My Top 10 Favourite Venison Dishes

Oak smoked venison Jerky

Going Paleo...

Traditionally used technique used to dry meat to extend its shelf life.   The exact origin of this technique isn’t known but it would have been obvious to early humans that the smoked meat lasted a lot longer than raw and that may have been discovered due to the meat being kept in a smoky environment  to keep the flys away.  Europeans came across the technique on their first trips to the Americas.  It is also very good for travelling, long hikes, mountain climbing due to the high protein content and also the fact that the equivalent weight of fresh meat would be 6 times heavier.

A friend recently donated a large bag of venison to me, aware of how sick I’m getting of fish.  The best method I could think of to preserve such a large amount of meat was to smoke it.  It was also a good opportunity to practice a recently acquired skill.

Before I got started though, I had to build the smoker...

Rain can’t stop us

06.07.12. One winch at a time in the Monkey Woods.

A friend of ours, Nick, is fortunate enough to have five acres of woodland in a very picturesque part of Sussex.  It’s a great place to spend time sitting by a fire and cooking the odd sausage in the summer months.  Sadly, of late the experience has been less than pleasant; we’ve been forced to sit feeling sorry for ourselves under tarpaulins - trying to pretend it’s not raining.  

We had had almost given up the woodland dream, when Nick met Sandy at a gypsy themed party. Nick, being a sensitive soul, fell hopelessly in love with her at first sight. 

Sandy the caravan - www.hazydayscaravanhire.co.uk/

OK, so I know caravans aren’t all that cool, but you haven’t met Sandy.  As Sandy is already spoken for, Nick decided he needed one just like her in the Monkey Woods.  So along came the Compass 342, fresh from the fields of Kent. 

Admittedly she’s no Sandy but we’re working on it.

Four of us met at the gates to the Monkey Woods in anticipation of the delivery of the Compass.  After 15 minutes of good progress with the four of us pushing and pulling, the poor compass was thoroughly stuck in a rut.  With the promise of a free meal, I shot off home to grab a winch and dragged her up onto even ground where she sits proudly as queen of the woods.

 So now we can escape to the woods, whatever the weather and the sound of the rain drumming on the roof is rather nice, actually. Watch this space for some foraging experiments from the caravan kitchen. 

 

New take on strawberries and cream

Wild garlic pesto

The wild garlic season may have come to an end (April-June) - but I found myself with a craving for it  so got out some Wild Garlic I froze a couple of weeks ago to use with lunch...

Nettles meet the East

 

I used regular stinging nettles to make my Pichchhoo aloo but you could also use White dead nettles or Red Dead nettles - although they are much harder to find.  Archie managed to find one: