One of the tastiest and most prized types of game is venison from roe deer. A roe deer (Dutch: ree, French: chevreuil, German: Reh, Italian: capriolo) is a small species of deer that is very picky about its food. If you cannot find roe deer, you can substitute with regular venison. I recently bought a nice back of roe deer venison, part of which I turned into carpaccio and the rest I served like this. The nice thing about buying the whole back was that I also had bones to make a great jus. By cooking the venison sous-vide, you can serve it perfectly medium rare throughout as you can see in the picture above. I used the temperature of 53C/127F as proposed by Modernist Cuisine and liked it very much.
Ingredients
For 4 servings
500 grams (1.1 lbs) roe deer venison loin fillet
butter and olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
fresh thyme sprigs
For the jus
venison carcass
mixed aromatic vegetables such as leeks, onions, carrots and celery
2 bay leaves
thyme sprigs
pepper corns
1 clove
1 juniper berry
1 piece of mace (“foelie” in Dutch, this is the dried covering of a nutmeg seed; just leave it out if can’t get it)
1 shallot
1 clove garlic
1 glass of red wine
Preparation
Soak the venison carcass in cold water to remove most of the blood.
Put the venison carcass in a large pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil and remove the scum from the surface with a slotted spoon.
Add the chopped mixed aromatic vegetables such as leeks, onions, carrots and celery, 1 bay leaf, thyme sprigs, pepper corns, 1 clove, 1 juniper berry and 1 piece of mace (optional).
Let simmer for 4 hours or so.
Season the venison with salt and freshly ground black pepper and brown the venison in a hot frying pan with butter and olive oil. Take the meat out of the pan and put on a plate to cool.
Add the chopped shallot, 1 bay leaf and a chopped garlic clove to the fat and sauté for 1 minute.
Add the red wine and scrape the nice brown bits from the bottom of the pan with a wooden spatula.
Add the juices that will have leaked out of the browned venison. Add the contents of the frying pan to the stock pot.
Seal the venison with thyme sprigs. If using a FoodSaver-type vacuum sealer like I do, leave a long ‘sleeve’ to prevent the vacuum sealer from sucking the juices out of the bag. Refrigerate the bag until you are ready to cook it sous-vide. Cook sous-vide for 1,5-2 hours at 53C/127F.
Strain the stock to get rid of the carcass, vegetables, etc. Let it simmer over low heat (no bubbles!) to concentrate the flavor.
When the jus has thickened to your liking, taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Whisk some small pieces of cold butter into the jus to make it thicker and shiny, this is called mounting with butter.
Take the venison out of the sous-vide pouch. Discard the thyme. Slice the venison in thick slices. Serve on hot plates with the jus and vegetables of your choice. Season very lightly with salt to enhance the flavor of the venison. I served it with roasted asparagus (tossed in extra virgin olive oil, salt and freshly ground black pepper and roasted for 15-20 minutes at 225C/450F).
Wine pairing
This pairs well with an elegant complex red wine such as a Barolo or Barbaresco.
Stefan's Gourmet Blog 
Looks great, as always…
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Love the colour of that meat…
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Any room left in your new kitchen for a sous-vide water oven? 😉
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So much great flavor! And the shot of the uncooked meat already made me hungry!
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Thanks, Shanna 🙂
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Hi Stefan,
You put me in trouble!
I’d like to prepare the deer as above (did this before and it was perfect), so 1,5 hour on 53* C.
But the course before the deer is lobster tail, also sous vide!
According your recipe “Lobster Sous-Vide with Couscous” (now with pasta and truffles), so 30 min. at about 50*C?…Keller Y/N?
(BTW the tails are frozen/now thawed and raw)
As I have only one sous vide machine I’m confused how to handle this…
Please help!
No hurry, but I’m cooking tonight 😉
Very best regards,
Frans
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Hi Frans,
I assume your sous-vide machine is large enough to contain both the venison and the lobster at the same time.
If that is the case, then there are two solutions:
1) The easiest is to cook both lobster and venison at the same temperature of 53C. For the lobster this is a very reasonable temperature.
2) The second solution depends a bit on how much time you’d like to have between serving the lobster and serving the venison. Personally I like lobster tail better at 46C because it is more tender, however some people actually prefer it at 60C because they are so used to it being rubbery…
You could heat up the sous-vide to 46C and then put in both the lobster and the venison for the first half hour. After that half hour, you take out the lobster and increase the temperature to 53C. Then the venison stays in for another hour. This means there will be an hour between serving the lobster and the venison. For me that would be just fine.
If you think that hour is too long, you can first put the venison in 53 degrees for half an hour. Then lower the temperature to 46 degrees (by adding cold water and changing the temperature setting) and cook the lobster and the venison together for half an hour at 46 degrees. Then take out the lobster, and increase the temperature again to 53 degrees (changing the temperature setting should be enough, but you could add a bit of hot water).
The theory behind all of this is that the venison only needs to be brought to a core temperature of 53 degrees, there is no need to hold it at that temperature. Half an hour should be enough to get the core from 46 to 53.
Hope this helps. Good luck tonight! Let me know how it turns out.
Stefan
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Thanks a lot. Last option sounds great!
In total 5 courses, including your great apple/eel/foie gras 🙂
So takes some time.
Let you know tomorrow…
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Wonderful!
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PS let me know if you figure out a better way to make the layer of sugar for the apple/eel/foie.
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I will use the leftover of a Gewurtztraminer jelly, which I unfortunaly cannot find anymore. I bought it some years ago at Librije’s little shop. I have to ask Therese to bring it back again…
I know I’ll miss the crisp, but did it before and worked well!
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It was awesome!
Lobster perfect + perfect deer!
Now for the homemade tiramisu and Nardini’s best Grappa!
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So you liked the lobster at 46C?
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Yes, now I do also think Thomas was wrong 😉 I have his book too and tried some.
What I liked best was the lemon with the coconut.
The subtitle flavors matched perfect with the tagliatelle and mushrooms and truffles. My friends (and myself) were really surprised. I had a very rich oaked Spanish Chardonnay (Enate) which matched great with the earthy tones and the springy lobster.
Thanks for the great inspiration!
Best regards,
Frans
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Great! So you didn’t make lobster stock and dressed the tagliatelle with the coconut-lemon-butter sauce?
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No, thought of that though, but wanted the earthy tones of the mushrooms to prevalate this time. I made a concentrated stock however, to serve as a small “cappuccino” in between courses.
I keep the butter/coconut/lemon in the freezer for next time. (If it remains the same after thaw?) Maybe sous vide scampi or so…
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As an alternative for the Gewurztramminer I found “wine to eat” at Hanos. They are little jelly like pearls of Muscat wine. I topped the foie with a layer of those pearls.
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Sorry, the muscat jelly pearls comment was meant as a topping for the foie-eel-apple recipe.
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Hi Stefan,
I found this great venison loin to prepare this weekend.
Will follow your advice in this recipe, but…
I also like a crunchy outside. So my plan is to grill it on my little black egg. What should I do, because it’s very delicate and tender meat?
With or without Sous vide?
I’ll think I go with, and end up at the end on the bbq. As I did with Christmas with the rack of lamb, same style you used, but instead on the bbq you used your broiler grill.
But how to handle time and temperature for the sous vide?
I want to end up on the bbq, approximately (max.) 5 min. With an core temperature of 55*C.
Any advice welcome!
P.s. I’m thinking of a sauce with a game fond, flavoured with orange and dark chocolate…
Best regards,
Frans
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In addition to my previous post; whether or not bbq afterwards, there’s the question of browning the meat before it goes into the sous vide bag or not…
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You could do that; it will be less crunchy but there is less risk of overcooking and the smoky flavor can go into the meat while it is cooked sous vide. Make sure to allow the meat to cool down completely to 5C before vacuum sealing (not needed if using ziploc bag).
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Hi Frans,
Sous vide is not needed to make it tender.
If the crunchy outside is important, you could put it on the BBQ only and use a thermometer with a probe and pull it when the core hits 50C or so. After resting the core will then reach ~55C. If the venison is farmed that should be fine. It the venison is wild game, you may want to pasteurize first (depending on thickness about 3 hours sous vide at 55C) and then allow to cool before BBQ to avoid overcooking. Personally I prefer venison cooked to no more than 53C to avoid a taste of liver. The sauce will be great. I would recommend restraint with the orange juice (and to use orange zest as well) and using cocoa powder instead of chocolate. An alternative that will give you a thinner crust and less overcooked meat is to heat it to 48C in the sous vide (time depending on thickness but definitely less than 4 hours) and then directly finish it on the black egg.
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Thanks, I think I’ll try the last one. For timing the best way.
The sauce is already ready, tastes great.
The meat is extremely tender I believe. I browned it very fast in it’s in the fridge now.
Would 48*C also pasteurize?
I think I’ll keep inside temperature on the bbq on max 53* C too.
Let you know how it worked out.
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For pasteurized you would need at least 52 and then a very long time.
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Hi Stefan,
Thanks for the suggestions!
(You were right about the orange juice, it was a tiny little too much, next time indeed more restrained)
All went well and we had great dish!
I had the meat in the sous vide 3 hours on 48C.
Then about 5 minutes on a hot bbq, until intern temperature reached 50C. I wrapped it in some aluminum foil and prepared the plates.
It wasn’t that crispy as I intended. In fact also a little dry on the outside. But still OK.
Would it help to rub some oil before grilling? Now I only patted it dry after taking it out on the sous vide bag.
The only thing I could imagine is quick pan frying it in very hot oil. But than I would miss the bbq flavors.
Best regards,
Frans
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Hi Frans,
It would definitely help to rub with oil before grilling. The oil can be heated to high temperatures right away, whereas the outside would need to be dried out first without oil (as any water in there will inhibit temperatures above 100C/212F as long as it is not completely dry.
To get the BBQ flavors AND have a crispy outside, you could BBQ before sous vide with plenty of smoke (by adding some wood chips). This should be done for a short time only, to avoid overcooking the outside. Allow to cool before vacuum sealing. The smoke flavors will permeate all the way into the meat during the sous vide cooking. Then pan frying in very hot clarified butter (or oil, but I find clarified butter works better) to crisp up. The only concern for this method is that you should take care that the total time that the meat is exposed to temperatures above 5C and below 52C is limited to 4 hours.
Good luck!
Stefan
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Thanks! I’ll give it a try in that way next time!
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