Venison Bourguignon with Mulled Wine

Have you had enough of turkey, duck and goose for Christmas? Why not follow the Scandinavian and German tradition and try something else for a change? Christmas time is very much game time in Germany. German people wound’t go as far as the Scandinavians, who often would have Rudolf on their menu, but people like to eat all kinds of game like wild boar, hare, venison or venison veal.

Last time I showed you how to make your own mulled wine. And this time, I am going to show you what else you can whisk up with this fragrant drink. Not only is it great to chug down your throat, the mixture is also fantastic for cooking, especially if you have some leftovers. Now the stretch is on the IF, which might be actually quite rare. You can use regular red wine for your cooking, but I prefer mulled wine because of the sweetness and the infused spices that gives the dish another warmth.   

In this post, I am going to show you how to cook venison bourguignon, which is quite similar to its cousin - the beef bourguignon. If you never tackled game before, oh well, there’s always the first time. And it’s by far not as difficult as you imagine. The only thing you need for this recipe is time and patience. In fact all god things take time. Stews always call for long hours of cooking to bring out the rich flavour. But I will show you a simple trick how to speed up the cooking process.

Regarding the venison, you wouldn’t want to choose an expensive cut. Naturally, venison is very lean and can dry out easily during long cooking. You would need some fatty and some stringy parts like the shoulder parts for example, which are also the less expensive parts of the animal. 

Ingredients 

1 kg venison

300 ml mulled wine

400 g chopped tomatoes

2 Carrots

2 Charlottes 

3 Garlic gloves

3 Bay leafs

1 Cinnamon stick 

20 Juniper berries

Rosemary

Parsley

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Start with cutting your venison into bite size cubes. Season your meat with salt and pepper, and leave it to marinate for 10 to 20 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare your carrots - peal and cut them into chunks. The same goes for your charlottes and garlic. Preheat the oven before you start cooking.

Normally, stews can easily take three hours to cook. But here comes the trick to speed up the whole cooking process without drying out your meat. Dust your venison with a good dash of all-purpose flour, before you put it into the pan. The four will seal up the meat, so it will lose less of the usual amount of water. The flour will also help to thicken your sauce. Now, you’ve killed two birds with one stone!

Bring your pan with some olive oil to high heat and brown the meat form all sides. Add the charlottes, garlic and rosemary to the meat when it turns golden brown. Then add the first splash of mulled wine (ca. 100ml) to the meat and let it simmer for five minutes. Now you can add your tomatoes and the rest of the spices to the stew. Stir and cover your pan with a lid.

Put the stew into the oven at 180°C for at least one and a half hour. The longer the stew remains cooking in the oven, the better it gets. Stir it form time to time and gradually add the rest of the mulled wine to the stew. It’s ready to serve when your meat is soft and glossy.

You can serve the it with cooked potatoes or Knödel – German dumplings. I recommend German Spätzle, a kind of soft egg noodles, popular in South Germany, Austria and Switzerland and butter glazed romanesco and carrots.