Venison with...?

I have been asked to blog more about wine with food and, as someone who enjoys cooking, I hope this will enliven things around here! Appropriate to the time of year, today I am writing about venison.

Venison is popular in our house - with me, anyway. Buying it a side at a time (from Archers Butchers in Norwich) is a highly cost effective way to fill the freezer with the healthiest of meats. Compared with beef, it's leaner, has about half the calories and a fifth of the total fat and one-sixth of the saturated fat of the equivalent beef. It has around 10% more protein and higher levels of vitamins and minerals although it is around 20% higher in cholesterol.

My freezer is currently bursting at the seams with various cuts and, consequently, I have to think up different ways to present it to my family who, unlike me, would get rather bored of a slab of meat with some sort of carbs and greens put in front of them several nights each week.

1. Venison mince

Mincing the scraps with one part pork belly to two parts venison makes a good burger mixture (although, of course, this can no longer lay claim to a low fat option) and also makes a good, richer pasta sauce etc. I would serve appropriate wines with these - such as Cascina Saria's Barbera d'Asti 'S. Lorenzo' which has both the fruit and acidity to cut through the tomato in the ragu sauce.

For a low fat option, I mince the venison on its own and cook it up with Indian spices and add grated onion and toasted pine nuts then wrap it in small samosa parcels using spring roll pastry (there may be something more appropriate but this works fine). I bake these rather than the traditional deep frying and serve them with a pumpkin or squash chutney I heard about on the radio around Hallowe'en. It's quite spicy with the chutney but a fruity Syrah such as a Crozes-Hermitage from Xavier Vignon or Domaine de la Charite works well.

Something else I have tried recently is a beef and potato cake (but using venison, of course) from a rather fun cookbook called 'Persiana'. These are easy to make (mashed potato with minced venison which has been cooked up with mild spices then coated in breadcrumbs and shallow fried to seal then finished off in the oven) and work brilliantly with a simple fruity wine - again Xavier (this time his Turkish Cabernet-Mourvedre) and Charite (the 2015 Cotes du Rhone) come to mind.