We invite you into our kitchen, with host Adam Berkelmans, to dive deep into the food history behind our favorite dishes and to cook along with us, line by line and item by item.
This venison stir fry is the perfect weeknight meal. Quick, easy, healthy, and most importantly, delicious!
It’s also infinitely changeable. I made mine with white-tail hindquarter (when butchering I like to square off my steaks and roasts and slice the trimmings thin for stir fry), but you could just as easily use thinly sliced wild pork, duck or goose breast, pheasant, grouse or partridge breast, or the loin, flank, shoulder, or round from any ungulate. Pretty versatile!
But that’s not all; you can also change up the vegetables to any light and crisp veggie like peppers, sugar snap peas, zucchini, spinach, kale, tender beans, asparagus, or celery. Tougher vegetables like broccoli or carrots work too, but you may have to blanch them first.
The sauce is also riffable. You can add any flavours you like to the sauce, like chilies or hot sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, ginger, etc. You could also just use a store-bought sauce like stir fry sauce, teriyaki, sweet and sour, etc. to make things even easier.
There are a few tricks to making good stir fry. First is a process called velveting, where thinly sliced meats are marinated in such a way (read about it in the recipe) to make them super tender; just like the meat in Chinese take-out. Second is heat. Stir frying should always be done over very high heat. The whole process should only take 5 minutes or so. This leaves your meat tender and your vegetables tender-crisp. Next is movement. Stir frying is named that for a reason – your ingredients should be stirred and leaping around the wok or skillet pretty much constantly. Last is cornstarch. A little cornstarch will turn your sauce into a clinging, velvety, luscious sauce without needing to reduce it for so long that your vegetables turn soggy.
Follow the above tricks and your stir fries will be brought to a whole new level!
Serving Size: 4 servings with rice and a side
Time to make: 35 min
Also works with: Wild Pork, Elk, Moose, Antelope, Duck or Goose Breast, Grouse or Pheasant Breast
Recipe by Adam BerkelmansCourse: Venison, Wild Recipes
Servings
4
servings
Prep time
30
minutes
Cooking time
40
minutes
Have all of your ingredients ready to go before you start cooking to ensure the vegetables don’t over cook!
Ingredients
For the Stir Fry
1/2 lb venison loin, sirloin, round, flank, or shoulder, cut into thin slices
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon Chinese Shaoxing cooking wine or cooking sherry (optional)
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1.5 tablespoons lard or cooking oil
1/2 lb fresh snowpeas, end trimmed
For the Sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons white sugar
1/2 teaspoon cracked black pepper
3/4 cup water or venison stock
1 teaspoon cornstarch
Preparation
Mix together the baking soda and water in a bowl. Add the venison and toss well. Let marinate for 20 minutes. Prepare rice if serving with stir fry.
Rinse the meat off under cold running water, washing off all of the baking soda. Put it back in the bowl and add the soy sauce, wine, sesame oil, and cornstarch. Mix well and let marinate for another 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, mix all of the sauce ingredients in a bowl and set aside.
Heat the fat or oil in a wok or skillet over high heat. Add the venison and stir fry (tossing and stirring often) until browned, about 3-5 minutes. Add the snowpeas and stir fry for 1 minute.
Give the sauce a stir to re-incorporate the cornstarch, then add it to the wok or skillet. Turn the heat down to medium and cook until sauce has thickened, about 1 minute.
If sauce is too thick, add a ¼ cup of water and cook for bit longer. If sauce is too thin, mix 1 teaspoon of cornstarch with 2 tablespoons of water and add it to the skillet. Cook until as thick as desired.
