Growing up in Michigan it’s hard not to eat venison.  It’s a school holiday when deer hunting season starts, I mean c’mon. Though as much as it was in-your-face, my family rarely ate it.  Except the year my dad got a deer, his only one to my knowledge, we ate venison every day.  Venison steaks, venison burgers, bla bla bla, everything was venison.   We were surprisingly creative with the recipes.  Hasn’t really been on my radar since…

Until last week.  I met a friend at a cute little restaurant Enoteca Roma.  Over many-a-glass of wine and so much catching up I stumbled upon this little gem of a venison dish.   Delicious, a little gamey, and right up my alley.  I was bored with traditional bolognese – but I was assured that this was much different.  Indeed.

I’m going to share with you my version of this dish sans fresh pasta.  (My tools are being held hostage in Boston – they will be moving soon!).  Theirs was made with campanelle pasta (which I had never seen before, hurray!) shaped like little bells that carry the sauce surprisingly well.  I used some curly q pasta that I can’t quite remember the name of…

As you may notice – this is my first post not about a baked good.  We can all get down with that right?

So I stole a little recipe from the El Bulli cookbook The Family Meal and put my own little spin on it with the venison.  PS I halved the recipe which will be reflected in the measurements below – feel free to double, but this made quite a hefty amount…

venison bolognese recipe

1/2  cup butter

1  pound venison

2  pork sausage links, casings removed

1  cup onions, finely chopped yo

2/3  cup celery, finely chopped

1  cup carrot, finely chopped

1/3  cup extra virgin olive oil

1  28oz can chopped tomatoes

2  tsp tomato paste

1  pinch sugar

whole bag of your favorite kind of pasta

 

 

Put a large pan over medium high heat (I used trusty cast iron here) and melt the butter.  Add the venison and fry it up until it starts changing color, then add the sausage.  Cook for a few minutes (like 3) and then season with salt and pepper.  Cook until it becomes a dark golden brown (about 15 minutes for me).  In the meantime finely chop up the celery, onions and carrots (Mirepoix! I really like that word).  Once the venison was done cooking I dumped it into a bowl and put the carrots, celery and onion down in the fat.  Delicious.  However, you can obviously use a different pan.  Cook them for about 15 minutes… until they are soft and the onions translucent.  Dump the meat back into the pan with the vegetables and cook together so they’re mixed well.  Now you can add the tomatoes and the tomato paste and season with some more salt and pepper.  Throw the sugar down in there too.  Simmer this for about an hour and a half.  I kept taking tastes of mine until it was delicious and really full of flavor.

When the sauce is close to finished boil that pasta for about five minutes.  Yeah, I really undercook my pasta, I like it that way.  Feel free to do it a little longer.  Then drain it and put it right in the pan with the sauce letting the noodles soak up all that meaty heaven.  I did this for about 10 minutes, until I couldn’t stand not eating it any longer.  Shave a little parmesan on top and you’re ready!