A classic German pot roast: venison or beef marinated and then braised in a rich sauce topped off with crushed ginger pods.
My dad has been begging Hank Shaw for a venison recipe for months, and Hank has delivered. It’s excellent! No game at all, just a deep-seasoned pot roast. ~ Elise
As some of you know, I am a hunter. With a few exceptions, I haven’t bought any meat to take home in five years—everything we eat we either hunted or fished ourselves.
Sauerbraten comes in as many varieties as there are cooks. I’ve seen all sorts of variations in the sauce, the cut of meat, the cooking temperature.
At its core, however, sauerbraten is a large piece of meat that has been marinated and slow-cooked in a vinegar-based marinade, which is then made into a sauce.
My use of ginger pods in the sauce stems from the sauerbraten I ate as a kid at a New York restaurant called Luchows, which was a bastion of German cuisine in the NYC area until it closed in 1982.
They used gingersnaps in their sauce and I loved it. still do
A word about the marinade. You need to cook the marinade before using it for two reasons: first, to burn off much of the alcohol in the wine—if you don’t, the meat will take on a weird metallic flavor—and second, the heat will rob the whole thing of more flavor from the spices that you put into it. Allow the marinade to cool completely before submerging the venison.
Oh, and use an inexpensive wine you might want to drink on a Wednesday night; Nothing special. Can you use something other than wine? Yes, but then it’s not a sauerbraten. It’s a pot roast. Still good.
Here I offer several ways of preparing the venison, which mostly involve temperature and time. Ideally, you cook the game very slowly over a very long period of time. This will keep the meat pink and retain more juice.
But if you don’t have all day to cook it, you can go up to 300 degrees, which turns the venison gray but still stays tender. With sauerbraten, everything revolves around the sauce anyway.
Wild Sauerbraten
You can of course also use beef for this recipe; Brisket or a Chuck Roast would be good, and you could also use London Broil or Tri-Tip.
ingredients
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3 to 4 lb Roast Venison (or cattle feed)
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1/4 Cup melted butter or Extra virgin olive oil
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8th gingersnap cookies
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3 tablespoon butter
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2 tablespoon flour
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Salt
Ingredients marinade:
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1 Bottle red wine
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1/2 Cup red wine vinegar
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2 cups water
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1 tablespoon black peppercorns
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1 tablespoon juniper berries
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1 tablespoon mustard seeds
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6 to 8 cloves
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3 to 5 bay leaves
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1 tablespoon dried thyme
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2 stems celerychopped
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2 carrotspeeled and chopped
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1 Middle Onionchopped
method
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Marinate venison:
Place marinade ingredients (wine, vinegar, water, peppercorns, juniper, mustard, cloves, bay leaves, thyme, celery, carrots, and onion) in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
Turn off the heat and let the marinade cool.
Dip the venison in the marinade and refrigerate for at least 24 hours and up to 5 days. Three days is a good amount of time for this.
When ready to cook, remove the roast from the marinade and sprinkle salt all over. Set it aside for 15-20 minutes or so.
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Preheat oven to 275°F:
Actually, 225°F is a better temperature, but the roast can take up to 8 hours to cook properly; I’ll do that at home on the weekend. At 275°F, the roast will likely take about 5 hours to cook. They can go up to 300°F — a typical roast venison will be ready in 3 1/2 hours at that temperature — but you’ll end up with gray, not pink, meat. It will still taste good.
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Brown Venison in Butter or Oil (optional):
Now you have an optional step: you can sear the venison in butter or oil if you like. I decided against it because if you then simmer the venison at a sufficiently low temperature, it will remain pink throughout. If you brown the outside, you will get a gray ring around the edge of the venison when you cut it. Either way is fine.
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Cooking the game in the marinade:
Pour the marinade into a Dutch oven or other ovenproof pot with a lid and bring to a boil. Put the game in the pot. Cover and put in the oven.
If the venison is not swamped by the marinade, turn the roast every hour. This is also a good way to test doneness – you want the roast to be almost falling apart.
Depending on the oven temperature, the roast should cook between 3 1/2 and 8 hours. At 275°F, it should take about 5 hours to cook.
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Remove the roast from the oven and brush with oil or melted butter:
When the roast is done (completely tender), remove it from the pan and brush with a little 1/4 cup olive oil or melted butter. Save the rest of the oil or butter for later. Wrap it in foil.
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Prepare sauerbraten sauce:
Sauerbraten is all about the sauce. Strain the cooking liquid through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl.
Take the 8 gingerbread cookies and pulverize them in a blender. It should look like a coarse meal or coarse flour.
In a medium saucepan, melt 3 tablespoons butter over medium heat. When it’s foaming and completely melted, fold in 2 tablespoons flour. Cook the roux until it is the color of coffee and cream, stirring frequently.
Slowly stir in the strained cooking liquid, one cup at a time. The mixture first turns to clay and then dissolves into a silky sauce.
Taste for salt—it will likely need it—and add enough to your taste.
Stir in 4 tablespoons of the powdered ginger pods. They don’t completely dissolve at first, but keep stirring and they’ll go away.
Try the sauce. Add another tablespoon of ginger pods if you like, or add a tablespoon of sugar.
The sauce should taste sour, warm (kind of like pumpkin pie, tangy warm) and a little tangy and sweet.
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To serve, cut the roast into 1/4 inch thick slices:
Venison can be dry—it has no fat—so I brush each slice with melted butter before serving. You will need about 1/2 stick melted for this trick.
Serve with lots of gravy, braised onions and either mashed potatoes, egg noodles or spaetzle. A strong red wine goes well with this, as does a dark, malty beer.
Links:
More Venison Recipes – by Hunter Angler Gardener Cook
Beef sauerbraten with raisins – from Steffen’s Dinners
Beef Short Ribs Sauerbraten – by Chef John from Food Wishes
| nutritional information (per serving) | |
|---|---|
| 688 | calories |
| 26g | Fat |
| 29g | carbohydrates |
| 64g | protein |
