Venison Backstrap and Stilton Oatcakes

 

Venison backstrap and Stilton cheese oatcakes

It's an absolute scorcher today here in North Lanarkshire and I hope the weather is equally good wherever you may be reading this article. For this reason, I decided to show you an incredibly simple sharing dish that you can enjoy outdoors with a nice glass of something cold and refreshing. The only cooking involved is the quick flash frying of the piece of venison backstrap which is subsequently allowed to cool completely before being served on Scottish oatcakes, with Stilton cheese and redcurrant sauce.

Cook Time

Prep time: 5 min (plus resting/cooling time for venison)

Cook time: 5 min

Ready in: 10 min

Yields: 4 servings

Scottish oatcake

Ingredients

• 2 inch/5cm piece of roe deer venison backstrap
• Salt and pepper
• Little oil for frying
• 4 Scottish oatcakes
• 4 triangular slices from block of Stilton cheese
• 4 teaspoons redcurrant sauce, or as required (bought in glass jar from supermarket)
• Freshly chopped parsley to garnish
• Simple side salad of choice to serve (this salad is mixed green salad leaves, mini carrot batons and thin slices of red bell pepper, combined in a bowl and seasoned with salt and pepper)

Venison backstrap is added to very hot frying pan

Method

Pour a little oil into a frying pan or skillet and bring it up to a pretty high heat. Season the venison backstrap on both sides with salt and pepper and fry for 2.5 minutes each side on full heat. Note that if you are using the backstrap from a larger deer than a roe, you will have to increase this cooking time accordingly. Lift to a plate, cover with foil and allow to rest for a minimum 5 minutes. Longer is fine as you will be serving it cold anyway.

Lift the cooled and rested backstrap to a chopping board and slice at a 45-degree angle to 8 - as evenly sized as possible - slices.

Venison and Stilton are added to oatcake

Scottish oatcakes essentially serve the same purpose in the serving of food as crackers but they are very different in terms of the recipe, the texture and the flavour. They are made from oats, water, salt and fat of some type, can be very crumbly and are sold in different levels of coarseness.

Lay 2 slices of venison, slightly overlapping, on each oatcake and top with a triangle of Stilton cheese.

Redcurrant sauce and parsley top the Stilton and venison oatcakes

Spoon some redcurrant sauce over each piece of Stilton cheese and garnish with the chopped parsley.

Biting in to a venison and Stilton Scottish oatcake

Lift the oatcake assemblies to the 4 corners of a square plate as shown and serve with the simple salad arranged in the centre of the plate.