Scottish Venison Stew with Scottish Food Recipes

Scottish venison and mixed root vegetables stew

Hello, everyone. My name is Gordon Hamilton and it's my great pleasure to be guest posting for you today on the blog of Scot Bloggers. I have been food blogging since 2007 but it's only recently that I have started a dedicated Scottish Food Recipes blog which I am very much enjoying developing. The easy to produce dish which I am going to show you how to make today is typical of the types of recipes I have been including and will continue to include on that blog.

Homemade soups and stews are two of the things that often make a Scottish winter bearable. Warming, comforting and delicious, they know the additional benefits of being incredibly easy to prepare, very versatile in terms of the ingredients which they can be made to incorporate and of course freezable in portions for convenient later use if you choose to prepare them in bulk. Yes, they can take a while to cook - but surely the many benefits outweigh this one small consideration?

Beef is probably the most popular meat used in stews in Scotland. In modern times, however, venison has become much more readily available, very importantly at a price which most people can afford. If you've never before tried making a stew with this wild, gamey taste of Scottish glens and moorlands, I really hope you'll give this a go.

Readily available fresh Scottish venison

Ingredients for Two Generous Portions

¾ pound/300g diced Scottish venison
2 tablespoons vegetable or sunflower oil
1 small white onion, peeled, halved and sliced
½ teaspoon dried thyme
Approximately 2 pints/1 litre of homemade game (or chicken) stock
¼ Swede turnip, peeled and roughly chopped
1 medium carrot, scrubbed, topped, tailed and roughly chopped
1 medium parsnip, scrubbed, topped, tailed and roughly chopped
8 to 10 baby new potatoes, washed (whole and unpeeled)
2 teaspoons homemade rowan and apple jelly
1 tablespoon freshly chopped flat leaf parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Browning venison in vegetable oil

Pour the vegetable or sunflower oil in to a large stew pot and gently bring it up to a moderate heat. Add the venison and use a wooden spoon to stir it carefully around as it browns and seals over the course of a couple of minutes.

Sliced onion is added to browned venison

Add the onion to the pot and continue to stir for another minute or so until it is just softened. Season with the thyme, salt and pepper.

Homemade wild game stock

This genuinely is homemade game stock. I made it from the bone of a venison haunch joint I enjoyed a few weeks earlier and froze it. Fresh chicken stock does however work very well in this dish.

Stock is added to browned venison and onions

Pour the stock in to the pot and bring to a simmer. Continue to simmer as gently as possible (uncovered) for one and a quarter hours.

Fresh root vegetables for venison stew

I haven't peeled the carrot or parsnip in this instance as I like the added texture and vitamins the skins provide. They were of course scrubbed very thoroughly with a brush under running warm water. You could peel them if you wish, especially where the skins are perhaps particularly dirty or damaged.

Vegetables are added to venison stew

Add the vegetables to the stew pot and stir carefully but well.

Rown and apple jelly is stirred in to stew

I love homemade rowan jelly and make it every year, usually with added apples. It is a jelly that goes very well with beef but particularly well with a strong, gamey meat like venison. Add the jelly to the pot, stir again and bring the liquid back to a simmer for a further forty-five minutes.

Chopped parsley is added to venison stew at the last minute

Stir the chopped parsley in to the stew for the final couple of minutes of cooking only. Carefully taste, adjust the seasoning where required and ladle in to deep plates or bowls to serve with fresh, crusty bread.