I love game meat, I don’t eat it very often but I always try to find some sources because sometimes I really like to have it. Moreover it’s usually a healthy meat, because you can be sure that at least they didn’t use any antibiotics and any industrial feed, and they had a better life.

The most common game meat to find are usually wild boar, roe deer, deer, but the fallow deer (at least here) it’s not common to find, but it has really a particular flavor and it’s probably the one that had the most “game” flavor between all the ones I tried till now, so I really loved it.

Game meat it’s very lean, the more you cook it and the more it gets easily dry, so since this was the tenderloin the best choice is to cook it as less as possible. Someone might not like it, but this is the only way to have it juicy and to be able to taste all its wonderful flavor.

Next to it I decided to prepare an easy rösti, and since in this season there are red currants I prepared a sauce with it.

Let’s see.

INGREDIENTS (3 people):

• 600 g fallow deer tenderloin
• 800 g potatoes
• fresh sage and rosemary
• red currants, 150-200 g
• 1 glass red wine
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt

1. First peel the potatoes, grate them and squeeze them well from their liquids. Then mince the herbs and mix to the potatoes, and season with salt. Meanwhile bring the meat at room temperature and dry it very well with kitchen paper.
2. Now take a pan (better if cast iron), heat a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil, and then add the grated potatoes (if you want you can mix together also some soft butter, just a bit), keeping them compact and spreading on all the surface. Cook at medium heat, about 5-6 minutes on each side (until it makes a nice crust).
3. Now take another pan (better if iron or cast iron), bring to high heat. Season the meat with salt, spread a little bit of oil on the surface and then put it in the hot pan. Brown it on all the sides (2-3 minutes about), then place the meat in an oven pan and bake it at 120 °C fan assisted mode (the oven must be already hot) until the meat reaches 55-56 °C in the core (but if it’s 1-2 °C more is still ok), in this case a thermometer helps. For cuts of this size, about 10 minutes at that temperature.
4. While the meat is baking, deglaze the juices in the pan with a glass of red wine, then add the red currants and cook at medium/high heat until reduce enough, then filter it.
5. When the meat is ready, take it out from the oven, wait some minutes, then slice it, pour some sauce on it, and serve it next to the rösti. A glass of good wine is suggested too 🙂