Hunter gatherer: The Foraging Chef cooks stew his own way...
We bet you've never had stew drizzled in chocolate sauce before. Now you can try it, as we've got the recipe
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We like to keep you on your toes when it comes to new recipes. Every so often we will throw in a bit of a wild card that goes beyond a one pot wonder. Consider this dish — venison and trooping funnel mushroom stew, with sourdough barley, turnip and pine pappardelle, drizzled in hot chocolate oil — your next challenge.
We'd expect nothing less from The Foraging Chef, Steve Thompson who dreamt up this fantastical creation. Steve is head chef at The Plough in Shepreth, "a village pub with big ideas", and his style of cooking is all about stripped back simplicity, "using what the land provides and getting big bold flavours out of plants we've forgotten to eat," he says on his Facebook page.
You only have to glance at his Instagram to see it's awash with earthy impeccably presented dishes with flashes of vivid natural colour: pinks, oranges and rich reds, and so much detail. We love the pics of him scouring forests filling up baskets with trooping funnel or branched oyster mushrooms to cook. We have a beady eye on his Hawthorn hot sauce and he makes all his own breads from sourdough to focaccia.
The Foraging Chef aka Steve Thompson/ Liebherr
Venison is a meat Steve loves to cook with — check out his Venison lomo with a smoky pontack cure for example — and with all his fresh, foraged ingredients this chef needs a big fridge to store it all in. It makes sense then that Steve has teamed up with Liebherr, who make serious kitchen kit.
The brand's freestanding fridge-freezers are outstanding appliances with plenty of room for storage and long lasting freshness, thanks to BioFresh technology. Liebherr also do table-height refrigerators with lots of useful features. The spacious fruit and vegetable compartments are particularly practical for storing larger items (or delicate, muddy mushrooms) and the height-adjustable and scratch-resistant GlassLine shelves are made from safety glass and are super easy-to-clean.
Let us know how you get on with this wonderful winter recipe, we'd love to see pics of your creations or just let us know in the comments if attempting it felt as adventurous as exploring a forest out in the wild in bare feet. We thought so!
Venison & trooping funnel mushroom stew
Venison & trooping funnel mushroom stew by Steve Thompson/ Liebherr
...with sourdough barley, turnip & pine pappardelle & hot chocolate oil
Ingredients
- ...Sourdough barley...
- 120g pearl barley
- 1 tsp sourdough starter (doesn’t need to be active)
- 60ml water
- ...Turnip & pine pappardelle...
- 300g peeled turnip
- 3 tsp pine needle powder (take pine needles & dry out then place through a coffee grinder)
- 3g Maldon salt
- ...Venison & trooping funnel stew...
- 100ml rapeseed oil
- 1 small white onion, finely sliced
- 2 garlic cloves finely grated
- 70g Miso paste
- 40g English mustard
- 100ml Guinness
- 100ml Apple juice
- 200ml water
- Salt to taste
- 600g venison haunch diced
- 60g plain flour
- ...Fermented pearl barley from above...
- 300g trooping funnel mushrooms (Infundibulicybe geotropa) cleaned and quartered
- Hot chocolate oil
- 30g cocoa powder
- 20g caster sugar
- 45g rapeseed oil
- Pinch salt
Instructions
- First, start off with the pearl barley. You'll need to do this 24 hours before you want to start cooking the stew. Place pearl barley, water & sourdough starter in a jar, mix together & leave somewhere warm for 24 hours – the airing cupboard works great.
- Straight after you've got the barley working & still the day before, prepare your turnips.
- Take your turnip & using your speed peeler, gently go round the turnip creating long ribbons. Even & medium pressure will help you get long & wide strands like pappardelle.
- Take your turnip pappardelle, add the pine powder & salt then leave to sit covered in the fridge until you’re ready to serve.
- ...For the stew...
- Coat the diced venison in the flour, then getting your pan hot, fry off til browned. Do this in small batches, once one batch is done, lift out into a separate bowl while you finish the rest
- Once all the venison is browned, using the same pan, turn the heat down to a low medium flame and get the onions and garlic in. Sweat them off gently until nice and caramelised when you should add the mustard and miso. Cook this out on the same heat until the mustard just starts to catch, then scrape the bottom of the pan. Follow this with the venison, Guinness, apple juice, water & the fermented pearl barley. Bring this to the boil then put it in your crock pot & in the oven at 145°c for two hours. After the two hours, add the mushrooms raw & cook for a further 30 minutes.
- Just before serving, make the hot chocolate oil, heat your oil to 80°c then add to the blender with cocoa, salt and sugar.
- For serving, find a nice bowl, add a couple of large spoons of stew, top with the turnip gently layered on & drizzle with the hot chocolate oil.
Recipe Notes
Equipment needed: Thick bottom large pan, Crock pot, Speed peeler, Sharp knife, Mixing bowl, Fine grater, Blender. Prep time is 24 hours, 35 minutes of which as hands on.
Recipe by
Steve Thompson for Liebherr
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Comments (3)
Sounds amazing. I have to try it. It is not unusual to use chocolate in savory dishes. What about famous Mexican dish of rabbit or hare in chocolate sauce. It does taste good. Hare is better than rabbit. It's gamey.
Yes chocolate works really well too. Did you see this feature, you might like the recipe... foodtribe.com/p/hunter-gatherer-the-foraging-chef-eSFYw6IKQdKeiv8TYVq3uQ?iid=HB-QPfOHTFiUZYZa0pCEEw
Yes, I will try it. Venison is the right choice because its gameness. And thank you for the article.