Bambi

Venison isn't exactly a rare thing to eat in the U.S. I, however, have never cooked it before.

One of my brothers-in-law is an avid hunter (or, to be more accurate, he just likes to shoot stuff). And he is nearly obbsesed with deer. Telling him stories about walking so close to deer you can touch them back home makes him almost drool. As does the size of even our white-tail deer.

Long story short, he shot a deer some time ago and we ended up with some of the meat. Or, at least, my husband did and when I came home, found that he had about a pound and a half of chunks of deer meat in the freezer.

So I found out how to cook deer.

Apparently, it's a really tough meat, so you have to cook it a long time.

So, soup. My first attempt at making soup. Ever. Or cooking with venison.

So into the soup went:

Seared chunks of deer (with olive oil, salt, pepper)

1 can of crushed tomatoes (to let the acid break down the meat a little?)

2 onions

3 carrots

2 cloves of garlic

1 Tablespoon of vegetable stock powder

4 cups of water

1 teaspoon red chilli flake

Oregano

Basil (I don't have a lot of spices in the house as of yet)

Rosemary

And later... after several hours of stewing....

4 potatoes

Salt

Pepper

Flour to thicken it a bit (added VERY gradually so as not to cook it and end up with flour lumps)

We then had my brother-in-law and his fiancée over for dinner. He said we shall have more deer, seeing as how I made something half-decent with it.

The meat was so nice and tender... falling apart by the time we ate it (I started the soup at 9AM, we ate at 6PM).

I thought it was a BIT too salty, but otherwise, soooo good. Just what was needed with the cold wet weather.