Dutch Oven Venison Roast with Ale and Onion
A whole roast braised low in beer and onion soup mix until it slices thin off the bone.
- calories
- 340
- weight
- 8 oz
- cal / oz
- 43
- protein
- 46 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 180 min
- total time
- 190 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
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Venison roast, bone-in | 3 to 4 lb | shoulder or leg; keep it frozen solid and let it thaw in the cooler |
|---|---|---|
| Black pepper | 2 tsp | coarse |
| Dry onion soup mix | 1 packet | Lipton or equivalent |
| Garlic | 6 cloves | chopped; jarred minced works and saves a cutting board |
| Ale | 12 oz bottle | amber or brown, nothing hoppy |
Method
- Build a fire and let it burn down to coals. You want steady low heat for three hours, not flame.
- Pepper the roast on all sides and set it in a 12-inch dutch oven. Scatter the garlic over the top and dump the soup mix around it.
- Pour the ale in around the meat, not over it, so the pepper and mix stay put. Lid on.
- Set the oven on a bed of coals with a ring of coals on the lid. Aim for a slow simmer you can hear but not see. Two hours.
- Every half hour, lift the lid and spoon the pan liquid back over the roast. Rake in fresh coals as the old ones die.
- For the last hour, add coals to bring the heat up. The liquid should reduce to a thin gravy.
- Pull the oven off the coals. Move the roast to a board, tent it with foil, and leave it alone for fifteen minutes.
- Slice thin across the grain, off the bone. Spoon the pan liquid over each portion.
Venison has almost no fat, which is why a dry roast is easy to ruin and a covered one is hard to. The lid traps steam, the ale keeps the bottom wet, and three hours at low heat breaks down the connective tissue that would otherwise cook up like rope. The onion soup mix is doing double duty: it seasons the meat and it thickens the pan liquid into something you can spoon.
The rest is the important part. Cut the roast straight out of the oven and the juices run onto the board instead of staying in the meat, and there is no fat in venison to make up the difference. Fifteen minutes under foil is not optional here. This one stays a car-camping recipe on purpose — a bone-in roast needs a cooler and a real fire, and there is no shelf-stable version that resembles it.
Packing
Roast goes in the cooler frozen and thaws over the drive. Pepper, soup mix, and garlic travel in one small bag. The bottle of ale is the whole braising liquid, so don't drink it at the trailhead.
Variations
- No fire: this works on a two-burner stove in a heavy lidded pot at the lowest setting.
- A handful of dried mushrooms in with the ale deepens the gravy without adding weight.
- Leftover slices and gravy pack into foil packets and reheat on the grate the next morning.
https://www.huntingpa.com/threads/last-nights-dinner.4803