Burn's Night Special - Venison Pie

[takayanagi]

“Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.”

Love that wee poem :) Also known as the Selkirk Grace. For those of you who didn't know, it was Burn's Night yesterday and living in Scotland, its absolutely mandatory to celebrate all things Scottish! Last year I made some Cranachan Cupcakes. This year, its all about meat- venison to be precise.


Ingredients:

• 1 pack diced Venison (about 300g)
  
• 1 small red onion diced
• 1 small carrot diced
• 1/2 stalk celery diced
• 1/2 red pepper diced
• 1 small chili deseeded and finely diced (opt)
• 1 cloved garlic
• 1 tbp mixed mushrooms - rehydrate in water/stock and strain making sure to reserve liquid
• 1 sprig each rosemary & thyme
• 3 bay leaves
• Stock
• 100ml red wine
• Oil
• Salt & Pepper
• 1 tbp plain flour
• Ready rolled puff pastry

Method:

1. Heat pan with 1 tbp oil.
   
2. Coat the diced venison in the plain flour.
3. Brown the coated venison in batches.
4. Remove the browned meat from the pan and keep aside.
5. Using the same pan, throw in the onion, carrot, celery, chili, pepper, garlic, mushrooms and saute on high for 5-7 mins. Season and mix well.
6. Put the venison back into the pot.
7. Add the red wine, reserved mushroom liquid, herbs and enough stock to barely cover the meat.
8. Season again, mix well, bring everything to a boil then reduce to a low heat and leave to cook till meat is soft and tender -should take about 35 mins.
9. At this point you can serve it like stew with some cous cous or bread etc.
10. Dish it out into individual pots and leave it to cool.
11. When you are ready for dinner, preheat the oven to 190C.
12. Top the pots with a generous circle of puff pastry and bake for 20-25 mins

You could make this into two different dinners. Normally, on the day that I cook the dish, I eat it like a stew with cous cous and then tend to dish it out into individual pots and either freeze or refridgerate them for use later in the week.

Original post on fussyeater.net