Venison Pies and Curly Kale

Cut the venison into chunks. Peel and chop the shallots into small pieces. Peel and finely chop the garlic. Make seasoned flour with flour, salt and fresh black pepper. Soften without browning the shallots and garlic in a tablespoonful of olive oil in a frying pan. When ready, use a slotted spoon to move to an ovenproof dish.

Drench the venison pieces in the seasoned flour and quickly brown in batches in the frying pan and move to the ovenproof pan when ready. Pour a bottle of red wine into the frying pan, reduce over a high heat while scraping the pan with a wooden spoon for three or four minutes. Pour the wine over the meat in the ovenproof dish.

Add two bunches of thyme tied with some string to the dish. Top up with some beef stock until the venison is just covered. Season with a teaspoonful of salt and a few good turns of fresh black pepper. Put into the oven covered and cook at 300°F/160°C/Reg2 for three hours. Switch off the oven and allow to cool. This is a good point to put the venison when cool in the fridge and continue the following day.

Take the venison out of the fridge and use some kitchen paper to remove any fat on top. Use a slotted spoon to take out the meat and put into a separate dish along with a little of the cooking liquid to keep it moist leaving the remainder of the liquid to make a gravy.

Roll out the pastry on a floured surface until it is quite thin. Cut into pairs of rounds around 12 cm and 14 cm in diameter. Lightly grease a baking tray with a little butter, put in the smaller pastry rounds and spoon over the venison pieces  Picture  . Moisten the edges of the pastry rounds with a little milk. Lay the larger rounds over the meat and pinch the edges together folding them upwards.

Beat up the egg and paste all over the pies. Put in the oven at 350°F/180°C/Reg4 and cook for about 30 minutes until golden brown  Picture  . Meanwhile make a gravy by taking the remainder of the cooking liquid, thin if necessary with a little more beef stock, stir in a teaspoonful of cornflour to thicken, and season with salt and pepper.

Prepare the curly kale  Recipe  .

When ready put the venison pies on to serving dishes, add some kale, pour over some gravy and serve  Zoom  .