Hi everyone!
As I promised earlier, I am presenting you with the recipe for the Christmas meal I planned for this year. I am going to prepare a deer roast with purple cabbage and dumplings. Though this meal sounds high-calorie and heavy, I have found a way to make it much smarter and healthier this year.
Of course, I will also want to serve a starter and a dessert, but I have not yet decided what to serve.
What will we need for the deer roast with purple cabbage and dumplings?
For the roast
1kg saddle of venison
2 juniper berries
1 teaspoon of tomato paste
1 onion
1 bundle of greens
300ml game stock
1 bayleaf
300ml water
(100ml red wine – depending on your diet. I, personally, like it with red wine, but you can also leave it out.)
salt
pepper
1 tablespoon of canola oil
For the purple cabbage
1 fresh red cabbage
1 apple
1 onion
3 cloves
1 bayleaf
salt
pepper
100ml water
(100ml red wine – again, it is up to you, whether you include the wine into your dish or not. I will include it, but depending on your diet, you should decide it yourself)
1 teaspoon honey
For the dumplings
1kg potatoes
1 pinch of nutmeg
salt
bell pepper powder
Preparation
The roast
We preheat the oven to 100°C.
We cut the bundle of greens in little pieces.
We cut the saddle of venison into 4 pieces and sear them in a pan with hot canola oil.
We remove the meat from the pan and let it cook in the oven for approximately 30 minutes until medium.
We now add the greens and the tomato paste to the pan and sear them for a minute. We deglace the dripping with gamestock, water and wine (or water or juice) and add rosemary, bayleaf and the juniper berries. We boil it down until approx. 1/3 of the initial volume.
We season the sauce with salt and pepper.
We remove the outer cabbage leaves and cut the cabbage into little pieces.
We wash it propperly and and put it in a pot.
We cut an apple and the onion into little pieces and add them to the cabbage.
We now add cloves, bayleaf, salt, pepper and water and wine (or just water) and cook everything until the cabbage is soft-boiled. We now add the honey and mix everything properly.
The dumplings
We peal half of the potatoes and cook them with some salt.
We peal the other half of the potatoes, grate them and juice them thoroughly with a kitchen towel. (While juicing the potatoes, we catch the juice and wait until the starch settles. We remove the water and put the starch back in the potato pastry.)
Meanwhile, we preheat a very big pot with salted water.
We now mash the cooked potatoes and add them to the raw potato pastry.
We add the nutmeg, salt, pepper and bell pepper (and whatever you would like to use to flavour the dumplings) and knead the pastry.
We form the dumplings (I like them to be similar to a tennis ball but you can choose the size that suits you most).
We add the dumplings to the boiling water and simmer them at very low heat for approximately 20 minutes.
I hope you enjoy Christmas time and all the delicious Christmas meals!
Best wishes