Harpooned Venison

Oh yeah.

We made the weekly trip to the market with Duck in mind but ended up with some excellent venison that the Game Stall were promoting that week. Bearing in mind a 'winter warmer' I had languishing in the beer cellar, an idea formulated...

Harpooned Venison

You will need:

2 Venison shoulder steaks

Salt, Pepper

4 large mushrooms

5 small potatoes, sliced

Two cloves garlic

Fresh,chopped parsley

100 ml Harpoon Winter Warmer ale

Beef Stock

1. Firstly, make your potato and mushrooms to accompany the venison. Warm your oven to 180c.

2. Slice your mushroom and chop the garlic. Gently sweat the garlic in som butter in a pan, and then add the mushrooms and sweat also. Be gentle with the heat here. Too much and the garlic with scorch.

3. Peel and slice the potatoes. Don't rinse them.

4. Grease a small gratin or ovenproof dish. Arrange the potatoes in layers, with some of your buttery, garlicky mushrooms inbetween each layer. Dot the top with butter, season well and bake in the oven for at least an hour. Keep your pan.

Next, the Harpoon Gravy: simply boil up about 500ml of stock and add a little sugar to it. Add the beer, and stir. Add a little cornflour with water at the end to thicken up. Leave on a low simmer to reduce. Couldn't be easier.

Warm up the garlicky, buttery pan you used for the mushrooms. Get it smoking, then pan-cook your Venison. Simply roll the venison in salt and crushed black pepper first, and don't add any more oil or butter.Cook the venison as per steak to your liking (but please, for god's sake don't go 'well-done' - you may as well rip up your tastebuds and throw them away), serve with the gravy,mushroom and potatoes to accompany.

Easy. Enjoy the rest of the Harpoon with it. This worked out perfectly due to the cinnamon and nutmeg notes in the beer; game goes really well with these christmassy flavours. You couldn't drink a lot of the warmer - but it compliments this dish perfectly.

www.harpoonbrewery.com