Venison and Mushroom Camp Bites
Cubed backstrap seared with minced mushrooms and shallot, wrapped in biscuit dough and cooked in a dutch oven.
- calories
- 390
- weight
- 6 oz
- cal / oz
- 65
- protein
- 32 g
- serves
- 10, scales
- prep
- 20 min
- cook
- 25 min
- total time
- 45 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
- Snack
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Venison backstrap | 2 lb | trimmed, cut into 1-inch cubes at home |
|---|---|---|
| Refrigerated biscuit dough | 2 tubes | stands in for puff pastry; survives a cooler better |
| Shiitake mushrooms | 6 oz | minced at home, or dried and rehydrated |
| Shallots | 2 | minced with the mushrooms |
| Butter | 3 tbsp | |
| Vegetable oil | 2 tbsp | |
| Dijon mustard | 1/4 cup | |
| Rosemary | 1 tbsp | chopped, dried works |
| Salt and black pepper | to taste |
Method
- Build a fire and let it burn down to coals. You want a bed of embers, not flames.
- Set the dutch oven over coals with the oil in it. Sear the venison cubes hard on all sides, a handful at a time so the pan stays hot. Two minutes total per batch. They should still be rare inside. Pull them onto a plate and salt them.
- Drop the butter in and cook the minced mushroom and shallot until the liquid cooks off and the mix goes dark and dry. Eight to ten minutes. Stir in the rosemary and let it cool.
- Wipe the oven out. Flatten each biscuit into a rough square. Smear it with Dijon, spoon on some mushroom mix, set a venison cube on top, and pinch the dough shut around it.
- Set the bundles seam-down in the oven with a little space between them. Lid on, coals underneath and a heavier layer on top.
- Bake 20 to 25 minutes until the dough is browned through. Rotate the oven and the lid a quarter turn every few minutes so nothing scorches.
The original is a puff pastry appetizer for a party kitchen. Puff pastry is useless in a cooler, so this uses refrigerated biscuit dough instead. It browns rather than laminates, but it seals around the filling and takes dutch oven heat without a fuss.
The mushroom and shallot mix has to be cooked dry before it goes in. Wet filling steams the dough from the inside and you end up with raw dough around gray meat. Sear the venison fast and pull it early too. It finishes cooking inside the dough, and backstrap goes from rare to leather in about a minute.
Packing
Cube and salt the venison at home, mince the mushrooms and shallot at home, and carry both in the cooler in separate bags. Dijon travels in a squeeze bottle. Biscuit dough stays cold until you use it or it will proof in the tube and burst.
Variations
- No dutch oven: wrap each bundle in foil and bake it on coals for 15 minutes. The dough steams instead of browning but it still works.
- Dried shiitake rehydrated in hot water saves cooler space. Squeeze them dry before they hit the pan or the filling stays wet.
- Beef sirloin works the same way if you did not fill a tag.
https://realtree.com/timber-2-table-wild-game-recipes/easy-venison-wellington-bites-recipe