A hunter friend of mine gave me a nice portion of venison from one of the deer he took this year along with several good bones for making stock. I’m in the mood for a nice, hearty stew and this venison looks like a good candidate for the stew pot. I’m not all that familiar with venison though.
When I make beef stew, I tend to prefer to let the flavor of the beef predominate and keep the flavors simple with just a little mirepoix, salt, pepper, bay leaf and leek. Can I just use my standard stew recipe and trade the beef for leaner, more gamey venison with no alteration?
Yes. No variation required for a stew. I interchange beef and venison all the time.
I don’t really believe in the existence of gamey flavors. I think it’s just the taste of animals we don’t eat as often. If I always ate deer, I’d think cows tasted gamey.
Ultimately, it is leaner. If you want to have some flavorful fat in there, bacon is the time honored go to.
I firmly believe in the existence of gamey flavors, and I suspect it is related to an animal’s diet and lifestyle. We get most of our meat from a farm where the cows are 100% grass fed and finished, and do quite a bit of roaming around and grazing on random stuff they find in their pastures.
Some of the beef, though not all, has a very distinct gamey flavor. I happen to like a bit of gameyness, so it’s ok by us, but it is distinctly different than supermarket beef, even than the special happy beef from Whole Foods.