Venison Stew

We have a bunch of deer meat in the freezer that we need to cook up, so I decided to make some hearty venison stew. My usual method of cooking involves researching a bunch of recipes similar to what I want to make and then cooking up basically some sort of mixture of what I found with whatever harebrained spin I want to put on it.













First I cooked up about half a pack of bacon. Then I started with trimming the steaks. I was warned that cutting off the silver skin, gristle, etc was even more important with venison than with other meats to make sure you don't end up with an over powering gamey taste. After it was all trimmed and cut into about 1/2" pieces, I covered it all with some Worcestershire sauce and smokey flavoring stuff I found in the fridge (I could never actually write recipes considering this is the way I cook....).

I mixed some flour, black pepper and garlic salt together in a shallow dish. In a few batches I tossed the venison chunks in the flour mixture and then cooked them up in the pan I cooked the bacon in. Waste not, want not!

Next I went to work on the veggies. I chopped up a bunch of mushrooms, three carrots and a large onion. I cooked the chopped veggies in garlic and oil with some salt, pepper and oregano. Once they were just about cooked through, I added a small can's worth of tomato paste and some red wine vinegar.

I wasn't sure whether chicken broth or beef broth would best compliment the flavor of the deer meat, so I did half and half. Altogether it was about 5 cups of broth. I mixed in my tomatoy-veggie slop, the venison and chopped up bits of bacon. I threw in a sprig of rosemary and some bay leaves.














While the main part of the stew of was happily simmering away, I chopped, simmered and glazed a bunch of shallots. When they were almost done I added some chopped parsley before mixing it all in with the rest of the stew.

I am extremely pleased with how the stew came out. It ended up needing no extra seasoning, which I always consider a sign of success. It was flavorful, thick and very meaty. I had gotten a loaf of rosemary olive oil bread at the store that went really well.

I really like making soups and stews so I imagine I will probably make a few more during the coming fall and winter months.