Cooking with Game

Venison Puttanesca with Zucchini Pasta

Brining and Tenderizing is optional. If you are brining you need to start at least four hours ahead.

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Zucchini Pasta

Use a vegetable peeler or mandolin to make slices from medium sized zucchini. Stack the slices and cut lengthwise in fourths to make fettucini style pasta.

Boil salted water like you would for pasta. Add noodles to water, cook for 1 minute. Remove immediately with a slotted spoon into a boil of cold water to blanch and stop cooking. Drain on a towel. Your hot sauce will reheat the noodles.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter – divided

2 tablespoons olive oil – divided

1 pound cubed venison, brined & tenderized*

1/2 cup chopped pepper, any color

1/2 cup chopped onion, any color

2 large cloves of garlic, thinly sliced or minced

4 ounce can of sliced mushrooms (or 1 cup fresh sliced)

1/2 cup chopped black olives

25 ounce jar of Puttanesca Sauce (or Spaghetti Sauce)

Pasta from 3 medium Zucchini (see above)

Directions:

Prepare Pasta as above.

Heat 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 of oil in large skillet over medium high heat.

Add cubed venison. Do not cook all the way through, just brown on all sides. Remove to a plate. Pour out any juice in skillet.

Add 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 of oil back into skillet over medium high heat. Add pepper, onion and garlic. Sauté for 5 minutes. Add mushrooms, sauté another 2 to 3 minutes. Add chopped olives. Add Puttanesca Sauce. Bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to a simmer and add venison back in, discarding any juices that have collected on the plate.

Simmer 15 minutes.

Serve over Zucchini Pasta with some nice bread and Shaved Parmesan Cheese.

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*BRINE: Dissolve 1/4 course sea salt – 1/8 cup brown sugar (or 1 T granulated sugar) in 1 cup warm water in a large bowl. Fill the bowl with cold water, leaving enough room to add meat. Then tenderize:

TENDERIZE: Place meat inside a zip-lock bag. Do not zip all the way closed. Using the flat side of a mallet or a heavy skillet, pound the meat until it is about l/4-inch thick. Add to cooled brine. Put in refrigerator for 4 -8 hours. When ready to cook: Rinse and pat dry.

This is a great recipe from Food.com for Venison.

Wow, this really is good and super easy! Here is what I did differently:

I used the backstrap instead of the tenderloin. It was in two parts, and one part was skinny, so I doubled up the skinny part and then sort of over lapped the two pieces to make one piece as close to equal thickness as I could. Then I wrapped it in the bacon. I too recommend thin sliced.

I baked it at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. (Meat thermometer measured below 125). Turned it over, poured a spoonful of marinade over and turned on the broiler (500 degrees). I broiled it for 4 minutes. (Leave in center of oven). Turned it over again and broiled another 4 minutes.

BEWARE: Marinade is sugary so will smoke under the broiler and set off the smoke detector in your kitchen! Turn on your kitchen fan.

I removed it from the oven and transferred the meat to a cutting board. Then covered it with foil and let it sit while we ate our salads. The meat turned out medium rare and juicy. Being backstrap it was as tender as I expected and the flavor was wonderful!! Great way to disguise gamey meat.

Yes it is sweet and a bit salty. If you want to reduce the saltiness, rince the meat after removing it from the marinade and pat dry before wrapping in bacon.