Rehragout mit Preiselbeeren

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy Dutch oven or enameled cast-iron braising pot (5-liter minimum)
• •Wooden spoon
• •Kitchen paper for drying meat
• •Sharp heavy knife for cubing venison

Instructions

1. 1

   Dry and season the venison

   Pat the venison cubes thoroughly dry with kitchen paper. This is not a step you can skip. Wet meat won't brown, it will steam, and steamed meat tastes boiled, not braised. Season generously with salt and pepper on all sides. Let the cubes sit at room temperature for twenty minutes while you prepare the vegetables. Cold meat straight from the fridge drops the temperature of your pan and gives you a gray, sorry sear.

   Venison shoulder gives you the best result for braising. It has more connective tissue than leg, which melts into the sauce and makes everything silky. If you can only find leg, it works, but watch the cooking time. Leg dries out faster.
2. 2

   Brown the venison

   Heat two tablespoons of clarified butter in a heavy Dutch oven or braising pot over high heat. You want the fat shimmering and almost smoking. Brown the venison in batches, leaving space between each piece. If you crowd the pan, the meat steams instead of searing and you lose that deep, caramelized crust that gives the whole ragout its backbone. Three to four minutes per batch, turning once. The surface should be dark brown, almost mahogany. Set the browned pieces aside on a plate. Don't pour away the juices that collect there. They go back in later.

   Use clarified butter or lard, not whole butter. Regular butter burns at the temperature you need for a proper sear. Austrians have always used Schmalz (lard) or clarified butter for browning game. It's not about health. It's about getting the pan hot enough.
3. 3

   Build the vegetable base

   Lower the heat to medium and add the remaining tablespoon of butter to the same pot. Add the diced onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until they turn soft and golden, about eight minutes. The browned bits on the bottom of the pot will start to dissolve into the onions. That's flavor. Don't scrub them away. Add the carrots, celeriac, and parsnip. Cook for another five minutes until the edges just begin to soften. Stir in the tomato paste and let it cook for a full minute, stirring constantly. Raw tomato paste tastes tinny and sharp. Cooked tomato paste tastes rich and round. One minute makes the difference.

4. 4

   Add the flour and deglaze

   Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables and stir it in. Cook for another minute. The flour will thicken the sauce later, but it needs to toast slightly now so the finished ragout doesn't taste pasty. Pour in the red wine and use a wooden spoon to scrape every browned bit off the bottom of the pot. This is your fond, and it holds half the flavor of the dish. Let the wine bubble for two minutes, reducing slightly. The alcohol needs to cook off or it will leave a harsh, boozy edge in the sauce.

   Use a wine you'd actually drink. Gretel always said cooking with bad wine makes bad food, and she was right. An Austrian Zweigelt is ideal: fruity, medium-bodied, with soft tannins that complement venison without overpowering it. Blaufränkisch works if you want something darker and more structured.
5. 5

   Braise the ragout

   Return the browned venison to the pot along with any juices from the plate. Pour in the stock. Add the crushed juniper berries, allspice, bay leaves, thyme sprigs, cloves, and the strip of orange zest. Stir gently to combine. The liquid should come about three-quarters of the way up the meat. If it doesn't, add a splash more stock. Bring to a gentle simmer, then cover with a tight-fitting lid and reduce the heat to the lowest setting. Cook for two to two and a half hours. The surface should barely tremble. If you see a rolling boil, your heat is too high and the venison will seize up and go stringy. Check it once after an hour and stir gently.

   Crush the juniper berries with the flat side of a knife before adding them. Whole berries sit in the sauce like little green pebbles and release almost nothing. A gentle crush opens them up and lets the piney, resinous flavor into the braise where it belongs.
6. 6

   Check the venison

   After two hours, test a piece with two forks. It should pull apart easily with almost no resistance. If it still holds its shape firmly, give it another thirty minutes. Venison shoulder needs time. The connective tissue has to fully dissolve into the sauce, and that doesn't happen at the two-hour mark for every piece. When it's right, the meat will be tender enough to cut with a spoon.

7. 7

   Finish the sauce

   Remove the bay leaves, thyme sprigs, orange zest, and any whole cloves you can find. Stir in the red wine vinegar. Taste the sauce. It should be deep and rich with a gentle warmth from the spices and a slight sweetness from the root vegetables. If it's too thin, remove the lid and simmer uncovered for ten minutes to concentrate it. If it needs brightness, add another splash of vinegar. Season with salt and pepper. The sauce should coat the back of a spoon in a glossy, dark film.

8. 8

   Serve with Preiselbeeren

   Ladle the ragout into warm, deep plates or a large serving dish. Scatter chopped parsley over the top. Place a generous spoonful of Preiselbeeren on the side of each plate, not stirred in. The lingonberries are there to cut the richness, and the cook and the eater should be in charge of how much tartness they want with each bite. Serve with Butterspätzle, Semmelknödel, or Serviettenknödel. Mahlzeit!

Chef Tips

• •Talk to your butcher. Good venison ragout starts at the counter, not the stove. Ask for shoulder if you can get it. It has the right ratio of lean meat to connective tissue for a long braise. If your butcher only carries leg, reduce the cooking time by about thirty minutes and check the tenderness early.
• •Don't marinate the venison overnight in wine, the way some older German-language recipes suggest. That technique was designed to mask the taste of poorly handled game. Modern farmed venison is clean and mild. An overnight marinade will turn it mushy on the outside and obscure the flavor you paid good money for.
• •Preiselbeeren are not cranberry sauce. They're smaller, more tart, and less sweet. If you can't find Austrian or Scandinavian lingonberry preserves, the Swedish brand from IKEA is a perfectly acceptable substitute. Cranberry sauce is not.
• •This ragout is better the next day. The flavors settle overnight and the sauce tightens up. Reheat gently over low heat with a splash of stock if it's too thick. It's the kind of dish that rewards you for thinking ahead.

Advance Preparation

• •The ragout can be made up to three days ahead and refrigerated. It improves overnight as the spices meld and the sauce concentrates. Reheat gently with a splash of stock.
• •The root vegetables can be peeled and diced the morning of cooking and stored in a bowl of cold water in the fridge.
• •If serving with Semmelknödel or Spätzle, both can be shaped or made ahead. Knödel reheat well in simmering salted water. Spätzle can be tossed in butter and rewarmed in a hot pan.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 350g)