I know, I know, this is not an accessible meal for most people. Who has access to wild deer? I was gifted some by a hunter friend. Lucky me, I know. Which is why I really didn’t want to screw this up. I don’t sear a lot of red meat since I very rarely eat beef, and cooking this tenderloin past medium-rare seemed far too likely. But you! You can go to your local market in Quebec and get less-than-wild deer and it’ll still be delicious, just more expensive unfortunately.
But the money is the hardest part, and you don’t need that much (it’s dense protein). And everything else on this plate was easy, from the spinach to the lentil to the squash – and was even better as the meat’s juices leached into them.
I made my recipes for spiced lentils and super gingery spiced pumpkin using squash from here and then just tossed a bunch of frozen spinach with some berbere and broth and let it simmer for the third colourful stew on that plate.
As for the deer, I followed my friend’s instructions: heat a cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Salt the meat well. Add a bit of high-heat oil (I think I used duck fat, because why not?) and sear the tenderloin for a minute on one side. Flip it over and sear for a minute on the other. Remove to a plate and let it rest five minutes. Done.
And if you’re thinking “that’s a lot of work to make those three other dishes and then sear the meat,” well, that would be a lot of work, except those are the kinds of dishes you can make a day or two in advance and reheat, then just make the meat fresh.
Looks fancy. Took five minutes. (Plus an hour the day before.) Culinary magic? No. Just planning.
Leave a Reply