Test Kitchen Tuesday - Venison Roast

I will admit that, in addition to homemade pie crust, I have a paralyzing fear of cooking meat.  Not little things like ground beef or chicken breasts, but roasts and steaks.  I fear them being dry and over cooked or worse – under cooked.  I have visions of being glued to the toilet with a severe case of botulism.  Growing up, we rarely ate such cuts of meat (certainly not venison), not because we were herbivores, but I think mom may have had the same fears I do. 

We recently obtained a freezer full of venison.  Ground, steaks, back straps, and roasts.  What better way to face my fear than to tackle one.  So we didn’t have a repeat of last week’s venison disaster, I spent quite a bit of time doing research on how to cook venison and flavors that pair well with it.  I found a primitive recipe on a hunting forum, but doctored it up a little bit.  So here we go…

Bacon Wrapped Venison Roast:

Ingredients:

4 lb venison roast

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon black pepper

¼ teaspoon ginger

¼ teaspoon coriander

1 shallot

5 slices thick cut bacon

1 cup red wine

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 200 F

2.  Rinse venison and pat dry.  Place in a roasting pan.

3.  Combine rosemary, salt, sugar, cinnamon, black pepper, ginger, and coriander in a small bowl.  Rub evenly over roast.  Give it a little umph you want this to stick to the meat

4.  Slice shallot up very thin and place on top of roast

5.  Cut bacon strips in half and drape over shallots and roast.  Press ends of bacon down so the shallots stay on top of the roast

6.  Pour red wine over roast, cover with foil (seal edges)

7.  Place in oven until internal temp is 150 F (or desired doneness).   I have a remote meat thermometer and it may just be one of the coolest kitchen gadgets ever (other than my zoomy garlic mincer) I cooked this about 5 hours)

8.  Allow to sit for 5-10 minutes before slicing

This recipe came out amazing. Red (who has eaten venison his whole life) said it was some of the best he ever had.  He did ask what the pine needles in the roast were (rosemary).Just make sure of the following when cooking a venison roast: don't over cook it - it can be very dry due to the lack of fat in the meat.