How to Cook Roasted Venison with Chocolate Sauce

Serves: 4

Preparation time: 20 mins

Cooking time: over 5 hours

Ingredients needed to make Roasted Venison with Chocolate Sauce:

• 1.5 kg venison, chopped into large chunks
• 2-3 beef bones, for the stock
• 400 gm plums, halved and stoned
• 30 gm dark (70% cocoa) chocolate
• 1 stick celery, chopped into small dices
• 1 red onion, peeled and diced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 garlic clove, peeled
• One 1’’ cinnamon stick
• 1 star anise
• 1 fresh thyme sprig
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp raspberry vinegar
• 250 ml red wine
• 100 ml port
• 2 litres beef stock
• Olive oil, for frying
• 1 tsp sugar

Cooking instructions for Roasted Venison with Chocolate Sauce:

• Warm up your oven to 200 degrees F and scatter the bones into its middle rack to roast for half an hour.
• Drizzle a lashing of oil in a large pan and heat it until it starts shimmering.
• Throw in the onion, celery, garlic as well as carrot chunks and sauté them for 4-5 minutes, stirring often, until they turn softer.
• Toss the bones into it and continue to cook for another 5 minutes, before stirring in the stock.
• Add the thyme sprig as well as a bay leaf into it and bring it to a simmer.
• Continue to cook for the next couple of hours, while skimming off the accumulated fat from the surface from time to time.
• Meanwhile, pour in a splash of port into a clean pan and cook until it starts simmering.
• Cook until it reduces by half and stir in the red wine.
• Simmer further until it reduces further by another half of its volume.
• Scatter the halved plums into an ovenproof dish and sprinkle the sugar on top.
• Throw in the whole spices and wrap the surface of the dish before baking in the hot oven at slightly reduced temperature of 160 degrees C, or 20 minutes or until the plums soften.
• Get rid of the whole spices and tip the soft plums into a food processor.
• Blitz them into a smooth puree and set aside.
• Heat more oil in a clean skillet and lay out the venison pieces to cook over high flame until both sides are seared and brown nicely.
• Pour in the reduced wine, followed by the hot stock and give them a nice stir to mix well.
• Bring the mixture to a boil and tip it into a slow cooker.
• Slow cook for at least 4 hours at high or until the meat is fork-tender.
• Throw in the chocolate chunks, 10 minutes prior to the end of cooking time and stir it into the sauce.
• Beat in the vinegar as well as a dash each of seasonings and cook for the final 10 minutes or until the chocolate melts.
• Arrange the one piece of venison on top of each serving plate and scatter the roasted veggies around it.
• Spoon the chocolate sauce over each serving and serve warm.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons