Venison and Wild Mushroom Stew

By Tom421

Ingredients

• 2.2 lbs venison stewing meat, cut into 2″ cubes
• 2.2 lbs mixed wild mushrooms, such as chanterelle , horn of plenty, etc.
• 1 cup red wine
• 1/2 cup diced onion
• 1/2 cup diced celery
• 1/2 cup diced carrot
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 tsp juniper berries
• 3 cloves
• 1 sprig sage
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 1 sprig parsley
• 4 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp corn starch or arrowroot
• flour for dusting

Details

Servings 6
Adapted from stefangourmet.com

Preparation

Step 1

To make it easy to remove them later, I put all the herbs and spices in a hairnet (you could also use some muslin).

Heat 4 Tbsp olive oil in a casserole and brown the venison in batches (to avoid crowding the casserole) over high heat.

Take the venison out with a slotted spoon as soon as it is nicely browned on all sides…

Add onion, celery, carrot, and garlic, and season with salt.

Cook over medium heat, stirring to loosen the brown stuff from the bottom of the casserole, until the vegetables are getting soft and starting to color, about 10 minutes.

Add cup of red wine.

Bring to a simmer.

Add the herbs and spices.

Add the meat, including all of the juices that have accumulated on the plate.

Add the mushrooms and season with salt. (Leave them whole. If they are sandy, rinse them very quickly in cold water and spin them dry in a salad spinner. Or use a moist piece of kitchen paper to wipe them clean. That is a lot of work for a kilo of mushrooms, your choice.)

Cover the casserole and lower the heat. Cook over low heat until the mushrooms have wilted and released a lot of liquid, about 45 minutes.

Then remove the cover and continue to cook over low heat, stirring now and then…

…until the meat is tender, about 4 hours. Do not add any liquid during the cooking. If you stir now and then, that is not necessary. The meat does not dry out from lack of liquid, it dries out if the heat is too high and/or if the meat is too lean. The liquid (both from the meat and from the mushrooms) will be reduced gently, thus concentrating the flavor and creating a very tasty gravy.

To thicken the gravy, mix a tablespoon of cornstarch or arrow root with a tablespoon of cold water, then add this slurry to the stew.

Increase the heat to medium and stir until the gravy has thickened, then turn off the heat.

Serve the venison and mushroom stew on preheated plates. The stew will be even better the next day, but make sure to reheat it very gently to prevent drying out the meat.