I made this dish on a weeknight and what I thought would have been a fairly straight forward cook turned out to be somewhat more hectic than normal, all thanks to my crazy idea of adding a smoked onion puree sphere to the dish last minute. The smoked onion puree sphere was heavenly, it injected an intense smoky sweet caramelised onion flavour to compliment the earthy gamey venison meat. It was however also the most fiddly component of the entire dish due to my lack of experience with reverse spherification and the multiple failures to finally get few spheres worthy of plating. It's fun to create but you also need few special ingredients such as calcium lactate and sodium alginate to make the magic happen. If it's already sounding like chemistry to you and to be filed into the too hard basket, simply skip the spherication process. The dish will be equally delicious without the sphere (and accompanied stress).
Difficulty: High (Medium if you skip the sphere)
Time: 3 hrs
Serves: 2
Ingredients
Smoked Mushroom Puree Sphere
- 2 large shallots sliced
- 1 large brown onion sliced
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1/8 cup beef stock
- salt
- pepper
- 1/3 cup cream
- 1/3 cup milk (to be added gradually)
- 2 g calcium lactate
Spherification Bath
- 2g sodium alginate
- 2 cups of water
Venison Backstrap
- 260g venison backstrap
- salt
- pepper
- butter
Leek Ash
- 1 leek white part only, halved length way
Blackberry Sauce
- 60g black berries
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 1/8 cup balsamic vinegar
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 lemon - juice and zest
- 1/8 cup beef stock
- 1 clove
- juice and butter from the venison sous vide
- 4 tbsp butter from basting the venison
Method
1. If you want to just serve the smoked caramelised onion as a puree instead of a sphere, you can skip this step and start from step 2. Prepare the sodium alginate bath by blending the sodium alginate with cold water in a flat container with a stick blender until fully mixed. Set it aside for at least 15 minutes for the bubbles to escape.
2. Caramelise the sliced onions in a stock pot over medium heat until dark brown, add the balsamic vinegar, then just enough beef stock to deglaze and season with salt and pepper. Take it off the heat and add the cream and just enough milk for it to blend into a smooth paste in a food processor. Add more milk if required until it achieve the consistency of a thick drinkable yoghurt if you want to make spheres. Mix the calcium lactate with a small amount of hot water to fully dissolve before adding it to the onion puree.
3. Transfer the mixture into a glass container, cover with a cling film and use a smoking gun to infuse applewood smoke into the puree.
4. Start cooking the venison by seasoning it with salt and pepper with 2 sticks of butter in a ziplock bag. Cook it in a sous vide bath at 53 degrees for 1 hour.
5. Pre-heat the oven to 250 degrees, pull apart the leeks and lovely put it in a baking tray lined with foil. Cook for 30 minutes until it's fully charred and dry. Take it out and let it cool down completely before blitzing it in a food processor into a fine powder. Set aside.
6. Make the mushroom sphere by dropping 1 tea spoon of the onion puree into the sodium alginate bath to let it form into a spheres. When dropping the mixture, make sure your spoon is nearly touching the sodium alginate bath as possible. Continue until you have enough.
7. Dry the venison backstrap with paper towel. Heat up some oil in the pan until smoking, sear the venison over high heat until seared for 30 seconds. Reduce the heat to low, add 2 sticks of butter to the pan, tilt the pan in an angle and baste it with hot butter for another minute.
8. Take out the venison and let it rest on a chopping board. Dry off the excess fat before rolling it in the leek ash powder coating it evenly.
9. Make the blackberry sauce by adding the blackberries, sugar, balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar, clove, beef stock, juice and butter from venison sous vide bag, lemon juice and zest in a pan. Bring it to boil and simmer over low to medium heat until it becomes a glaze. Gradually incoproate some of the pan juice/butter from searing the venison. Season the sauce to taste with salt and further adjust the seasoning as required. It should be sweet, sour and savoury.
10. Cut up the venison backstrap. Plate by placing some of the blackberry sauce on the plate, topped with venison and garnish with fresh blackberries, radish, onion sphere and French Red Veined Sorrel.
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