Fearghus has classes for this month and next month on Saturdays. On weekends when I can I’ve told him I’d love to meet him on campus for lunch. The last time we did something like this I stopped off at Subway to pick up our meal and then met him. I’m currently feeling kind of gun shy about restaurant food so I’m shying away from that. This means this last Saturday I had to come up with something tasty and filling for us for lunch. After casting about for a while.. I hit on the great idea to make a venison stew. The resulting stew came out better than expected. I’ll definitely do this recipe again. I suppose you could substitute beef if you don’t have venison.

I mostly followed this recipe on AllRecipes. I used beef broth instead of water.. it always seems silly to use water when you could use some other liquid that adds more flavor to the dish. As a bonus Fearghus initially thought it was a beef stew instead of venison stew. We think the added beef broth toned down the gameyness of the venison. I think the stew had a nice venison flavor.. but it did have less of a gamey taste then the other dishes we’ve made from this deer.

I also didn’t use any garlic.. my garlic had all sprouted.. and I couldn’t get the glass jar in the fridge open 😀

We also found that the carrots didn’t cook enough when added with the potatoes so I’ve changed them to be added with the onion.

Added bonus, we had a ton of leftovers. I plan to pour this into a pie shell for Wednesday night dinner of “Venison pot pie”.

Venison Stew

Adapted from the original found on Allrecipes.com: Venison Stew I

2 Tbsp olive oil
2 lbs venison stew meat (or beef)
2-3 onions, chopped
1 lb carrots, chopped
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp dried oregano
3 cup beef broth (or water)
5 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup water

1. In a deep skillet, brown the meat in oil. Add onions, carrots, Worcestershire sauce, bay leaf, oregano, and broth. Simmer, covered for 1 1/2 hours-2 hrs, or until meat is tender.
2. Add potatoes. Simmer for an additional 1/2 hour.
3. Combine flour and water. Stir into stew. Remove bay leaf. Taste it and add salt and pepper to taste.