Backstrap with Camp Romesco
Seared venison loin and a nut-and-tomato sauce you can mix in a cup with no power at all.
- calories
- 610
- weight
- 11 oz
- cal / oz
- 55
- protein
- 52 g
- serves
- 5, scales
- prep
- 20 min
- cook
- 15 min
- total time
- 35 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Campfire coals
- Grill grate
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Dairy free
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Venison backstrap | 2-3 lb | whole loin, kept cold in the cooler |
|---|---|---|
| Roasted red pepper from a jar | 1 large | |
| Garlic cloves | 2 | smashed |
| Slivered almonds | 1/2 cup | toast at home |
| Hazelnuts | 1/2 cup | toast and skin at home |
| Fire-roasted tomatoes | 1/2 cup | from a small can, drained |
| Flat-leaf parsley | 2 tbsp | chopped; dried parsley works |
| Red wine vinegar | 2 tbsp | |
| Fresh rosemary | 1 tbsp | chopped, or 1 tsp dried |
| Smoked paprika | 1 1/2 tsp | |
| Cayenne pepper | 1/2 tsp | |
| Olive oil | 1/2 cup | |
| Salt and black pepper | to taste |
Method
- Chop the nuts fine at home, or crush them in the bag with a bottle. There is no food processor in camp.
- In a cup or a wide-mouth jar, stir the nuts, pepper, garlic, tomatoes, parsley, vinegar, rosemary, paprika, and cayenne together. Mash the pepper and garlic against the side with a spoon until the mix holds together.
- Pour in the oil in a slow stream while stirring. Salt it, then set it aside. It can sit an hour with no harm.
- Burn the fire down to coals and set a grate over them. Salt and pepper the backstrap heavily on all sides.
- Sear the loin 4 to 5 minutes a side over the coals, turning once. Pull it at medium rare; venison has no fat to save it past that.
- Rest it ten minutes on a board or a plate, then slice across the grain and spoon the sauce over.
Romesco is a Spanish pepper-and-nut sauce, and it survives camp better than most sauces because nothing in it needs a fridge or a blender. The original is pulsed in a food processor. Chop the nuts fine at home instead and mash the pepper with a spoon, and you get a coarser sauce that does the same job on the plate.
Backstrap is very lean, so it wants high heat and a short stay on the grate. The sauce is where the fat is: half a cup of oil plus two cups of nuts carries the meal. Rest the meat before slicing or the juice ends up on the board instead of in the venison.
Packing
Nuts get chopped and bagged at home with the paprika, cayenne, rosemary, and dried parsley in the same bag. Oil and vinegar ride in small screw-top bottles. Pepper and tomatoes go in a jar or small can. The backstrap stays wrapped at the bottom of the cooler on ice.
Variations
- No fire? Sear the loin in a heavy skillet on a two-burner stove and build the sauce the same way.
- Beef sirloin or pork loin takes the same treatment if the season went badly.
- Leftover sauce spread on tortillas with the sliced meat is the next day's lunch.
https://realtree.com/timber-2-table-wild-game-recipes/grilled-backstrap-with-romesco-sauce-recipe