The merchant of venison

AS ONE of his many lavish gifts to Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII chose to send his mistress a side of venison after he had killed a deer while out hunting one morning. Accompanying the gift was a note expressing his affection: "And seeing my darling is absent, I can do no less than to send her some flesh, representing my name, which is hart flesh for Henry."

Diamonds may be a girl's best friend, but the chances are that Henry's future wife was pretty taken with the unusual present.

Until the advent of deer farming in the 1970s, venison was not something you could generally buy from the butcher. Instead, enthusiasts for the meat had to rely on presents from gaming estates (or perhaps even poachers). As a result, the rich meat had connotations of prestige, privilege and high social standing. To dine on it was to know that you were a powerful person, or at least were connected to someone powerful and wealthy.

Today venison is readily available in the supermarket and, while it still retains something of an exclusive reputation, the meat has lost some of its prestige. As a result, despite being easier to acquire, it is no longer as sought after as it once was.

However, 56-year-old Nichola Fletcher, who runs a deer farm near Auchtermuchty with her husband John, is trying to change that. Her new book, Nichola Fletcher's Ultimate Venison Cookery was last week awarded "Best single-subject cookbook in the world" at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in London.

It's the latest addition to Fletcher's varied CV. Before becoming involved in farming, she trained as a jewellery designer and still creates commissioned pieces. Her interest in venison was sparked by her husband John, a vet specialising in deer who set up Europe's first deer farm over 30 years ago, with the aim of creating a free-ranging environment which has not been sprayed with chemicals and where deer are reared and slaughtered humanely.

"We were selling venison from our farm shop and people started asking me how they should cook it," she says. "After a while, I realised that so many people were in the dark when it came to preparing and cooking venison that I should write it all down, so I began writing books on the subject. John and I joke that we have a strict demarcation line: when the deer are running around, they belong to John; when they're hanging upside down, that's my territory!"

She is passionate about producing the highest-quality venison possible, (and has succeeded, if Gordon Ramsay – who described the Fletchers' venison as "truly delicious" – is to be believed) trumpeting its health benefits and seeing the meat – which has a flavour similar to beef, but is much leaner – become a staple of the Scottish diet.

"I was so pleased when I won the award, because I've felt for years that venison is a very misunderstood meat," she says. "There has been so much written about it that is incorrect, and to a certain extent, the 'Bambi complex' still exists; people can suspend logic and rational thought at times when it comes to venison, which is just silly. The reality is that it's readily accessible, not as expensive as some people believe (it's comparable in price to organic beef) and very versatile."

The book includes recipes for everything from spice-crusted venison with lime risotto to recipes using hartshorn – shavings from antlers – but around a third of its 286 pages are devoted to educating the reader about the meat and how to select and prepare it. Venison is one of the most healthy red meats available, high in iron and omega 3, and low in fat. It has 1.6g of fat per 100g, compared to beef, which has 12.9g per 100g, and it has less fat than skinless chicken at 2.9g per 100g.

"It's a lean, healthy meat, but it's so rich in flavour," says Fletcher. "I'd like to see more people buying venison for everyday use, and I'd like to see people giving it to their children at home and in schools. I want it to become part of children's culinary history so that they will feed it to their own children. It's great brain food for children as it's high in omega 3, and in my experience they absolutely gobble it up. It's usually parents, not children, who are put off."

Fletcher says that she doesn't come across the "Bambi complex" too often, but that it has proved a barrier for getting the meat into school lunches. But she insists, the deer she raises on her farm are reared and killed more humanely than cows or pigs.

"They're shot at close range in the field – a much more stress-free and humane death than a pig or a cow, which are transported to and killed in an abattoir, and yet people still make that Bambi association," says Fletcher, who explains deer are currently exempt from the rules on abattoir killing, which apply to most farmed animals.

"I do sometimes have people ask me: 'How can you kill such a beautiful animal?', but I tell them that I think that a pig is also a beautiful animal!"

According to Fletcher, people have also been put off venison somewhat by the fact that by the end of the 20th century, woodlands were over-run with deer, which needed to be culled. "There was a lot of poor-quality venison on the market at that time because so much of it was being hunted and sold as high-quality venison, when in fact it was usually an older animal shot from a distance," she says. "This can mean that it doesn't die instantly and adrenalin is released which damages the meat. The market was flooded with low-quality venison and it lost some of its reputation as a premium product."

With the growing availability of farmed deer, Fletcher believes customers should have access to a more consistently high quality of venison, helping to boost its reputation. With the meat available year-round in the supermarket and at farmers' markets, there's every opportunity for people to find out for themselves just how good it can be – although we can probably safely assume that the days of smitten royals wooing their lovers with a tasty hunk of venison are behind us.

VENISON SATAYS WITH A FRAGRANT DIPPING SAUCE

PRESS the mince mixture on to sticks for satays, or form into tiny meatballs for serving on cocktail sticks – this amount will make about 50. Prunes and aubergine lubricate the mixture so there is no need for fat.

Try drizzling this sauce over thin slices of roast venison for a starter. The sauce keeps for about three weeks in the fridge, and is also great added to a casserole.

Ingredients

Dipping sauce:

1 tablespoon pale miso paste

1 teaspoon Thai yellow curry paste

1 large egg yolk

2 teaspoons soy sauce

2 teaspoons clear honey or palm sugar

2 tablespoons dry wine or rice wine vinegar

3 tablespoons grape seed or light olive oil

Method

To make the dipping sauce, whisk together the miso, curry paste, egg yolk, soy, and honey. Then whisk in the wine vinegar and oil. Serve in little bowls with the hot satays.

To make the satays, cut the aubergine lengthways into two quarters and microwave on full power for 5 minutes or until the flesh is soft. When cool enough to handle, skin and dice. Chop the prunes. Put aubergine and prunes in a blender with the mince, turmeric and salt and pepper. Blend till fine, then squeeze the mixture on to satay sticks.

For tiny meatballs, form the mixture into small balls, roll them in flour, and then lightly pinch them in your fingers to give them a flat bottom so that they stand upright when you press cocktail sticks into them after cooking. Fry all over in hot butter and oil and serve with the dipping sauce.

VENISON STEAKS WITH LANARK BLUE CHEESE

Serves 4

THIS extremely easy recipe isn't much use for anyone concerned about high cholesterol. There are so many excellent British blue cheeses now that I now use whatever is local. Lanark blue is made by Humphrey Errington, and I give the title to his cheese as a mark of respect for his long, difficult, expensive, but finally successful battle against the Lanarkshire cheese police who threatened the life of not only Humphrey's enterprise, but the whole future of artisan cheese-making in Britain. Serve with caramelised baby onions.

Ingredients

4 x 180g (6oz) haunch steaks, thick cut

100g (4oz) Lanark blue cheese

150ml (1/4pt) cream

Pepper

Fresh chives

Method

Pan-fry the steaks to taste, though it's best to undercook them and leave them to rest while you make the sauce. Mash together the Lanark blue and the cream.

Drain excess fat from the pan and add the cream/cheese mixture, scraping up all the brownings from the pan, and allowing the cheese to melt. If it looks too dry, moisten the sauce with milk. Lanark Blue is a salty cheese, so probably needs no more, but a little pepper is good. If any juices have come out of the steaks, stir these into the sauce. Tip the sauce over the steaks, and sprinkle with fresh chives.

VENISON STEAKS WITH RHUBARB SAUCE

Serves 4

Rhubarb works really well with venison, but never use cast-iron pans to cook it as the rhubarb will react with the metal to make the sauce taste tinny.

Really good additive-free stock makes all the difference to the sauce. This is also wonderful with roast venison.

Ingredients

4 x 180g (6 oz) venison steaks

Butter/oil to cook them in

350g (12 oz) rhubarb

300ml (½ pt) concentrated venison or beef stock

1-2 tablespoons rowan jelly, or other tart fruit jelly

Salt/pepper to taste

Method

Chop the rhubarb and boil it in the venison stock until pulped. Rub it through a sieve or blend it, and return the purée to the pan. Add rowan jelly and salt to taste – use a strong, tart jelly rather than one made insipid with apples. Heat some butter and oil in a large frying pan until really hot. Cook your steaks; brown them in the pan and part cook, then rest them. While they rest, add the rhubarb sauce to the frying pan to dissolve the pan juices before serving with the steaks.