Ultimate Venison Cookery

I find it a bit unusual that in the Untied States where we love to eat “everything”, that there is little commercial venison. It is a popular and available meat in most of Europe and the Untied Kingdom. There is a special affinity for farming venison in Scotland. Much of the salient cooking expertise comes from great Scottish cooks like Lady Claire Macdonald and Nicola Fletcher.

Fletcher collected thirty years of farming, butchering and cooking venison into a marvelous book on the subject. Ultimate Venison Cookery is just that – the ultimate book on the subject. If you love venison, this book is a must. Fletcher explains in detail the parts and cuts of the deer. She gives sound advice on the issue of marinating or not citing a cookery book she was reading as a draft. It bore a misprint urging the reader to use marinades, “with desecration and with a purpose”. Fletcher found it to be more of a prophecy than a misprint. Many marinades, she notes, take on the air of a pickling brine than a marinade. Marinade lightly with a purpose and not a desecration.


My favorite holiday terrine is from the Duchess of Devonshire, but this winter, I have been using a variation of Nicola Fletcher’s venison terrine.

Venison and Apricot Terrine

75 g dried apricots, chopped
3 tablespoons brandy
500 g minced venison
350 g minced belly of pork
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
2 allspice berries, crushed
6 juniper berries, crushed
100 ml dry red wine or port
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
175 g thinly slice pancetta or streaky bacon
1 egg, beaten

Mix apricots with the brandy and cover and leave to soak for a couple of hours. Mix together the venison, pork, fresh ginger, allspice, juniper berries, salt and pepper with the wine or port and the olive oil. Cover and marinate overnight or as long as you can.

Preheat the oven to Gas 4, 180 C, 350 F. Line a terrine or loaf tin with the pancetta or streaky bacon, keeping 3 or 4 rashers for the top. Beat the egg into the marinated venison mixture, then use just under half to fill the base of the terrine, pushing a 1.25 cm ridge up all around the sides of the terrine. Spoon the apricots into the hollow created by the ridge, then cover with the rest of the venison mixture to encase the apricots completely. Smooth over and cover with the rest of the pancetta or bacon, folding over any stray strips.

Cover with tin foil, place in a bain marie and bake in the oven for 1 1/2 – 2 hours or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Remove from the oven and place a weight on top, then chill. To serve, run a knife around the edge of the tin and turn the terrine out.

It makes a delicate and wonderful terrine. I have made it with and without the apricot layer and both have been well received. Now may be the time to befriend a hunter so they will share their game next November.

Pates & Terrines

So I admitted my cupcake fetish, now let me offer up another – pates and terrines. There is no pâté book that I do not want to own. But if I could only have one, Pates & Terrines by Edouard Lonque would be my favorite. It explains all the techniques with great clarity and in many cases, great photographs. The gamut of pates, terrines, timbales, even dim sum are well represented.

While most people think of pâtés as being made from ground bits of animals that they probably wouldn’t eat in any other form, forcemeat is not the only type of pate there is. This book gives many recipes for vegetable terrines and timbales that would make a lovely addition to any plate.

Carrot Timbale with Herb Sauce

1 1/4 lb carrots, cleaned
1 1/2 tablespoon butter
1 cup chicken broth
salt, sugar, nutmeg
3 – 4 eggs
5 tablespoons cream
butter for greasing the mold
4 6 –oz timbale molds

Cut the carrots into small pieces and cook in butter and broth with salt, sugar and nutmeg to taste. Purée, sieve through a strainer, beat in the eggs and cream and check seasoning. Transfer to the buttered molds and cook in a preheated 400 F oven for about 20-25 minutes.

Alas, we are not given the Herb Sauce recipe, but a nice sour cream, mayonnaise and dill would work beautifully. Feed this to your veggie friends and you will be a god.

Pâtés and Terrines

My idea of heaven is eating pâté de foie gras to the sound of trumpets.

Reverend Sidney Smith

Sheila Hutchins’ Pâtés and Terrines was written in the late 1970’s, during Hutchins' reign as cookery editor of the Daily Express. Hutchins does a great job of giving the history of pâtés and terrines and explaining their origins. While pâtés de foie gras might be a heavenly luxury, most pâtés and terrines are quite affordable.

If you think about it, a pâté is a just a meatloaf cooked slowly in bain-marie.

The word pâté is French for paste. Pâte (without the accent aigu) is the word for pastry. Both words are derived from the Latin pasticium which is the root for many “foodie” words in many languages. The French pâtissier, pâté, pâtisserie; Italian pasta; and English pasty and patty can all be traced back to this Latin root.

Terrine is often thought of a vessel for soup, but they were also the earthenware crock that types of pâté were cooked in. During the Victorian era there were many terrines made to look like the pies within them. Those dishes, once thought of as utilitarian are now collectors items. A beautiful old French specimen, such as this one, can run between $300 and $500.

Pâté Bourgeois au Lapin

A course-cut rabbit pate popular in northwest France, this recipe was given to me some year ago by a Calais shopkeeper. It is delicious, and unusual in being marinated in beer. One can drink red or white wine with it.
Put 900 g (2 lb) of chopped boned rabbit and 300ml (1/2 pint) of beer such as light ale in a basin. Add 450 g (1lb) of pork belly, chopped and without the skin, 3 bay leaves, a little thyme and parsley, and some salt and pepper. Leave it overnight, then mince the pork and rabbit separately. Line a fireproof dish with bacon rashers, pack with minced meat in it in layers, and pour the beer liquor into it. Cover with foil and a lid and bake the pâté for 2 1/2-3 hours in a slow oven, 150 C (300F) Gas 2. Cool.

I'm not sure I would make this in the $500 French lapin, but certainly in my tried and true Le Creuset terrine.

Chatsworth Cookery Book

They say you always want what you don’t have.

As an only child, I was always fascinated by large families. Show me a house full of sisters and I’m hooked. It started with Little Women. I followed Alcott with books written by all the Bronte sisters, even The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte!

If you are going to talk about sister acts, without a doubt, the best of all time? –The Mitford Sisters. Who could resist them? Writers, Nazi’s, Fascists, farmers and fasionistas. No to mention the cool nicknames. The youngest, Deborah, was Debo to her family but to the rest of the world she was the Duchess of Devonshire.

Deborah's sisters: Jessica, Nancy, Diana, Unity & Pamela

In 2003 Deborah Mitford wrote a cookbook,Duchess of Devonshire's Chatsworth Cookery Book. In true Mitford fashion, her chefs wrote the book, but it was the regal Duchess who graced its cover.



Included in the book is a charming terrine that is one of my favorite Christmas gifts. Each year I make several small terrines and give them as gifts with a jar of Confiture de Noel.


The pate is called “Darling Budd” terrine. It was named for Margaret Budd whose husband served in the Royal Air Force with Pamela Mitford’s husband. The two families came to Chatsworth for many Christmases. It was during one of those Christmas visits that Darling Budd gave Debo her recipe. It was so popular, the Duchess had it made in bulk and sold at the Farm Shop at Chatsworth.

“Darling Budd” Terrine

1 lb. pork belly, coarsely chopped
8 oz. best pork sausage meat
a small glass of red wine
8 oz. chicken livers, cleaned and chopped
8 oz. bacon, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
12 juniper berries
1 t. chopped thyme
4 oz. streaky bacon rashers

Preheat oven to 350

Mix together all the ingredients except the bacon rashers and place in a buttered, earthenware terrine mould. Cover the top with the streaky bacon. Cover the mould with a lid or foil, stand it in a roasting tin and pour enough boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the mould. Cook in the oven for 1 1/2 hours, removing the lid after an hour to allow the surface of the pate to colour. Check the water level in the roasting tin at the same time. Once cooked, take out of the oven and allow it to cool before refrigerating overnight.

I like to line the terrine with the strips (rashers) of bacon.



If you are engrossed by the Mitford Sisters, and not just with my terrine, there is a great biography by Mary Lovell entitled The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family. Diana Mitford's daughter-in law, Charlotte Mosley, has edited several collections of the letters between the sisters. Over the course of 80 years, they wrote approximately 12,000 letters to each other. Imagine what they could have done with Facebook!