Pan Roasted Venison, Roasted Finglering Potatoes with Green Sauce of Cilantro, Galic, Lime juice, and seasoning

Growing up in Oregon, I knew people – friends in school or friends of friends – who hunted deer each fall. I knew they also ate the deer successfully hunted but called it venison. Although I was never really one to associate Bambi with a food item, the concept of eating venison was foreign to me and foreign enough to many more that it was not exactly something seen on every menu.

Fortunately, times and tastes have changed.

It seems the unique flavoring and the healthier-than-beef-if-not-raised-like-beef traits of venison have helped bring it to many menus. At the same time, since moving to the East from the West I have had the pleasure of cooking and eating amazing venison many times with each better than the last.

Last Monday, January 12, 2009, I threw together the venison dish pictured and described on the right.  Normally I try to complete most, if not all, of the main preparations or cooking for the week by Sunday or, if time allows, Monday afternoon or evening. On this particular Monday I had cooked the meals for the week and so was faced with trying to cook food for the week and dinner, at the same time and to be completed with the cooking before 10:00 p.m.

So, once I put a chicken in the oven to roast (more on this particular chicken in another blog entry), I focused on the venison.

Broken down, the venison dish has three components: venison, roasted potatoes, and sauce.

Here are the guidelines I followed for each:

Venison- although last to be put on the stove or to put into an oven, the seasoning and cooking of this meat was probably the most important part of the dish.  I seared each side in a cast-ion saute pan and then placed it in an approximately 400 degree oven to finish (about 12 – 14 min total.  The venison steaks were seasoned with salt, pepper, just enough to coat olive oil, and freshly grated or cut lime zest. The lime zest was a great addition and really added a lot to the flavor of the meet.

Roasted Fingerlings-a variation on my standby – olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper: instead of putting them to roast in the oven after either starting on the stove or at least warming (or more accurately heating) the pan in a 450 – 500 degree oven, the potatoes were put into a pan with some grape seed oil and the heat at high. Once they started to brown, the heat was dropped and freshly chopped garlic was added. Keeping the pan on the stove top instead of the oven was a challenge because I had to stir the potatoes and garlic to prevent everything from burning.

Green Sauce: Basically – a cilantro version of a more traditional parsley green sauce.  I loosely or hash chopped the cilantro and garlic, added them to a blender with a touch of olive oil and season with salt and pepper to taste. Blend just enough to mix all the flavors with the oil. As you can see in the picture, this is a rough or “country style” sauce, it should be bold and not look like it was just pureed.

Wrapping up as I fall asleep, the sauce a normally good meal and elevated it to excellent, we even used it for salad dressing the next night.