Venison leaps onto seasonal menus

Nation's Restaurant News, Oct 28, 1996 by Carolyn Walkup

The season for venison, the most popular game meat, has arrived. In Colonial America, the hunter's moon, which is the first full moon after the harvest moon, marked the beginning of fall hunting season. Venison often was featured at harvest dinners.

The tradition of serving venison in the fall and winter has survived in restaurants across the land. Chefs continually are coming up with new, interesting ways of serving the lean red meat.

Venison carpaccio is showing up as an appetizer in a few fine-dining rooms. Among the restaurants serving this dish are Treetops in the Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia and Aquavit in New York.

At Treetops, Jim Coleman, the hotel's executive chef, serves paper-thin-sliced venison carpaccio seared on the outside and raw on the inside. Accompaniments are mache, shaved Parmesan and juniper berry oil.

Aquavit chef Marcus Samuelsson's Scandinavian version garnishes the carpaccio with fall mushrooms and shaved Vasterbotten cheese.

"In Scandinavian-themed restaurants, game is a building block," Samuelsson says. "We have it all year. People complain if we take it off." He gets his venison from game farms in upstate New York and New Jersey.

Samuelsson serves prune-crusted venison as an entree with pear strudel. He pan sears the loin and cooks it in the oven. The accompanying celery sauce also uses the meat's juices.

Another of Samuelsson's entrees is a venison osso buco stew with wild mushroom risotto.

Venison is popular at Turtleback Golf, Dining & Conference Center in Rice Lake, Wis., a North Woods region that is prime deer habitat. "Venison sells very well here, even though most people who live here try to give away venison from their freezer because it's big hunting territory," says chef Christopher Ray.

Ray, who heads the annual Original Wild Game Cooking Competition, has many venison recipes, including one for smoked venison salad with sun-dried cherry vinaigrette. He bastes a top round with sun-dried tomato pesto and smokes the meat to medium rare in a smoker.

The picturesque presentation features the smoked venison slices fanned on a large plate over chilled caramelized onions, assorted greens and orange rings. Garnishes may include banana chips, goat cheese, grated nutmeg, chives and a few blanced and chilled asparagus spears.

For an entree special, Ray sometines makes roast leg of venison on roasted walnut sauce. He rubs a boneless leg with cilantro paste before roasting. The pureed walnut sauce contains red bell pepper, jalapeno, stock, a touch of cream and Frangelico liqueur. The leg is then sliced to order.

Venison also is a good seller at The Elms Restaurant & Tavern in Ridgefield, Conn., according to chef Brendan Walsh. "People in the Northeast like to eat game because they are familiar with it and grew up with it," he observes. "They're outdoorsy types."

In the restaurant this fall Walsh is serving venison loin grilled over maple wood with sweet potato spoon bread, Swiss chard and lingonberry sauce. He pan sears the whole loin in a reduction of maple syrup, veal stock, thyme, shallots and garlic.

Walsh prepares a more county-style venison stew in the casual tavern with meat from the leg. He braises it in a classic red wine-garlic mixture, to which he adds root vegetables, such as celeriac, leeks, carrots and pearl onions.

Venison is served as a winter special at the Heathman Hotel in Portland, Ore. Executive chef Philippe Boulot's favorite preparation is to roast the leg, which has been wrapped in apple-wood-smoked bacon. He serves it with candied acorn squash, grilled pompom mushrooms and huckleberry-Pinot Noir sauce.

French restaurants commonly serve venison, often with classical sauces. Two restaurants in suburban Chicago, for example, Le Vichyssois and Le Titi de Paris, serve medallions or loin of venison in a grand veneur sauce. It is flavored with the venison bone, veal stock, vinegar, peppercorns, red wine, cran and lingonberries.

Bernard Cretier at le Vichyssois likes sliced, baked apples and celery root puree with his venison medallions, while Pierre Pollin at Le Titi de Paris prefers chestnuts and cranberries.

Some Tuscan flavors accent chef John Tesar's pepper-crusted venison at 13 Barrow in New York. Venison saddle or loin is served in a bowl over creamy polenta and pepper sauce, made with balsamic vinegar, veal and venison stock. It's topped with fresh currants and sage.

Venison ragout gets German and French twists at game-oriented Cafe 36 in La Grange, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. Chef Reinhard Barthel Jr. makes a rich sauce of Burgundy wine, brandy, venison drippings, rosemary, onion, bacon and mushrooms for the stew, served under a puff pastry shell and accompanied by spaetzle and red cabbage.

Venison's popularity is not confined to cold climates. Chef Anne Kearney at Peristyle in New Orleans serves grilled venison strip loin with wild rice-chestnut cakes, garlic reduction and grilled radicchio. "Down here in New Orleans, we can't wait till it gets cool every fall," she says.