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Recipe from episode 2

Venison pie

A lot of recipes for venison pie require you to marinate the meat in advance, often in a vast amount of wine, in order to ‘tenderise’ it. This is senseless, as it only pickles the meat and makes it drier. It is long, slow cooking that will tenderise it, and the fat oozing slowly from the bacon that will help to keep the meat succulent. The golden pastry cap seals the deal, lending further protection to keep everything succulent.
Ingredients

Serves 6

2 onions, finely sliced
2–3 large carrots, diced
2 celery stalks, sliced
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 tbsp rapeseed or sunflower oil, or dripping
250g pork belly, cut into cubes
1.5kg venison neck and shoulder meat, cut into large chunks
3 tbsp plain white flour
150ml red wine
About 500ml beef, venison, chicken or game stock
2 tbsp tomato puree
A bundle of fresh bay, thyme and rosemary tied together
250g ready-made all-butter puff pastry (or homemade rough puff pastry: https://www.rivercottage.net/recipes/rough-puff-pastry)
1 egg, beaten
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Set a large frying pan or casserole dish over medium heat. Add the onions, carrots, celery and garlic along with 1 tablespoon of oil or dripping. Cook, stirring often, about 5 minutes or until tender.

Set a separate frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the cubed pork belly and fry until lightly browned. Transfer the cubed belly in with the veg. Keep the fat in the pan to brown off the venison.

Add one-third of the cubed wild venison to the hot pork fat and brown off in small batches. Dust 1 tablespoon of flour over the venison, fold through and then transfer to the veg.

Cook the remaining two batches of venison, adding 1 tablespoon of oil or dripping per batch. As before, finish with a 1 tablespoon dusting of flour before transferring each batch to the veg.

Once all the venison is cooked, deglaze the pan with the wine. Let it bubble up and scrape up any bits sticking to the pan. Pour the wine in with the veg. Add just enough stock to cover the meat, and the tomato puree.

Season with a good twist of black pepper, salt to your liking. Add your bundle of herbs, tied with butcher’s string and poke down into the stew.

Simmer for about 1 hour or until the sauce has thickened and the venison is just tender. Let the pie filling cool while you roll your pastry. (See rough puff pastry recipe).

Line the base of a pie dish with pastry. Spoon in the cooled filling. Cap with enough of the remaining pastry to fully cover. Press down the pastry edges to seal.

Brush with a little beaten egg and place in an oven preheated to 200°C/Gas Mark 6. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the pastry is golden and puffed and the sauce from the stew is bubbling underneath.

Serve with a dollop of good buttery mash and some steamed cabbage, sprout tops, kale or other greens.

Learn more about ethical meats like venison in Hugh and Gelf’s online Ethical Meat Sourcing and Cooking Course or for more game recipes check out the River Cottage Game Handbook by Tim Maddams

Learn more about sourcing and cooking with ethical meat:

ONLINE COURSE Ethical Meat: Sourcing & CookingONLINE COURSE Ethical Meat: Sourcing & Cooking
ONLINE COURSEEthical Meat: Sourcing & CookingTaught by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

This course extols the virtue of eating less and better meat, both for the sake of our health and also for the planet. Hugh takes you through the various meat choices in the mainstream market and leads you towards the higher welfare end of the market through a well-informed critique of the devastating effects of modern factory farming and British supermarket practice.

His polemic is reminiscent of his television campaigns around the consumption and farming of meat, and by the end of this course you’ll gain new insight into how you can source the best possible meat and make the most of every morsel.