When the game season arrives, we love to eat game. Venison is one of our favorite game dishes. This recipe is for venison steak prepared in the sous-vide. The steak can also be pan-fried, but prepared sous-vide you have the perfect cuisson. I served sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and parsnips with the deer. Dish is based on a recipe from Gastronomix.
Ingredients (4 persons)
- 4 venison steaks (equally thick)
- 2 parsnips
- 0,5 ltr. chicken bouillon
- 200 gr. sauerkraut
- 250 gr. potatoes
- 100 gr. beurre noisette
- 75 gr. crème fraîche
- 2 dl. red port
- 2 shallots
- 1 clove of garlic
- 2 sprigs of thyme
- 1 orange
- 1/2 lemon
- 200 gr. game / veal stock
Preparation
Preparing mashed potatoes
Start making beurre noisette. Beurre noisette is hazelnut butter. For the beurre noisette it is important that a pan with a light colored bottom is used. Cut 100-120 grams of butter into equal sized pieces. Melt the butter in the pan over medium heat and keep stirring.
Bubbles start to form. This means that the water from the butter will evaporate and the proteins separate from the fat. Keep stirring! The butter will discolor. Remove the pan from the heat immediately when the butter turns brown. Immediately pour the butter into a bowl and keep it cold. The butter will solidify again and smells like hazelnut.
Peel the potatoes and, if necessary, cook them with a little salt. When the potatoes are done, drain them and mash them slightly.
Pass the potato through a fine sieve and add the beurre noisette and creme fraiche. Stir until well combined. Use the amount of butter and crème fraîche by feeling, the puree should be smooth. Set aside the mashed potatoes.
Preparing red port sauce
Peel and finely chop the shallot and garlic. Heat the port, with shallot, garlic, thyme, orange juice, lemon juice and the zest of the orange and bring to boil.
Let the port reduce by at least half. When the moisture has reduced sufficiently, add the stock and let it reduce by half again. Strain the sauce through a very fine sieve.
If the sauce is needed, bring it back to a boil and reduce to desired consistency. Add salt / pepper to season the sauce if necessary.
Preparing venison steak (Sous vide)
Sprinkle salt and pepper on the deer and vacuum seal the meat. I myself use a vacuum sealing machine for this. There are other ways too.
Heat the water to 53°C. Put the vacuumed meat in the water and let the meat cook in the water for 1 hour (based on 2 cm thickness).
After 1 hour, remove the meat from the water and from the vacuum sealing bags. Fry the meat in butter over high heat for 1-2 minutes. The meat is already cooked, so it only needs to be seared brown.
Preparation of parsnips and sauerkraut
Heat the oven to 180°C
Peel the parsnip and cut into cubes of the same thickness. Fry the parsnip cubes in butter in a frying pan until the parsnips are lightly colored. Heat the chicken stock. Put the parsnips in an oven dish and pour the warm stock over it and put the dish in the oven for 30 minutes.
Heat the sauerkraut on low heat. I take it easy and don’t make sauerkraut myself.
Serve
Heat the plates and make sure all ingredients are warm. Heat the mash and red port sauce. If the supplies have been made before, make sure they don’t burn during the heating process. Do this au bain marie or on very low heat.
Cut the venison into slices and place on the plate. Add the potato puree and sauerkraut and place some parsnip cubes here and there on the plate. Pour the red port sauce next to the mashed potatoes and possibly over the venison or serve in a bowl.
Serve with a red wine. A Bordeaux or Amarone works well with venison. I myself had served a heavier wine, a Barolo 2004. Wine was decanted first.
