Just how adventurous are you? Have you ever tried venison tartare?
45 Min
Prep Time
7-9
Servings
Medium
Difficulty
Feeling adventurous? This might be just the venison recipe for you.
Steak tartare has been around a long time. Diced raw steak in a flavorful herb sauce with silky egg yolks, the dish is a classic and loved the world over. While it is often found on the menu at world-class restaurants, you can do it at home, and do it extremely well, with a venison backstrap.
1 pound of clean venison backstrap, hand diced with a sharp knife into ¼ bits
Seasoning Sauce
1 shallot, finely diced
The juice of one lemon
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh chives, diced
1 tablespoon capers, diced
2 tablespoons fresh flat leaf parsley, leaf only, finely chopped
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
2 egg yolks
Accompaniments
Crackers
Toast rounds
Dijon or whole grain mustard
Sweet cherry peppers
Cornichon pickles
Start the dicing process with a clean cutting board and a sharp knife. I like to work in batches, cutting the backstrap section in half and leaving the section I'm not working on in the refrigerator. Place the working half on your cutting board and slice first across the grain into ¼-inch-thick medallions. Dice each medallion into ¼- x ¼-inch bits. Once you have the bulk of the meat cut into small bits, really get in and chop the remainder in a fine dice, almost the texture of ground, to blend in. The contrasting textures add to the finished product. The process is tedious, but hand cutting gives a much nicer finished texture to the dish. Cutting the backstrap while it is still slightly frozen speeds the process.
To plate, I like to pack the meat mixture tightly in a bowl just large enough to be completely filled with the chopped meat. Invert the bowl over the center of your chilled platter and lift the bowl from the meat, leaving a round mound of tartare in the center. Use the back of a spoon to press a shallow bowl into the top of the mound. Gently slide the two egg yolks into the depression, leaving them whole for presentation.
Surround the meat with crackers, toast rounds, pickles, sweet cherry peppers and a smear of mustard. Once the dish is on the table, use a serving knife to break the egg yolks and mix them into the meat. Serve a spoonful of the tartare on a cracker or toast round.
