Venison Bourguignon

Ingredients:

I've never actually cooked game meats before so I did a little research. Apparently a good acidic balance is required to both soften the meat and counter some of the gamey character. Just so happens that the recipe I wanted to use; a French style, was designed with that in mind.

- 1 pound of butcher-shop mesquite smoked bacon
- Venison stew meat
- Fresh Rosemary
- Fresh Thyme
- Fresh Basil
- Fresh Garlic
- Shitake Mushrooms
- Yukon Gold Potatoes
- Red Potatoes
- Yellow Onion
- Shallots
- Zucchini Squash
- Tomatoes
- Carrots
- Sourdough Bread
- Organic Beef Broth
- (n/p) Some leftover vegetable broth

Recommended Beverages:
- In Heat Wheat from Flying Dog brewery in Denver, Co
- Handley Cellars Pinot (also goes in the soup) from Anderson Valley, Ca, USA
- Le Sang des Cailloux (tr. Blood of the Stones) from Vaqueras, France
- Mak Cellars Shiraz from Claire Valley, Ausstralia

Step 1:

Slice up the bacon.

Step 2:

Slice up the tomatoes. Tomatoes will help provide acidity in the soup.

Step 3:

Prepare the herbs by pulling the leaves from the stems/branches.

Step 4:

Chop the garlic and get ready to fire up the bacon.

On the right side of the stove, we get the soup base started. The bacon fat will provide the oil needed to start these vegetables cooking. Vegetable oil should be on standby in case you don't get enough fat from the bacon. Turns out that our bacon was too lean so we needed it.

Step 5:

All of the ingredients sliced up and ready:

Step 6:

Start cooking the bacon.

Step 7:

Next throw in the onion and shallots.

Step 8:

Add the carrots to one of the pans.

Step 9:

Later the venison will be browned in the bacon fat. Once it is finished, the pan will be deglaced with a cup of the pinot and a splash of brandy.

Step 10:

Add the zucchini and some flour to provide some thickening. Crank up the heat a bit to facilitate cooking the flour. Meanwhile, transfer the cooked bacon pieces from the bacon slices pan into the pan with the vegetables and bacon.

Step 11:

Add the garlic (7 cloves) and more flour.

Step 12:

And the herbs along with a bunch of black pepper. In this case I'm using fresh-ground Indian Malabar peppercorns.

Step 13:

Add the venison to the empty pan with the bacon fat and brown the venison.

Step 14:

Add the mushrooms to the vegetable and bacon pan after the flour is cooked so they don't steal all the precious fat for themselves.

Step 15:

Tranfer the venison to the other pan with the vegetables and bacon to wait until the stock pot is ready.

Step 16:

Deglaze the pan by adding the pinot.

Step 17:

Note the purple color to the pan and the way it's near solid at the edges. The deglazing is now finished.

Step 18:

Add the sauce from the pan to the pot. Then add the potatoes to the pot. The starch from the potatoes was supposed to thicken it in to stew, but it didn't work. Sadness.

Step 19:

Add the pan of vegetables and venison to the pot. After tasting the broth, I decided it needed a little salt. Course sea salt. Yum.

Step 20:

Here is the finished venison bourguignon.