Venison, chicken liver & chocolate chilli
Rich, gamey venison lends itself very well to spice and smoke and its complex mature flavour really takes a hearty chilli to the next level.
It’s a lean meat and benefits from the richness of chopped chicken livers and dark chocolate. Don’t fear the livers - these cook out into the chilli adding brilliant depth of flavour without being noticeable as an individual ingredient in the final dish.
Taking one's time over a rich and layered stew like this is really key; flavours will develop and evolve enormously over a low and slow cooking process. If you’ve got time to make this chilli a day ahead it’s even tastier reheated the next day.
Wine pairing
Malbec. On the nose, a Malbec will typically be rich with dark plums, blackberries, woody brambles and even a little raison, leather or smoke. South American Malbec will almost always be oak-aged; this process lends sweet, tabaco flavours and notes of cacao to the finish which echo the smoky chipotle, charred venison, and rich dark chocolate very nicely indeed.
Malbec’s acidity is bright without being sharp, just enough to cut through the rich chicken livers in the chilli; and its tannins are grippy without feeling coarse - they offer the wine fantastic structure and make it very food-friendly.
Read more on Malbec here.
Prep time: 45 mins.
Cooking time: 3.5 hrs.
This recipe serves 6.
Ingredients:
6 tbsp cold-pressed rapeseed oil
2 brown onions
2 stalks celery
1 red chilli
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp flakey sea salt
1 ½ tbsp coriander seeds
1 tbsp cumin seeds
½ tsp cayenne pepper
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1-2 chipotle chillies
½-1 ancho chilli, optional
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp brown sugar
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp porcini/dried mushroom powder
500 g diced venison
100 g chicken livers
330 ml dark ale
4 tbsp lea & perrins
1 tin / 400ml beef stock
1 tin cooked black beans
1 tin cooked black lentils
20 g 70% dark chocolate
jacket potatoes, to serve
sour cream, to serve
greens of choice, to serve
flavour hack pickled chillies, to serve
Method:
Dice the onion and celery, very finely dice the red chilli, and mince the garlic cloves.
Rehydrate the chipotle chillies and acho chilli, if using, in a cup of boiling water and stand to one side for later on.
Dry toast the coriander and cumin seeds in your smallest saucepan over a low heat for 2 minutes or just until fragrant, then grind in a pestle and mortar. Toasted and freshly ground spices have a bolder and more rounded flavour than ground spices and we find that making this little extra effort is a really big win in terms of your chilli’s overall flavour. Keep the spices to one side once ground.
Now fire up two hobs simultaneously; place a heavy-based casserole dish on a medium/low heat and add 4 tablespoons of oil. Once hot, start gently frying the diced onions for 12 minutes, stirring often.
Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in your largest frying pan and when smoking hot fry off the diced venison in batches. Season the meat as you go and don’t crowd the pan. Allow the meat to caramelise and take on a dark colour, even a little char. Tip the browned venison onto a plate as you go.
After 12 minutes add the diced celery to the onions and continue frying for 8 minutes on a low heat.
After 8 minutes add the diced red chilli and minced garlic along with 2 teaspoons of flakey sea salt. Continue frying and stirring for 2 minutes.
Now add the ground cumin, coriander, cayenne pepper and cinnamon and stir. Keep the heat low but if things start to stick a little add a splash of water.
Remove the rehydrating chillies from the hot water and run your knife through them several times to make sure they are finely chopped. Add these to the saucepan.
Finely dice the chicken livers removing any stringy bits if needs be, and add these to the saucepan. Stir well.
Now add the tomato puree, brown sugar, bay leaves and mushroom powder.
By now you will have browned all the diced venison, so deglaze the frying pan after the final batch with ½ cup of water and tip this into the saucepan along with all the browned meat, the ale, Lea & Perrins, beef stock and black beans.
Bring everything to a gentle simmer over a low heat. You can continue to cook this chilli on the hob if you wish, but we find that popping it in a low oven offers a richer, more concentrated and complex overall flavour, as well as a really special ‘melt-in-the-mouth’ texture to the venison.
Preheat the oven to 140 degrees. Place the lid on your saucepan and pop in the preheated oven for 2 ½ hours.
After 2 ½ hours remove from the oven and stir in the drained lentils and dark chocolate. Return the saucepan - now without a lid - to the oven for a further 1 hour and perhaps pop in a couple of potatoes to bake as well.
Allow the chilli to rest for 20 minutes before eating. Spoon it generously over buttered jacket potatoes and top with some sour cream.