‘Marcelle’s family comes from the Little Karoo and her venison pie recipe is one of my favourites.’ - Etienne le Riche.
Ingredients
45 ml olive oil
500 g lamb knuckles
2 kg shoulder of venison
1 litre water
1 onion, peeled, kept whole
14 whole cloves
2 bay leaves
5 ml ground coriander
5 ml black peppercorns 1
5 ml seasoned salt
Sauce
2 onions, chopped
250 ml red wine ('Le Riche Cabernet Merlot')
125 ml red wine vinegar
5 ml wholegrain or Dijon mustard
30 ml potato flour or cornflour
400 g roll ready-made puff pastry (defrosted if frozen)
1 egg, beaten
Recipe
Serves 8
In a large, heavy-based saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, heat 15 ml of the oil and brown the lamb knuckles. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Then brown the venison meat and set it aside. Pour of:' any excess oil.
Place the following in the saucepan: the water, the whole onion spiked with 10 of the cloves, bay leaves, coriander, and black peppercorns tied in a small muslin bag as a bouquet garni, and seasoned salt. Bring to the boil.
Add the browned meat, cover with the lid and simmer gently until the meat is tender and begins to fall off the bones (3-4 hours). Cool. Remove the bones, flake the meat, and reserve the liquid gravy.
Preheat the oven to 200°C.
To make the sauce, saute chopped onions in the remaining olive oil until golden. Add wine and vinegar and boil rapidly over high heat until only about 45 ml of liquid remains. Add the mustard and reserved meat gravy. If there is less than 500 ml of liquid, add a little water or beef stock to make up the amount. Thicken with the potato flour or cornflour (first dissolved in a little water to form a paste) and season to taste.
Add the flaked meat. ('you can also add some browned chopped mushrooms and glazed little pickling onions1 Pour into a large ovenproof pie dish. Bury the second onion spiked with the remaining four cloves in the meat in the centre of the dish to support the pastry. Roll out the pastry until thin but big enough to cover the dish. Brush the pastry with beaten egg and bake for 45 minutes.
Serve with white rice ('or brown or wild rice) and a sprinkling of chopped parsley. A fresh green salad is also nice.
Wine Pairing
Le Riche Cabernet Sauvignon Auction Reserve
From The Femina Cook Book with Ina Paarman, 1990
Cook’s Tip
Variation
Brown 1 x 250 g punnet chopped button mushrooms in 30 ml butter. In a separate pan, combine 500 g small peeled pickling onions, 250 ml water, 5 ml salt, 22.5 ml brown sugar, and 22.5 ml butter. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally until mixture starts caramelising and the onions have softened. Add to the pie just before topping with the pastry.