Loin of venison with broccoli and stilton purée and red wine sauce

By Josh Eggleton

Serves: 2
Cooking Time: 90 minutes

Ingredients:

Venison
• 400g loin venison, trimmed all silverskin
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme
• 25g butter
• 150g girolles mushrooms, other wild mushrooms may substitute.
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• Salt
• pepper
Broccoli and stilton purée
• 1 head broccoli
• 100g butter
• 100g Stilton
• Salt
• pepper
Red wine sauce
• 1 shallot, sliced
• 1 carrot, sliced
• 1 leek, top only, sliced
• 1 stalk celery, sliced
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 sprig fresh thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 200ml red wine, good quality
• 50ml red wine vinegar
• 100ml port
• 500ml game stock, or substitute brown chicken stock or beef stock
• 25g butter

Method:

1. Begin by preparing the red wine sauce in advance. Heat vegetable oil in a heavy-based pan over a medium heat and sauté the vegetables and garlic. Ensure you stir and scrape the pan until the vegetables are dark brown in colour

2. Then add the herbs, garlic, red wine, port, and vinegar and allow to reduce down – the resulting mixture should be a few millimetres deep

3. Next add in the stock and bring the sauce to a boil. Once boiling, reduce to a simmer and continue cooking until it reduces by half

4. Strain the reduced sauce through a fine strainer into a small pan. Finish with the butter
5. Begin the broccoli and stilton purée, by heating heavily-salted water in a large pan until it reaches a rolling boil. Then trim the broccoli away from the stem and add to the pan. Cook until the broccoli softens and is slightly overcooked

6. Place the cooked broccoli in a blender with 5 tbsp of the cooking water. Blitz together with the butter and Stilton until smooth

7. Place the purée in a small pan over a very low heat, and keep warm. Season with salt and pepper to taste and then set aside

8. Place a heavy-based frying pan over a medium-high heat and add vegetable oil

9. Season the venison with salt and pepper to taste and once the pan is hot, sear one side for 2 minutes. Then flip to sear the other side of the venison for 2 minutes

10. Take the pan off the heat and add thyme, garlic and 25g of butter

11. Brush the venison with the infused butter in the pan and leave it in the pan to slowly finish cooking in the pan (off the heat). It should take 10 minutes for it to reach a medium-rare finish. Once cooked, take the meat out of the pan and leave to rest

12. Return the pan to a medium heat and sauté the mushrooms for 5 minutes in what remains of the infused butter

13. Divide the purée and mushrooms between two plates. Slice the venison and place on the plates and finish with the red wine sauce

Recipe courtesy of Great British Chefs. See more delicious venison recipes.