Venison & Mushroom Bourgogne

Ahhh, so I am now in Chicago, and looking forward to eating well. But when I moved, I still made a point of bringing a ton of food with me from the South, including some venison roast (thanks Uncle Paul!). And thanks to my awesome friend, Frank, and this recipe of his, I have something delicious to do with it.



You need a few things first, such as the following (but don't feel the need to be too exact, I never have been and it always works out fine):

About 1-2 lbs of Venison Roast, cubed into 1 inch pieces
1-3 lbs of various Mushrooms-white, cremini and shitakes (I bought mine prewashed and prechopped because I'm lazy)
2 medium onions (or one big onion!), chopped
2T minced Garlic
¼c Sherry
1T Apple Cider Vinegar
1 bottle Red Burgundy Wine (I usually use whatever red is on hand, I've used pinot noir, as well as merlot)
2t Dried Thyme
1t Dried Marjoram
1T Paprika
2t Salt
2t Ground Black Pepper
½t Cayenne Pepper
2T Bacon Fat or Duck Fat or, if you must, Olive Oil
BACON (if you're going the bacon fat route)

Preheat your oven to 350F, and let's get started.


Cook some bacon. Eat it. Save the drippings.

Toss the cubed Version with the Vinegar and a little drizzle of some sort of low-flavor oil then Salt and Pepper it.


Heat some of the bacon fat in a large, heavy pot with a tight fitting lid (Dutch Oven). Brown the Venison in batches being sure not to crowd the pot.


Remove the Venison to a bowl and add the onions (and more bacon fat) to the pot. Sauté the onions for about 10 minutes, adding the Sherry and allowing some of it to cook off, about 7 minutes over medium high heat, stirring. Add the Garlic, Thyme, Marjoram, Paprika, Black Pepper and Cayenne. Sauté for a few more minutes.


Return the Venison to the pot making sure that any liquid that has accumulated is not added to the cooking mixture. Stir to incorporate.


Top the cooking mixture with the mushrooms and then add the wine and maybe some water (depending if you were on the heavy end with your ingredient amounts).


Put the top on the pot and place in the oven for 3 or 4 hours or until the meat is fork-tender. It all just cooks down and blends together.


And it's great if you serve it over some roasted potatoes, in this case Yukon golds. I prep those with some oil and some herbs and stick them in for the last hour.


By this point everything should smell amazing and you will be pretty eager to stuff it all in your mouth. I suggest letting it cool off a little first.