Venison, whether wild or farmed, is a full-flavoured, lean red meat with a slightly tighter texture than beef. Due to its leanness, it is important not to overcook it as it will become dry and firm. If you are using a prime cut, such as loin or saddle, it should be tender enough to be cooked pink. It is sometimes a good idea to add more fat (streaky bacon, extra oil) to recipes that involve slower cooking of cuts, like haunch, shin or shoulder, to compensate for this leanness. Lots of recipes recommend marinating venison in red wine, but unless you have meat from an older animal, this is not necessary and will give the venison a more powerful, robust taste that you may not always want.
In Britain and Ireland there are four main breeds of deer that we eat: red, fallow, roe and sika, which is very much like red. The breed of deer makes little difference to taste, although roe deer does tend to have a finer grain than red, sika or fallow deer.
The eating experience can vary widely, depending on how cleanly the deer has been shot and how the carcase has been handled thereafter. Much depends on whether it has been hung to tenderize the flesh and develop a more gamey flavour, and how it has been hung. Venison from a carcase that has been skinned will usually have a less obviously gamey taste than that which has been hung in its fur. The age and condition of the deer are also factors. Venison from younger deer will usually be more tender than that from older animals, and the eating quality of wild venison can dip from January to March when the animals are thinner and in poorer condition because they can’t find enough to eat. Farmed venison doesn’t vary in this way as the deer are given extra feed when there is not enough pasture to eat.
Since so many factors can influence the eating quality of wild venison, you have to put your faith in a good butcher or game dealer or specialist venison supplier to provide you with meat that will eat well. Wild venison can be splendid and most of it is very good, but every now and then you can get meat from an animal that was too old, too thin or not cleanly shot. Farmed venison may be less romantic, but it is a more consistent product than wild because it will have come from a deer that was in good condition and cleanly shot.
Things to do with venison
• Minced venison makes excellent, unusual chilli con carne. Add some smoked paprika, or smoked chilli, to make it feel less everyday and more special.
• Chopped haunch of venison is a prime candidate for a Thai red curry or a Massaman curry.
• Rich, lean, gamey venison works particularly well with dried fruits (prunes or apricots) and spices (cumin, ginger and saffron) in a Moroccan tagine. Choose shoulder or shin for this treatment.
• Minced venison can be used instead of beef to make burgers. Just include a little olive or nut oil with the usual additions of minced onions, egg, salt, pepper and chopped parsley. A slightly gamey venison burger stands up better than the beef equivalent to a potentially bossy blue cheese dressing.
• Casserole or stew cheaper, slow-cook cuts (shank, shin or shoulder) in sweet stout or dark fruity ale. If you have any raspberries, blackberries or blackcurrants to hand, you can reduce the gravy once cooked, and throw in a handful. Add a spoonful of redcurrant or similar jelly if you like the sauce sweeter. Add a square of dark chocolate for extra richness.
Is venison good for me?
Venison is an exceptionally healthy red meat with more protein than any other red meat we commonly eat, which means that it is excellent for satisfying the appetite and keeping hunger pangs at bay for a period of time. It contains very little fat. Venison has particularly high levels of iron – about twice as much as beef – which helps prevent anaemia. It also provides major amounts of B vitamins, such as vitamins B2 and B3, which help regulate metabolism, and vitamins B6 and B12, which can help lower undesirable homocysteine that can build up in the blood. High levels of this substance are associated with an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. Vitamin B12 deficiency is quite common, especially among older people and vegetarians. Venison is a good source of important minerals like zinc and copper and trace elements such as selenium. Thanks to the high percentage of wild food that deer eat (100 per cent in the case of wild deer), the small amount of fat in venison is likely to have the desirable balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, and provide a rich natural source of conjugated linoleic acid, which is thought to protect against heart disease and cancer.
How is venison produced?
There are two different types of venison: wild and farmed. Wild venison, as the name implies, comes from deer that spend all their lives outdoors eating a wild diet. They are hunted and then shot in the wild.
Farmed venison comes from deer that live outdoors in enclosed paddocks and fields but which are otherwise free to roam. Farmed deer are never intensively reared. In winter, when it is very cold and the deer might suffer outdoors, deer farmers provide a large barn in which they can take shelter. The diet of farmed deer consists largely of grassy pasture, supplemented by hay, silage (preserved grass), grain and root vegetables in lean winter periods. Farmed deer live a semi-wild existence but are protected from the starvation and disease that affect wild deer.
Deer usually have a quick and stress-free death. Some do go to an abattoir, but most are shot in the wild or, in the case of most farmed deer, in the field.
Is venison a green choice?
There are good environmental reasons for eating venison, both wild and farmed. Wild deer can have an extremely destructive effect on the natural environment as they cause extensive damage to trees and crops, which is why forestry authorities and landowners carry out routine culls (kill a percentage of the deer population) to keep numbers within manageable limits. Buying and eating wild venison therefore helps keep the wild deer population under control. And an animal that would otherwise be considered a pest provides a prolific source of high-quality human food.
Farmed venison raises few, if any, of the issues raised by other farmed meats. Deer-farming enterprises are typically small-scale and local. The deer are born, reared, fattened and slaughtered, and often butchered, on the farm and sold quite locally, so little road transport is involved. Farmed deer are free-range and fed on a diet that is mainly grass, so they do not consume profligate amounts of cereals that could feed people. Deer-farming enterprises are generally found in colder, upland areas where it would be difficult, or even impossible, to grow crops that could feed humans. Farmed deer convert something that humans can’t eat – grass – into high-quality human food.
A MEAT FROM THE MISTS OF TIME
Red deer and roe deer are native to the British Isles and Ireland and so the practice of hunting and eating wild venison extends back into the mists of time. The Normans brought fallow deer with them to England, and the Victorians introduced sika deer. Deer farming began in medieval times as landowners enclosed deer in their estates and parklands. Throughout our history, venison has featured in the diet of rural people.
From the 1980s, small venison-farming enterprises have been springing up, responding to consumer demand for meat that is healthy, sustainably produced and not factory-farmed. Increasingly, venison is finding a wider market, especially in restaurants.
Where and when should I buy venison?
Farmed venison is on offer all year round. The season for wild venison varies according to the breed, but some wild venison is usually available at any given point in the year. Wild venison supplies are likely to be most limited in March and at their best from June to December.
Most supermarkets do not stock venison, or offer only a limited range of products. For wild venison, the best source is a traditional butcher/game dealer, as he will keep an eye on the quality of the meat. Farmed venison is easy to find at farmers’ markets or direct from farms, either online or by mail order. If availability is a problem, buy it when you see it and then freeze it.
Will venison break the bank?
Unless you are talking about sausages, burgers, or mince, venison is never especially cheap. Expect it to be priced on a par with good-quality, traditionally reared, grass-fed beef. Although wild deer are regarded as a pest and theoretically ‘free’ to shoot, the cost of processing venison to meet food hygiene regulations is high. Deer farmers have all the same costs as other livestock farmers. But don’t feel you have to play safe with the more expensive prime cuts like saddle and loin. Check out cheaper options such as mince, shank, heart and sausages.
Thanks to its high protein content, venison is an exceptionally filling meat, and because of its leanness, it hardly shrinks in cooking. So it is possible to serve smaller portions of venison than you would of other meats. In most slow-cooked venison recipes, you can easily reduce the quantity of meat, and up the quantity of other ingredients, yet still produce a very satisfying, meaty dish.