Venison Chop with Pan-Roasted Butternut Squash and Braised Shallots

I'm baaaaack. Sorry for the week-long hiatus, but I've got some good ones for you coming up in the next couple of days.

Last night, I made venison for the very first time!!! I've never been a huge fan of game meat, but I thought I would give this one a try.

The first step in this process was to make the "quick" sauce for the venison... "Quick"... RIGHT. Nothing about this sauce was quick, but it was worth it in the end. This was my mise en place for the sauce:

Oh! And blueberries (they didn't fit nicely in the first picture :)):

First, I browned my venison bones over high heat until they looked like this:

Then came the painstaking process of deglazing the pan. First with water, then with chicken stock:

Then i added in my mirepoix of onions, leeks and carrots and cooked it until the vegetables were slightly caramelized. Then I added the blueberries...

...and deglazed the pan again before adding the rest of my stock and transferring the whole mixture to a smaller pot.

45 minutes and lots of skimming later, it was time to strain my sauce in a china cap:

I then took the remaining liquid and cooked it down until I had about a cup of reduced sauce. The bad news: I forgot to take a picture of it :( .... The good news: you can see the sauce on the plate at the end of the post! :)

Now that I was done with my quick sauce (yup, uh huh, right), it was time to prepare the rest of the dish!

First I roasted some shallots in the oven with thyme in a little tinfoil packet:

When they were done, I removed and discarded their skins as well as the thyme sprigs and chopped the shallots into smaller chunks.

Then, I took a butternut squash and sliced rings about 1/2" thick on my mandoline. Using a 2" cutter, I cut the pieces of squash into 6 perfectly round slices:

The slices went into a hot bath of chicken stock until tender, and then were drained on paper towels until I was ready to use them.

Meanwhile, I crisped up some bacon in a pan:

Time to put everything together! I heated oil in a saute pan until it was hot and then added my beautiful venison chops:

While the chops were cooking, I fried up the butternut squash rounds in some oil:

....And sauteed the shallots from earlier with brunoise, tomato diamonds and a little bit of beurre monte (HEAVEN).

Once the chops were done it was time to plate. First the sauce (yay you can finally see the sauce), then two slices of the squash, followed by the chop, the shallots and finally the crispy bacon. The finished product:

Well. It was definitely venison! But some of the best venison I've ever tasted, if I do say so myself ;) ... Can't say that I'll make this dish very often, but it was definitely worth a try.

Coming up tomorrow -- Braised Breast of Veal with Yellow Corn Polenta Cakes, Glazed Vegetables & Sweet Garlic..... AND .... Pecorino Toscano with Roasted Sweet Peppers & Arugula Coulis.

Comments make the world go round!

Sources:

Venison: Los Paisanos Butcher, Brooklyn, NY (best. butcher. ever.)

Grocery Items: Trader Joe's Brooklyn, NY