This show-stopping recipe takes very little time to prepare and, as it cooks all by itself in the oven for a couple of hours while it fills your kitchen with a wonderful aroma, you can get on with something else. This will easily serve six people or four very greedy ones! The meat is very tasty cold so, believe me, no leftovers will go to waste. The red wine gravy is truly fabulous mopped up with fluffy mash.

• A medium-sized rolled shoulder joint of *venison, about 1kg
• 2 tablespoons of oil
• 10g butter
• 1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 fat cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
• 2 sticks of celery plus the celery leaves, finely chopped
• 4 carrots, peeled and cross-cut into thick chunks
• 300 ml red wine
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon of plain flour
• 2 fresh bay leaves
• 300 ml of beef stock
• 2 tablespoons of tomato purée

To make…

• Preheat the oven to 160°C
• Melt the oil and butter in a large cast-iron casserole on the hob.
• Once hot, brown the shoulder of venison on each side and then set aside.
• Next, sweat the onions, celery and garlic until soft and translucent. Add the carrots and cook gently for another couple of minutes.
• Stir in the flour and cook through for 3 or 4 minutes.
• Add the stock, wine, tomato purée, bay leaves and mix thoroughly.
• Add the venison shoulder and any meat juices.
• Cover and cook in the oven for 2 hours until the venison is tender (test it with a skewer, it should come out cleanly and easily).
• Add a couple of ladles of the sauce to a blender. Blitz until smooth and then return to the casserole. This should give the sauce extra body and a fuller flavour.
• Adjust the seasoning to taste.
• Serve the venison in slices with creamy mash to mop up the sauce and some seasonal green vegetables.

*Venison supplied by Discover Venison.

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