And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program . . . Sort Of

I have posted in earlier posts about how much I love my slow cooker. And how much I love bambi . . . I mean venison. And I devoted a whole post to my love of beer, which I am only just beginning to get reacquainted with. And it has been ages since I combined all three.

I used to make this recipe a lot, especially during the winter. But with beer being off the menu as a drink for so long, I stopped cooking with it too. Very sad days. As I can’t drink wine (I’m allergic to grapes. Seriously!), cooking with beer in place of wine became one of my cooking specialities. I have loads of ways to cook with beer, and several cookbooks devoted to it. Alas, this whole Crohn’s thing threw a spanner into that, but I’m slowly easy back to things I used to make.

Although it was a ridiculously sunny day, even by British standards, I had a crazy day ahead on Saturday and decided it was better to put dinner in the slow cooker before I went. I had a pack of venison that I had defrosted, and it had a date with my slow cooker and a bottle of Jennings Cumberland Ale.

The question was how to deal with the low-residue thing, as onions are an important part of any casserole. I am getting truly sick of cooking with onion powder. I resent it every time I take that jar out of the cupboard. The dietitian suggested that I could pop an onion in the pot whole (peeled, of course), then could fish it out again before I dig in, allowing the flavour to get in there without adding the risk of “stringy bits”. So that’s what I did.

So, to make this lovely bambi casserole, here’s what I did.

I took 1lb of diced venison (this pack was cut from the shoulder) and browned in a frying pan with 1 tbsp of olive oil and 1tbsp of margarine. Venison is very lean, and it really needs to be browned in a good amount of fat, hence the two types of fat in the pan.

Meanwhile, I peeled and chopped two carrots and put those in the slow cooker. I peeled half an onion, and put that in the slow cooker without chopping it. I also boiled the kettle and made about 150ml of beef stock with a stock cube.

When the meat was browned, I added a heaping tbsp of plain flour to the meat and coated it. I let that suck up a bit of the liquid. I then transferred the meat to the slow cooker with a slotted spoon.

After that, I poured the beef stock into the hot frying pan, and deglazed it, scrapping all of the bits off the pan. I then poured that into the slow cooker.

I then added 2 tbsps of malt vinegar and 1 tbsp of brown sugar to the pot. Then I added 3 bay leaves, 1 tsp of allspice and ½ tsp of cloves to the pot. Then I added ½ pint of ale.

Venison is best paired with a medium body ale, like a best bitter, rather than a stout or porter (save that for beef). The recipe I adapted this from was actually to go with Daleside Crackshot Ale http://www.bdfpa.org/recipes/UaeVHAa7tj6N.pdf, but I find that it works well with anything similar, like Cumberland or Adnams Broadside. A blonde or golden ale just isn’t strong enough (save that for poultry). I can go on for hours about pairing beer with food, but I’ll leave that for another time! And if you don’t want beer in your food, you can always increase the beef stock to the same amount of the beef stock and ale together and should still get something tasty.

I gave it all a good stir, making sure that the meat was below the liquid line (a must in a slow cooker) and put the lid on and left it to cook on high for six hours.

When I got home just before dinner, my home smelt properly like my cooking again.

I fished out that onion and served it up with some focaccia, but it also goes nice with rice or potatoes. And the other half of that bottle of Cumberland Ale.