Doctor Borde's Venison Shank
In spite of the title, we're not sure that the good doctor would have
had much opportunity to taste venison, which in his day would have been the
preserve of royalty and the nobility, the very rich - or poachers!
Fortunately you don't have to be any of these to enjoy venison today.
We recently bought a nice venison shank from the
Chanctonbury Game stall at Steyning
market and created this recipe to cook it really slowly, drawing
out all the wonderful flavours into the sauce and making the meat melt in
the mouth. You could use lamb shank if you prefer - try
Blockfields Farm lamb. We found
that there was plenty of meat for two of us on a single shank. However
if you want to serve it restaurant style, with one shank per person, you
would need to cook it for a shorter time so that the meat doesn't quite fall
off the bone. You may also need to adjust the quantities of liquid to
ensure enough depth during the slow cooking period.
We used two carrots, where the recipe on which we based it used only one.
That's partly because we like the carrots from
Dayfields Farm but also because carrots
add a sweetness to the dish which offsets any bitterness which can arise
from slow-cooking beer.
Preparation Time: 15-20 minutes Initial Cooking Time: 20 minutes
Slow Cooking Time: About 3 hours
Ingredients:
* 1 tbsp/20ml rapeseed oil, olive oil or other suitable cooking oil
* 1 small onion
* 1 stick of celery
* 2 medium carrots
* 2 cloves of garlic
* ¾ pt/450ml Merry Andrew
* ¾ pt/450ml stock (we used vegetable, but you can use beef stock if you prefer)
* 4 tomatoes
* 1 tbsp/20ml tomato paste
1 bay leaf
1 tsp/5ml chopped fresh thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
* To make enough for four servings just double the quantities where the symbol * appears next to them.
Method:
Open the beer to allow the carbonation to reduce before you use it and
make up the stock.
Finely chop the onion, celery, carrots and garlic, and roughly chop the
tomatoes, and set them aside.
Heat the oil in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan and brown the shank on all
sides. Transfer it to a plate, then put the onions, celery, carrots and
garlic into the oil and cook until golden.
Now pour in the the beer and stock, and add the tomatoes, tomato paste, bay
leaf and thyme, and finally return the lamb shanks to the saucepan.
Reduce the heat to low, and simmer to the point where the meat is falling
off the bone - about 3 hours. At this stage add salt and pepper if you
wish.
Serve hot, garnished with potatoes, rice or noodles as you prefer, but be
sure to use a deep enough plate so you can serve all the delicious sauce.
You could also serve it Scottish style - in this case make sure the meat
stays on the shank and serve it with potatoes and swede mashed together to
make 'clapshot' - see right.
A variation on this recipe uses haricot beans as a major item in the sauce.
If you want to try a very easy version of this, omit the tomato paste, and
halve the quantity of tomatoes then add a small can of baked beans towards
the end of the cooking time. Just don't tell your dinner party
guests when you use shortcuts like this, otherwise they remember the
'cheats' and forget all your other hard work!
