Recipe for venison pie – the perfect supper for chilly, dark evenings

Now the nights are drawing in and it’s getting chilly, there’s nothing better than to sit down to a warming supper. So here’s a venison pie recipe from the Museum Inn, Farnham, Dorset, which uses venison from the local Rushmore Estate. 

Venison pie with wild garlic and stout

Ingredients

Filling

• 1kg diced and trimmed venison
• 2 large cloves crushed garlic
• 4 carrots (diced)
• 2 onions (diced)
• 1 stick celery (diced)
• Spring of thyme
• Sprig of rosemary
• 250ml stout
• 500ml game stock (you can use chicken stock if none available)
• 100ml red wine
• Salt/pepper

Pastry

• 1kg plain flour
• 200g plain flour (for rolling out the pastry)
• 250g unsalted butter
• 250g lard
• 250ml water
• Salt
• 2 eggs

NB: (If you’re in a hurry, you can buy good ready roll puff pastry at supermarkets in the chilled section. )

Method

Pastry

Crumble the flour, lard and butter
Add the water and salt until mixture binds together
Wrap in cling film, or a bees wax wrap preferably, and leave in the fridge to rest.

Filling

• Put a frying pan on to medium to high heat and allow to heat up.
• Place the diced venison into the hot pan and season. Once sealed place into a colander and allow any excess fat to drain off.
• Add the red wine to the frying pan, scraping and stirring the browned bits from the pan over a moderate-high heat to melt everything into the liquid. Take off the heat and keep to one side.
• Heat up a large deep solid based sauce pan.
• Fry off carrots, garlic, onions, celery and herbs.
• Add in the fried venison.
• Add red wine liquid, stout and game stock.
• Reduce the heat to low and cook until the venison is tender (roughly 2 hours).
• Allow to cool and place in fridge to set. This will make assembling the pies easier.

Making the pies

• Cut the pastry into 6 equal 200g chunks, keeping 6 x 100g back for each lid
• Roll out the larger chunks of pastry, making sure they are big enough to cover the pie dishes
• Add filling, roughly 250g, into the pastry lined pie dishes
• Roll out the smaller chunks of pastry
• Egg wash the rim of the pastry and place over the lid (egg washing gives a lovely gold shiny crust)
• Cut off any excess pastry and crimp the sides with a fork
• Egg wash the top and bake 180c for 25 mins until golden brown

Enjoy.