This is what we had as secondo piatto for our Christmas dinner this year. This dish is very suitable for a special occasion, as you can prepare almost everything beforehand and to serve you only need to quickly brown the rolls of venison and deglaze the pan with the prepared sauce. The taste of the venison is augmented by the umami of the porcini mushrooms and parmigiano cheese in the filling.

I used a whole back of roe deer venison, which I deboned to obtain the backstraps, and used the carcass to make venison stock as in this recipe. As an alternative you could use store-bought venison stock.

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 600 grams (1.3 lbs) venison backstrap
• 25 grams (1 oz) dried porcini mushrooms
• 375 ml (1/2 bottle) red wine
• 1 litre (4 cups) venison stock
• 15 grams (1/2 oz) freshly grated parmigiano reggiano
• 2 Tbsp minced fresh rosemary, separated
• 2 garlic cloves, minced, separated
• 1 bay leaf (preferably fresh)
• 1 minced shallot
• olive oil
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Cover the dried porcini mushrooms with boiling water and allow to soak for 15 minutes.

Filter the soaking liquid using kitchen paper or a coffee filter. Rinse the reconstituted mushrooms well to get rid of any sand.

Mince the reconstituted mushrooms, 2 garlic cloves, 2 tablespoons of rosemary, and a shallot.

To make the mushroom filling, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a frying pan. Add the minced mushrooms and 1 tablespoon of the rosemary.

Stir over medium heat until the mushrooms start to color, then add 1 of the minced garlic cloves.

Stir for a minute, making sure the garlic doesn’t turn brown.

Deglaze with the reserved mushroom soaking liquid.

Bring to a boil and allow to reduce, stirring now and then.

Keep reducing until almost all of the liquid is gone; you will still see the oil.

Transfer all the contents of the pan to a container suitable for an immersion blender, using a silicone spatula to get everything including the oil.

Puree until smooth.

Add 15 grams of freshly grated parmigiano reggiano, then taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Allow the filling to cool.

In the meantime, prepare the red wine sauce. The sauce can be enhanced by using the drippings in the pan from browning the meat before serving, but to do this it is not needed to wait until the end to make the sauce. That will take too long, causing the meat to cool off as well as last-minute stress during the evening. Instead you can prepare the red wine sauce almost completely beforehand, but still use it to deglaze the pan after browning the meat to catch all of the flavor.

Use the same pan as for the mushrooms; do not clean it to prevent wasting any flavor. Add two tablespoons of olive oil, the chopped shallot, the remaining tablespoon of rosemary, the remaining minced clove of garlic, and the bay leaf.

Stir over medium heat until golden, but not brown.

Then deglaze with the red wine.

First allow the red wine to reduce by half to get rid of the alcohol…

…and then add the venison stock. I had already reduced the venison stock to save space when freezing it, so reducing it now took less time.

Reduce this gently until you have about 250 ml (1 cup) left, stirring now and then.

Strain the sauce through a fine sieve, and push down on the solids with a spoon to get as much liquid out as possible, then discard the solids. The sauce is now prepared.

Cut the venison into 4 portions and slice into each portion to open it like a book, to obtain a slice of twice the size and half the thickness. This is called butterflying.

Place each slice between two sheets of cling film, and carefully pound it thinner with a meat hammer, rubber hammer (I borrowed the one that Kees uses in the garden) or the bottom of a heavy frying pan. Do not pound too forcefully, because you don’t want to pulverize the meat.

Season the slices with salt and freshly ground black pepper on both sides, then make sure the cut side is facing upwards.

Spread out a quarter of the mushroom filling on each slice, leaving about 2 cm (1 inch) bare on one of the short sides. It is also a good idea to leave about 1 cm (1/2 inch) bare on the long sides, as otherwise the filling will leak out when you roll up the meat.

Roll up each slice, with the bare strip last.

Not too tightly as otherwise you will push out the filling.

Vacuum seal the venison rolls. It is best to put each roll in its own pouch, so they won’t stick together and keep their shape as best as possible.

You can prepare everything beforehand up until this point. Store the rolls and the sauce in the refrigerator until half an hour before serving.

Place the plates in the oven at 125C/250F. Cook the rolls sous vide at 53C/127F for 30 minutes, then allow them to cool off for a couple of minutes on the counter (so not in water).

Heat 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan until very hot. In the meantime, take the rolls out of the pouch and pat them dry with kitchen paper.

Brown the rolls quickly over high heat.

Be careful when turning them, so they don’t unfold. Don’t brown them for too long, because then you’d overcook the meat. Take the rolls out of the pan and place them on the preheated plates that you’ve taken out of the oven.

Discard excess oil from the pan, then deglaze it with the prepared sauce.

Allow this to reduce a bit and season the sauce to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Put some sauce on each plate and serve right away. I served these spinach tartlets on the side.

Wine pairing

This is excellent with a nice Barolo. A nice Barolo will set you back at least 30 euros (25 euros in Italy); the cheaper ones are not always bad wines but they don’t have the characteristic aromas. A nice Barolo should be drunk at least 8 years after the vintage. If it is less than 12-15 years after the vintage, you will probably need to pour the wine in a carafe to let it breathe for a couple of hours. Put the bottle upright 24 hours in advance so the deposits can sink to the bottom, and be careful not to pour those deposits into the carafe.