Venison, mulberry gastrique and butternut squash risotto

 Every fall we look forward to deer hunting season and if we are successful, we are going to enjoy the hunt through the food we cook. This year I was fortunate enough to have harvested a buck, a small one but a tasty one! I really like hunting, I am outside for most of the ten days and it is a remarkable time, as I wait for the elusive buck to cross my sites, I am watching hawks, eagles, and other animals, I am also experiencing extreme weather changes, from mild days to snowy mornings.  The weather changes are really fun to experience, opening day this year was beautiful and by the following week, we had snow! Not a lot of snow but enough to change up the gear I was wearing, lol!  The best part of hunting, is my wife Sara loves to come down to the woods and push the deer towards where I am hunting, walking with her warm coffee or tea she gets an opportunity to look over the trails and basically get outside.  We have been hunting like this on the farm for a very long time, it has always proven to be fairly successful when we do this plus I get to watch my beautiful wife walk up to me with her warm smile! If I am really lucky a deer will walk out ahead of her and I get to put one down!  This year I harvested this buck before she came down on opening day, in fact it was right at dawn when it was legal to shoot! Both Sara and I are respectful towards the wildlife on the farm but also understand the need to manage the herd; we have seen a large number of deer car accidents and know that they can be deadly.  We also will take road kill if necessary, especially if the animal has been hit and can not get up, but is still alive.  In this highly charged world today, pandemics, insane leadership and other formidable circumstances, hunting, foraging and raising food seems to make sense.  We are always reviewing how we can do better, or work on our sustainable way of life.  It is not lost on us, that the skill sets of survival are important for anyone, no we are not subscribing to the world is ending scenario but instead realize how much better life is when you are capable of putting food on your table versus pushing a grocery cart to get that food. 

Wisconsin venison is really horned beef lol! The meat is incredibly tasty, tender and I swear you would think you are eating beef!  Their diet is really corn, soy and grass.  In the winter time it is acorns and other tree bearing items, seriously, they have done some major damage to the trees on our property! 

One of our past times is to forage for other foods on the farm and one of those foraged foods are the mulberries, we have quite a few of them on the property. The mulberries are one of the easiest to obtain; we lay a tarp under the tree, shake the tree and watch the mulberries drop down to the tarp.  Once the mulberries have dropped we pick through them and take the ripe ones to store in the freezer for later use.  I like to cook foods that we have harvested, grown or foraged and this dish is no exception.  Another example of our foraging is the box elder trees on the property, we tap them every spring and cook down the sap, it is very similar to the maple syrup but with its own unique flavor! It is one of our favorites to season our squash with or to eat with french toast!

Butternut squash risotto, seared venison backstrap and mulberry gastrique.  I know some people would state it is too rare but not in our house, it is cooked perfectly!  The recipe is fairly easy, I will share it at the end of this post.  This is a short video of cooking the venison and the risotto.

Along with foraging we have always grown a lot of our food; butternut squash is one of our favorites and all I need to do is reserve some of the seeds from the harvested squash for the next year.  Usually I will prepare the squash for the freezer in two ways, roasted and ready for reheat with spices and other aromatics or diced, roasted and bagged for later cooking.  It was the latter I used in this dish, I prepared risotto with chicken stock, turmeric and a small amount of saffron.  The diced butternut squash is reheated in the oven and roasted a bit more, seasoned and added to the simmering risotto later. 

You will notice in the short video how I use a cast iron pan, it probably is the only pan I truly like to cook with; they hold heat better, and the heat is usually even.  Plus cleaning the cast iron pan is super easy and when I am finished I do not end up with a lot of pots and pans to cleanup! 

This is the recipe for this dish.

Pan Seared Venison Backstrap, Mulberry Gastrique, Butternut Squash risotto

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

Venison back strap 2 pounds

Salt and pepper to taste

fresh thyme 4 springs

fresh rosemary 2 springs

Olive oil 4 tablespoons

Butter 1/2 a stick

Gastrique

Mulberries - frozen or fresh

Granulated sugar 1/2 cup

Apple cider vinegar 1/2 cup

Salt and pepper to taste

Risotto

Arborio rice 1 cup

Chicken stock 4 cups

White wine 1 cup

1/2 cup of olive oil

Very fine minced shallots

Turmeric 1/2 tablespoon

Saffron pinch

butter 1/2 pound

Mascarpone 4 tablespoon

Parmesan cheese grated 1 cup

Butternut squash diced and roasted 2 cups

Box elder syrup 1/2 cup Note: you can use maple syrup, we tap our box elders trees for syrup

Butter for squash, 1 stick

Method:

Start the risotto by adding the olive oil to a good size sauté pan and heat it up.  Add the shallots and heat them up, add the risotto and stir the oil, shallot and risotto together. The risotto should be fully coated with the oil and it should not be browned.  Add the white wine and turn the heat down to low. Mix into the chicken stock the turmeric and saffron and add one cup of the stock to the simmering risotto.  Simmer together until you cannot smell the alcohol from the wine, stirring the risotto a little at this stage.  Normally, we stir risotto a lot but in this case we are only par cooking the risotto and do not need to do a lot of stirring. When you can no longer smell the wine in the risotto, turn off the heat and pour the risotto into another pan and let it cool down. 

Season the venison back strap with salt and pepper about an hour prior to cooking and let it sit out ant room temperature for the entire hour. At the end of the one hour heat up the cast iron pan with some of the olive oil olive oil.  Place the venison back strap at the top of the cast iron pan with the herbs on top of the venison.  Place the butter in the cast iron pan and as the butter melts spoon it on top of the venison, butter basting the loin. Do this until the meat reaches an internal temperature of 130 f.  Pull the meat from the pan and set aside to rest.  

For the gastrique place the sugar into small sauce pot and cook the sugar to a caramel stage, stirring it the whole time to keep it from burning.  Carefully pour the vinegar into the caramelized sugar, it will create vinegar steam, don't breathe it in as it will take your breathe away! Once the sugar has melted back to a liquid after adding the vinegar add the mulberries and let it reduce.  Season with salt and pepper. 

Finish the risotto by bringing it back to the pan, heat the mixture with another cup of the chicken stock.  Now you need to keep on stirring and adding the stock until the risotto reaches an al a dente, to the tooth.  At this stage whisk in the butter, mascarpone, butternut squash (seasoned with the box elder syrup) and the parmesan cheese.

Plate the venison with first placing a portion of the gastrique on to the plate.  Using a ring mold place a small amount of the risotto into the ring mold and set it on the plate.  Slice the venison and arrange around the risotto and on top of the gastrique.