Venison Roast with Spiced Blueberry Chutney

Our stash of venison included a 3-1/2 pound roast. While at the Berry Patch when they were still at the Pittsburgh Public Market earlier this year, we had sought advice on what would go well with a venison roast, and the hot blueberry jam was recommended to us.

A little googling led me to this Herbal Roasted Venison with Spiced Blueberry Chutncy recipe that sounded pretty good. I made a few adjustments, incorporating the hot blueberry jam into the marinade and the chutney, using fresh instead of frozen blueberries, and skipping the juniper berries (only because I didn't have any). This is what I came up with:

Ingredients:

1 (3-4 lb) venison roast

Herb Rub:

fresh rosemary leaves, about 6 springs
fresh thyme leaves, to taste
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons coarse salt

Marinade:

1-1/2 cup red wine
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup hot blueberry jam

Spiced Blueberry Chutney

3 oz hot blueberry jam
6 oz fresh blueberries
1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tbsp cup sugar
1 oz raisins
2 tbsp minced fresh ginger
1 large clove garlic, peeled and minced
1 tbsp curry powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

Directions:

Using a small knife, make slits all over the roast.

Mix herb rub ingredients in a food processor and rub the mix into the roast.

Mix marinade together and pour into a 1 gallon Ziplock bag. Place roast inside the bag, zip it tightly, and swish it around to make sure the marinade covers all sides of the roast. Place in a bowl and marinade overnight in refrigerator. Turn roast around during the marinade process for even coverage.

Preheat oven to 325˚F. Place roast in a roasting pan, cover, and roast 20 minutes per pound. Uncover, increase heat to 375˚F, and roast until desired doneness. (For me, it took another 35 minutes to get to medium.)

In the meantime, mix all chutney ingredients but the mint in a stock pot and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer until thickened, about 12-15 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Let cool, and stir in mint. Serve with roast.

Hot blueberry jam from the Berry Patch

Venison marinating in herb rub and blueberry marinade

Venison Roast with Spiced Blueberry Chutncy

We only had one venison roast, so I suppose I won't be making this exact dish again for a while, but it was delicious and I suspect the spiced blueberry chutney would go well with steaks or other types of roasts.

Recipe adapted from:
Seattle Times (get the original recipe here)

Venison Bulgogi (Take 2)

I had attempted venison bulgogi before, but when I made venison bibimbap, I discovered another bulgogi sauce recipe that served as an excellent marinate for the bibimbap so I thought I'd try it as is. I made two batches—one used to marinate the thinly sliced venison steak overnight and the other as a sauce for serving. It was tasty! I wouldn't say this was better or worse than the other recipe I tried, but this is a bit sweeter with the inclusion of pears.  It's been fun getting into Korean cooking, and the flavors work really well with our large (though slowly dwindling, finally) supply of venison!

Venison Bulgogi

Recipe courtesy of:

Maangchi.com (get the recipe here)

Venison Bibimbap

Slowly but surely, we've been chipping away at our seemingly endless supply of venison. Still, we had an abundance of ground venison and one can only make so many ground venison pizzas without getting bored! Then, a friend of mine who has been experimenting with venison cooking himself suggested marinating ground venison in bulgogi sauce and then making bibimbap with it. Now there's an idea!

Bibimbap is a classic Korean dish that is basically white rice topped with vegetables, meat, and an egg cooked over easy, which you break and mix in with the rest of the ingredients before consuming. I've only had bibimbap in Korean restaurants and never even came close to attempting it myself. Luckily, I discovered Maangchi.com, a website with a massive collection of authentic Korean recipes that is run by a New York transplant who was originally from Korea. It didn't take too much digging before I found a bibimbap recipe.

But first, I had to make a marinade. Although I had made bulgogi before using a different recipe, I decided to try Maangchi's just for variety's sake. I then marinated the ground venison in the bulgogi sauce overnight in the fridge.

The next day, I made some rice in the rice cooker and prepared the veggies, which included shredded carrots, about 10-15 shiitake mushrooms, 4 small zucchinis, a package of fern brakes (also known as kosari and available at Korean supermarkets), bean sprouts, and spinach. Of course the combination of veggies is not set in stone, but I wanted to follow the recipe exactly in order to replicate the authentic flavor. I did double Maangchi's recipe as I had double the amount of meat.

Veggies for the bibimbap: (L-R) Shredded carrots, shiitake mushroom,
julienned zucchini, fern brakes (kosari), bean sprout, spinach

A huge part of making bibimbap involves arranging the bowl in an attractive manner. I don't know that I did a great job with that, as I apparently fail at cooking eggs over easy without breaking the yolk (I tried multiple times, and it was just not meant to be for this non-egg eater!), and I completely forgot to add the gochujang (Korean hot pepper sauce) before snapping the photo!  But for what it's worth, here's my bibimbap (the rice is at the bottom):

Venison Bibimbap

Because of all the different ingredients that required preparation, I found the bibimbap to be rather high maintenance and time consuming. It was worth the attempt though, as it was very tasty, and the ground venison which was slightly sweetened from the bulgogi marinade was astoundingly delicious. Though I may be too busy to make this on a regular basis, it was great to have discovered another way to use ground venison.

Recipe courtesy of:
Maangri.com (get the bulgogi recipe here and the bibimbap recipe here)

Chinese Fried Rice with Shrimp and Venison Kielbasa

Pittsburghers will probably find this surprising, but I was well into my twenties before I had even heard of kielbasa for the first time, let alone taste it. That momentous "first time" was at a holiday gathering with R.'s family in the Pittsburgh area well before I moved here, and I remember liking the juiciness of the kielbasa and the tanginess of the sauerkraut that went along with it. It took me awhile, however, to realize the prominent place that kielbasa holds in "Pittsburghese cuisine," if there is such a thing.

Now that we are locals ourselves, it seemed fitting to have some of our venison made into kielbasa. We brought some along to a Steelers game tailgate back in December, but I was wholly disappointed by the dryness of the sausage - it was nothing like the juicy stuff I remember from that family holiday party!

While the venison kielbasa did not resemble what I know to be kielbasa, it did remind me a little bit of lap cheong - a Chinese sausage that's smoked and also very dry. (That's about where the resemblance ends, though.)

I decided to pull out an old Chinese fried rice recipe that my dad gave me eons ago and tried it with sliced venison kielbasa substituting for lap cheong. It worked out well, adding a rich layer of flavor to the fried rice.  I'm not sure we'll be getting venison kielbasa again, but if we do, this is what I will be making with it.

Venison kielbasa

Chinese Fried Rice with Shrimp and Venison Kielbasa

Chinese Fried Rice with Shrimp and Venison Kielbasa

Ingredients:

• 1½ cup long-grain white rice
• ½ lb venison kielbasa
• ½ lb shrimp, peeled
• 4 eggs, beaten
• ½ cup frozen green peas
• 1 bunch scallions, chopped
• ½ lb fresh pineapple chunks
• 2 tbsp peanut oil, divided (may substitute with canola oil or corn oil)
• Salt, to taste
• 2 tbsp Chinese soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sesame oil (optional)
• Sriracha sauce (optional, but highly recommended)
• Fermented bean curd (optional; available in jars at Chinese supermarkets)

Directions:

1. Cook rice in rice cooker or according to package directions. Let cool before frying. (Better yet, cook a day ahead to let the rice dry some before frying.)
2. Preheat oven to 350˚F. Place kielbasa in a pan and cover with aluminum foil. Roast for 15-20 minutes, until done. Slice kielbasa using a serrated knife. Spray a skillet with cooking spray and heat on medium high, and cook each side of the kielbasa slices for 2-3 minutes.
3. Cook green peas according to package directions.
4. Wash and season shrimp with salt and pepper. In a wok or a skillet, fry shrimp in 1 tbsp peanut oil for about 3 minutes. Remove shrimp from wok/skillet and drain excess liquid.
5. In the wok/skillet, add 1 tbsp peanut oil, and fry ¾ of the eggs under high heat; chop them with a spatula as you fry. Add salt to taste.
6. Lower heat to medium, add rice and cook. Add 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp sesame oil, and salt to taste.
7. Add kielbasa, shrimp, green peas, scallion, pineapples, and the remainder of the eggs. Mix well and fry for 3-5 minutes.
8. Serve with Sriracha sauce and/or fermented bean curd.

Yields 4-5 servings

Cinnamon Apple Almond Quinoa with Venison Maple Sausage

Some of the venison meat we got out of R.'s deer was made into maple sausage. R. likes eating it as is.  Me, I'm not much of a breakfast sausage kind of person, but he raved about it so much that I thawed a package of the maple sausage and cooked a little bit of it just to try, foolishly wondering if this was the wonder sausage that would turn me into a breakfast sausage kind of person.

Well, though tasty as it was - and boy, did it smell wonderful! - I thought the sausage was far too salty to stand on its own.

So no, this did not turn me into a breakfast sausage kind of person. Now what am I going to do with more than a pound of just-thawed venison maple sausage??

As per usual, I took to the internet, and found this recipe by Iowa Girl.

The original recipe calls for just 3 oz of maple sausage, so I had to multiply everything by 6 in order to use up all the venison maple sausage I had on hand. This means making a big batch with plenty of leftovers...but now we have another problem: Chopped raw apples turn brown quickly and don't last as a leftover dish.

So I made a slight modification by cooking the chopped apples in cinnamon butter. I also cooked the quinoa in a rice cooker rather than on the stovetop, as I find the consistency to be much better this way- probably a reflection of my subpar ability to cook grains or anything grain-like without a rice cooker.

Cinnamon Apple Almond Quinoa with Maple Venison Sausage

So here is my version of the the Cinnamon Apple Almond Quinoa with Venison Maple Sausage:

Ingredients:

• 3 cups quinoa
• 6 cups chicken broth (water is OK too)
• 3 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
• 18 oz maple breakfast sausage
• 12 green onions, sliced
• 6 small apples, chopped
• 1.5 cup chopped almonds
• 3/4 cups dried cranberries
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Rinse quinoa in a fine mesh strainer under cold, running water. Cook quinoa in rice cooker with chicken broth. When finished, transfer to a  large bowl.
2. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add sausage then brown and drain, if necessary. In another skillet, melt butter on medium high heat.  Add cinnamon, and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add apples and cook until the cinnamon butter is absorbed.
3. Add cooked sausage, green onions, apples, almonds, and cranberries to the quinoa. Toss to combine then serve.

Yields about 9 hefty servings.

Recipe heavily adapted from:
Iowa Girl (get the original recipe here)

Venison Bulgogi

One of the cuts of venison we got from my husband's kill was simply marked "steak" on the package. Now when I think steak, I think beef sirloin or filet mignon, so naturally I had assumed that this would be a similar cut. Once thawed, however, I discovered that it was more like bone-in flank steak, with tendons running down the length of the meat. As venison is already a tougher meat, it looked like the only way to enjoy the steak was to slice it thinly across the grain and marinate the heck out of it.

So the next question was, how does one serve meat this way? Well, like Korean bulgogi!

I found this great bulgogi sauce recipe online and used it to marinate my meat overnight. Once the meat is marinated, I cooked it on a preheated, oiled grill (pan frying in an oiled skillet under high heat works too) until slightly charred on both sides. I served it with rice, topped with more bulgogi sauce (I made a second serving for the topping).

Venison marinating in bulgogi sauce

Venison Bulgogi

Super delicious!

Recipe courtesy of:
Savory Sweet Life (get the recipe here)

Venison Stew

Back in Pittsburgh, I've continued to do a ton of venison cooking, as I mentioned in a post last month. We have venison in a variety of different cuts, so I've been trying a number of different recipes. In addition to ground venison, we seem to have a lot of chops as well, which the butcher has mostly chopped up for us, so it seemed like they would work well in a stew.

I tried it in Emeril's Venison Stew recipe, and it was excellent! It is not a terribly difficult recipe, but the red wine adds a certain richness to the flavor, and the amount of heat can be adjusted to one's liking by using more or less of Emeril's "Essence" blend.  (I use about a tablespoon or two.)

I made two modifications to the recipe: First, I added some smoked paprika in the Essence. Second, I included chopped potatoes and added them to the stew when I add the stock.

We both love this stew and have made it often!

Venison Stew

Venison Stew

Recipe courtesy of:
Emeril Lagasse, Food Network (get the recipe here)

Venison Meatballs with Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Being a Western Pennsylvania boy, R. grew up hunting deer with his dad. He still goes once a year in the fall as part of a family tradition.

The side effect of having a husband who hunts? You might suddenly end up with some 30 pounds of venison in your freezer! Having never cooked venison before, I suddenly find myself scouring the internet for all sorts of tips and recipes. We have various cuts of the meat, but ground venison is especially in abundance, and not being someone who cooks with ground meat regularly, I needed ideas! Meatballs seemed obvious and simple enough, so that's what I started with.

I found a pretty good venison meatball recipe online, and the meatballs were easy enough to make and tasted great, too! R. commented on how much he loved the sauce. I paired the meatballs with my special roasted garlic mashed potatoes (recipe below) and assorted veggies. Excellent!

Venison Meatballs with Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Venison Meatballs

Recipe courtesy of Taste of Home (get the recipe here).

Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

• 1 large head garlic
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 pounds russet potatoes (about 3 large potatoes)
• 4 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 4 oz cream cheese or Neufchatel cheese
• salt and pepper to taste
• crushed red peppers to taste (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Drizzle garlic with olive oil, then wrap in aluminum foil. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour.
3. Peel potatoes if desired. (Otherwise, clean potatoes thoroughly with vegetable brush.) Chop potatoes. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add potatoes, and cook until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain. Stir in butter, salt, pepper, crushed red peppers (optional), sour cream, and cream cheese.
4. Remove the garlic from the oven, and cut in half. Squeeze the softened cloves into the potatoes. Blend potatoes with an electric mixer until desired consistency is achieved.