Garlic Butter Venison and Mushrooms
Backstrap trim, dried mushrooms, and ghee in one hot skillet at the truck.
- calories
- 520
- weight
- 7 oz
- cal / oz
- 74
- protein
- 38 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 20 min
- total time
- 35 min
- water
- 300 ml boiled
- 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
- Liquid fuel
- Grill grate
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Gluten free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Venison backstrap trim | 1 lb | cut into 1-inch pieces; the odd ends too small for steaks |
|---|---|---|
| Dried mushrooms | 2 oz | shiitake and porcini rehydrate best; 1 lb fresh if you have a cooler |
| Ghee | 3 tbsp | no milk solids, so it does not scorch and does not need a fridge |
| Garlic | 4 cloves | whole heads keep for weeks outside a cooler |
| Instant rice | 2 cups dry | |
| Salt and coarse pepper | to taste |
Method
- Pour 300 ml of boiled water over the dried mushrooms in a mug or bag. Fifteen minutes. Keep the soaking liquid.
- Cook the instant rice in a pot per its package, then set it aside covered.
- Get the skillet hot over the fire before anything goes in it. Melt 2 tbsp of the ghee.
- Brown the venison in two batches. A crowded pan steams the meat grey. Salt it, pull it out, hold it on a plate.
- Drop the heat by moving the skillet off the coals. Add the last of the ghee, then the drained mushrooms and the sliced garlic. Garlic burns fast and turns bitter, so keep it moving.
- Pour in a few tablespoons of the mushroom soaking liquid and scrape the browned bits off the pan.
- Return the meat and any resting juices. Thirty seconds, no longer. Spoon it over the rice.
Backstrap trim is the reason this exists. Whenever you break down a whole loin there are ends and wedges too small to grill, and they are the best meat on the animal. Cut into cubes and browned hard, they cook in about ninety seconds a side.
The camp changes are the mushrooms and the fat. Dried mushrooms weigh a fraction of fresh and their soaking water becomes the pan sauce, which is where the finishing butter went in the original. Ghee replaces butter outright: no milk solids means a higher smoke point and no cooler space. Venison is lean enough that without that fat the whole pan goes dry.
Packing
Dried mushrooms and instant rice ride in bags in the food bin. Venison goes in the cooler, frozen, and thaws on the drive. Ghee in a screw-top jar.
Variations
- Swap the venison for beef sirloin trim or a pound of thin-cut steak.
- No cooler: a can of roast beef browned in the ghee gets you most of the way there.
- A splash of red wine or beef broth concentrate instead of the mushroom water.
https://realtree.com/timber-2-table-wild-game-recipes/garlic-butter-backstrap-and-mushrooms