preparation might do well, but....

- marinate in wine first? If so, just wine or wine & ??

- Herbs? juniper? thyme? what?

- mirapoix base?

- what should I serve with it?

I've never cooked this before, in fact have hardly ever cooked any game so I'm really open to any & all suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

←

Dave, what follows may be much more than you bargained for, but here it is. Given the shoulder cut, I would opt for a braise. While I usually aim for integral sauces, among many others, I do like (not all at the same time!) the flavor of black pepper, juniper, madeira, pomegranate, red wine, and a host of acids - red wine vinegar, sherry vinegar, and verjus - with venison of various species. The poivrade suggestion came from some playing with James Peterson's classic poivrade (see Sauces), where instead of vinegar, I use verjus and pomegranate for acid and additional flavor components.

If you don't want to go the pomegranate-poivrade route described below, you could just use the marinade, omit the verjus in the marinade, and braise normally (though a special caution to low and slow applies - venison will be leaner), perhaps with a strip of bayonne ham or prosciutto, browned and layered on top of your (marinated) mirepoix.

You can then fine strain/chinois the jus, and have handy a portion of demi-glace, verjus or sherry vinegar (my preference, if using vinegar, unless you went with a red wine marinade - then, really good red wine vinegar), cracked black pepper and cracked juniper berries. Retain some portion of the jus to glaze the braised shoulder in the hot oven, the other portion, reduce and clarify, using demi-glace, if desired (adds, in my mind, a sweetish component in addition to that irreplaceable unctuousness - but then, I use a ton of mirepoix in my demi-glace), verjus or sherry vinegar, as desired, and a 10-15 minute simmer of the black peppercorn and juniper berries.

If going the poivrade route, here it is. A braise, using the marinade, below; the resulting jus can then be married to the other ingredients to make a finished poivrade. I felt the gentle acidity of the verjus and pomegranate married well with the meat, and pepper and juniper, well, great with venison generally. When I use the poivrade, it is generally for a rack (with no braising), but the marinade-into-jus from the braise should be, I would think, all the better.

Marinade:

5 oz. carrots, 1" dice

5 oz. onions, 1"

3 ounces leek, white/light green portion only, 1"

1 shallot, coarsely chopped

1 garlic clove, coarsely chopped

2 1/2 cups white wine - (sauvignon blanc, or one with decent acidity)

1.5 cups Verjus

bouquet garni (2)

boned venison shoulder (reserve bones for below, if available)

Kosher Salt

Black Pepper

Bring wine to simmer over medium high heat and flame, agitating pan and reigniting until no further flaming results. Remove pan from heat and allow to cool, with cheesecloth over pan; place rest of ingredients in pan, including venison shoulder, and marinate overnight in cooler. Remove shoulder, pat it dry, salt and (lightly) pepper it; allow to rest for 1 hour with seasoning. Sear in pan over medium heat on all sides. Add marinade (including vegetables, but discard "marinated" bouquet garni and use a fresh garni for braise). Cover tightly and braise as per your usual method until tender. I would leave braise together with its (strained) jus overnight, or for a couple days, then use reserved jus in the below sauce.

Sauce:

3 oz. onion, 1” dice

3 oz. carrot, 1” dice

3 tbsp canola or peanut oil

1 lb venison leg trimmings, cubed 1”, neck bones, or shoulder bones (from your shoulder, if not boned) cleaved to 1", or some combination of meat and bones

3 sprigs thyme

½ bay leaf

1 small bunch parsley

Brown meat or bones over medium high heat in oil; be careful not to blacken. Remove meat or bones, reduce heat to medium and add onions and carrots, rendering their moisture and using the moisture to deglaze and scrape pan clean. Add rest of ingredients.

***1st liquid deglaze/glaze***

3 oz. Verjus

3 oz. w/w

5 ounce POM brand pomegranate juice (or any other really good, fresh pomegranate juice)

Add the above liquids and deglaze pan. Allow glaze to reform over bones/meat.

***2nd deglaze***

2 cups veal stock

1 quart venison stock

2 cups reserved jus from above braise

10 black peppercorns, freshly (coarsely) crushed in mortar and pestle

10 juniper berries, freshly (coarsely) crushed in mortar and pestle

Add veal stock, venison stock and reserved jus to pan and deglaze. Reduce heat and allow to simmer, skimming religiously throughout to remove any accumulated fat and impurities, for about 3 hours or until a good, rich taste develops. Reduce heat, add peppercorns and juniper berries, and simmer very gently for 10-15 minutes. Pass through china cap, then chinois (or fine sieve) into new saucepan.

*** Final Addition***

½ cup reserved jus

½ cup venison stock

½ cup pomegranate molasses (merely, POM or pure pomegranate juice reduced to a syrup over very low heat)

Add above ingredients, and simmer over medium low or low heat until to sauce consistency, skimming continually free of any impurities and passing, if necessary, through chinois.

Just before serving, finish by whisking in 4 tbsp. beurre monté. I'd recommend moistening braised shoulder with sauce, rather than pooling sauce and plating meat on top.

I'd a huge fan of venison with (wine and vinegar-braised) red cabbage, mushrooms, spaetzle, gnocchi (Parisienne), squash - done any number of ways. I once did a trio of timbales, but love the brilliant color of braised red cabbage set against the orange of, say, delicata or butternut. Of course, I will eat a nice sage gnocchi with anything.

Hope you enjoy, if you go this way!

Edited November 14, 2006 by paul o' vendange (log)

[Dave Hatfield]

Wow! Paul what a great response. I'll be doing something very close to what you have suggested. May play around a bit, but your techniques seem spot on to me.

budrichard, thanks. I agree on the flavour & leaness. This is definitly wild as Jacques claims he got it by running into it with his van. I believe him.

He, Jacques, reckons that cooking in wine is very traditional in these parts. I'm more inclined to Paul's suggestions.

Have some time to think about it as its in the freezer & given other priorities like Thanksgiving it will be a couple of weeks before I can get to cooking it.

I'll be thinking about it in the back of my mimd all the time.