A Taste of Your Own Venison - Venison Stroganoff

For the life of me, I can't understand why people would buy those packets of dried flavoring for a Beef Strog when it's one of the easiest dishes you could possibly make. It's so hearty and delicious, it should be in everybody's repertoire.

Learn to make your strog from scratch and you'll never use one of these packets again.

Generally this is done with beef, but with an abundance of wild venison currently in the freezer, I figured the richness of the meat would compliment this recipe well. I was so right. It's delicious. Apparently in Russia it's common to substitute with pork if they don't have beef on hand, as well. So while I haven't tried it that way myself, feel free to mix things up a bit.

Things NOT to change - your pan and your butter. Cook this in a cast iron frying pan - nothing nonstick! You want all the crispy goodness from the meat on the bottom of the pan when you come to deglazing it, and you just don't get that in a non stick frying pan. And if you use any kind of oil instead of butter, it just won't taste the same. It will have a weak tasting, greasy film instead of being creamy and deeply flavored.

For this recipe you're going to need:

• a generous knob of butter
• an onion
• a generous handful of mushrooms
• about 400g of the meat you are using, in this case venison, cut into bite sized chunks
• one or two bay leaves
• 1 tsp wholegrain mustard
• about 1/2 a cup of brandy - or if you don't cook with alcohol use apple cider vinegar
• a cup of beef stock
• sour cream

Cook your chopped up onions in the butter til they start turning translucent. Drop in your bayleaves and mustard, and then add your meat. Keep the skillet on a medium-high heat so that the meat doesn't start sweating. You're not looking to steam your meat here. You want it to stick to the pan a little, leaving a lovely dark brown coating that releases its amazing flavor when you add your brandy or ACV. Scrape the bottom of your pan with your spatula as you add it to get up all those delicious sticky bits and then add your stock. Tear your mushrooms into chunks and drop them in as well. I say tear them rather than cutting them, because cutting down on a musroom even with a sharp knife can bruise them a bit. Just get your fingers dirty and rip them up. Let everything simmer a wee bit til the mushrooms are cooked through and only add the sour cream when you're just about to serve. Lashings of the stuff. Delicious. Serve it all up on a bed of rice; or if you want to go traditional, mashed potatoes and dill gherkins. Yum.