Chef Thomas
A Proper Chicken Broth
Sunday's roast chicken, simmered slowly on Monday with carrots, celery, leeks, and thyme into a bowl of clear, golden broth that smells like the kitchen is paying attention.
Culinary Explorer
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Venison Casserole with Juniper
Created by Chef Thomas
Venison shoulder braised for hours in red wine with crushed juniper and bay, finished with redcurrant jelly, the kind of pot you carry to the table on the coldest evening of the year.
Soups & Stews
British
Dinner Party
Special Occasion
30 min
Active Time
3 hr cook•3 hr 30 min total
Yield6 servings
January. The garden is bare, the light has gone by four, and the kitchen window is running with condensation from the pot on the hob. This is the weather for venison. Not a neat fillet seared pink in a restaurant, but shoulder, braised slowly in red wine until it gives way to a fork and the sauce has gone dark and deep and slightly sticky.
Juniper is the quiet genius here. Crush the berries and the smell is immediate: pine forests, gin, cold air, something almost medicinal that becomes warm and resinous over three hours in the oven. It was made for game. The pairing is old and unsentimental, the kind of combination that exists because it works, not because someone clever invented it.
I make this when I want to feed people properly. When the evening calls for something that takes its time and fills the house with a smell that says the right things before anyone sits down. A casserole isn't a performance. It's a pot of food, left alone in a low oven, that does the work while you do something else. By the time you carry it to the table, the meat has surrendered, the wine has thickened into something almost jammy, and the redcurrant jelly you stirred in at the end has rounded every edge. We're only making dinner. But it's the kind of dinner worth writing down.
I wrote it down in the notebook last February: venison, juniper, red wine, rain on the window. That was enough.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
venison shoulder
Quantity
1kg
cut into large chunks
plain flour
Quantity
2 tablespoons
seasoned with salt and pepper
olive oil
Quantity
2 tablespoons
butter
Quantity
a good knob
onions
Quantity
2
peeled and roughly chopped
carrots
Quantity
2
peeled and cut into thick rounds
celery
Quantity
2 sticks
sliced
garlic
Quantity
3 cloves
crushed
tomato purée
Quantity
1 tablespoon
red wine
Quantity
500ml
beef or game stock
Quantity
500ml
juniper berries
Quantity
10
lightly crushed
bay leaves
Quantity
3
thyme
Quantity
a few sprigs
redcurrant jelly
Quantity
2 tablespoons
fine sea salt and black pepper
Quantity
to taste
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| venison shouldercut into large chunks | 1kg |
| plain flourseasoned with salt and pepper | 2 tablespoons |
| olive oil | 2 tablespoons |
| butter | a good knob |
| onionspeeled and roughly chopped | 2 |
| carrotspeeled and cut into thick rounds | 2 |
| celerysliced | 2 sticks |
| garliccrushed | 3 cloves |
| tomato purée | 1 tablespoon |
| red wine | 500ml |
| beef or game stock | 500ml |
| juniper berrieslightly crushed | 10 |
| bay leaves | 3 |
| thyme | a few sprigs |
| redcurrant jelly | 2 tablespoons |
| fine sea salt and black pepper | to taste |
Equipment Needed
- •Large cast iron casserole with a lid (at least 4-litre capacity)
- •Heavy-bottomed frying pan if browning separately
- •Wooden spoon
Instructions
- 1
Brown the venison
Set the oven to 150C/130C fan. Toss the venison chunks in the seasoned flour, shaking off the excess. Heat the olive oil and butter in a heavy casserole over a high heat. When the butter foams, brown the meat in batches. Don't crowd the pan. Each piece wants proper contact with the hot surface, a deep, dark crust on all sides. If you pile them in, they'll steam instead, and steamed meat is grey and joyless. Take your time. Move each batch to a plate when it's done.
Venison is lean. It needs a hot pan and a confident hand. The crust you build now is the foundation of the whole dish. Don't move the pieces around. Let them sit and colour. - 2
Soften the vegetables
Turn the heat down to medium. Add the onions, carrots, and celery to the same pan. There should be enough fat left; if not, add another small knob of butter. Let them soften for eight to ten minutes, stirring occasionally, scraping up the dark, sticky bits from the bottom of the pan. Those bits are flavour. When the onions are translucent and the kitchen smells of something worth making, add the garlic and tomato purée. Stir for a minute until the purée darkens slightly and loses its raw edge.
- 3
Add wine and reduce
Pour in the red wine. It will hiss and bubble and the steam will smell extraordinary, like a cold evening being solved. Bring it to a good simmer and let it reduce by about a third. This concentrates the wine and cooks off the harsher alcohol. Five minutes or so. You'll know because the smell will shift from sharp and boozy to something rounder, deeper, more like the dish it's becoming.
- 4
Build the braise
Return the venison to the pan along with any juices that have gathered on the plate. Add the stock, the crushed juniper berries, the bay leaves, and the thyme. The liquid should come about two thirds of the way up the meat. It doesn't need to cover it completely. Give everything a gentle stir, bring it to a simmer, then put the lid on.
Crush the juniper berries with the flat of a knife or the back of a spoon. You want them cracked open, not powdered. The oils release slowly into the braise, and that piney, resinous warmth is the whole character of the dish. - 5
Braise low and slow
Transfer the casserole to the oven. Leave it for two and a half to three hours. Check it once, halfway through, just to make sure it's ticking along at a gentle blip rather than a rolling boil. The meat is ready when it yields to a fork without resistance, not falling apart, but giving way willingly. The sauce will have thickened and darkened, and the kitchen will smell like the kind of evening where nobody checks the time.
- 6
Finish with redcurrant jelly
Take the casserole out of the oven. Fish out the bay leaves and the thyme stalks. Stir in the redcurrant jelly and let it melt into the sauce. It brings a quiet sweetness that rounds everything out, softening the tannins from the wine and balancing the iron depth of the venison. Taste it. Season again. The salt will probably need adjusting; it always does after a long braise. Serve straight from the pot, at the table, with something to soak up the sauce.
Chef Tips
- •Venison shoulder is the cut for this. It's tougher than loin or haunch, which is exactly why it braises so well. The connective tissue breaks down over hours into something rich and yielding. Ask your butcher, or find a good game dealer. Don't substitute with a tender cut; it will dry out and miss the point.
- •The wine should be something you'd drink, not the cheapest bottle on the shelf. It doesn't need to be expensive, but it needs to be decent. A robust red, something with backbone. If you wouldn't pour yourself a glass of it, don't put it in the pot.
- •This is better the next day. If you can make it a day ahead, let it cool, refrigerate it, and reheat it gently the following evening. The flavours settle and deepen overnight in a way that patience rewards. The sauce tightens. The juniper rounds out. It becomes more itself.
- •Serve it with something plain that can absorb the sauce. Mashed potato is the obvious choice, and the right one. Colcannon if you want to bring cabbage into it. Crusty bread if you're keeping things simple. The sauce is the star. Give it something to cling to.
Advance Preparation
- •The casserole improves overnight. Make it a day ahead, cool, and refrigerate. Reheat gently on the hob or in a low oven (140C) for thirty to forty minutes until heated through.
- •Freezes well for up to three months. Defrost overnight in the fridge and reheat gently. The texture of the meat holds up well to freezing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 420g)
Calories
415 calories
Total Fat
19 g
Saturated Fat
7 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
12 g
Cholesterol
150 mg
Sodium
620 mg
Total Carbohydrates
18 g
Dietary Fiber
2 g
Sugars
8 g
Protein
39 g
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