Venison Pot Roast with Chanterelle Stuffing from foragerchef.com

A simple pot roast, stuffed with chanterelle duxelles from the growing season.

I was a good mushroom hunter last year, and made plenty of chanterelle duxelles for the Winter, both to save freezer space and as I love having a seasoned concentrate around. There’s lots talk about making duxelles, but definitely not as much illustating the actual uses of the finished product. With that in mind, I used two simple methods here in this recipe: a venison leg roast butterflied, pounded, stuffed with chanterelle duxelles and wrapped with caul, then slowly roasted until fork tender. After cooking, the roast is dressed with it’s pan juices made into a sauce with leftover duxelles that wouldn’t fit in the roulade. It’s basically pot roast stuffed with mushrooms, depending on how you serve it.

Obviously you can use any type of meat you’d braise, here, and really any cut. In a perfect world I would’ve used a cut from the shoulder, but a leg roast is fine in a pinch, just try not to hammer it to hard in the oven. The caul fat is optional too, but I love keeping caul around especially for things like this. With a little caul fat in the freezer, you can get creative with really any cut of meat do all sorts of things to it, since the caul will help the ingredients stay in place. The real benefit, though, is the basting and insulation the caul provides that helps keep things juicy and stop them from drying out. If you don’t have caul you could wrap something in bacon, although it’s heavier, or it could just be tied with twine.

Using Duxelles and Oil Based Preserves

The duxelles are used both in the stuffing, and in the pan sauce made from the drippings, but for the perfect chanterelles themed garnish, I reach for the conserve, and just warm some up. Every year, I only make conserve out of the first few batches of chanterelles, as the youngest buttons are the best for garnishing. Oil and vinegar preserves are the best way to keep the texture of many mushrooms after the growing season in my opinion, but you don’t have to eat them cold out of the jar. Warmed up in a pan, the little buttons make a great garnish for fall and winter meals. Never hear of mushroom conserve? Refer to the recipe here.

Stuffed roasts are a great take on the old pot roast, especially filled with duxelles.

Venison Pot Roast en Creppinette with Chanterelle Stuffing

Serves 4 as an entrée

Ingredients

• 1 venison leg roast, like top or bottom round, about 1.25 lbs
• ¾ cup chanterelle mushroom duxelles, plus another 2 tablespoons for the optional sauce
• Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
• 1 large egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons breadcrumbs, like panko
• 2 tablespoons milk
• For the dripping sauce
• 1/3 cup heavy cream (optional, but nice)
• 2 cups meat stock
• 2 tablespoons white rice
• 2 tablespoons white wine
• Caul fat, as needed for wrapping the pot roast (optional)
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme, chopped

Method

First, make the stuffing. Combine the breadcrumbs with the milk and soak until soft, about 10 minutes. Mix the egg and duxelles, then squeeze the milk from the breadcrumbs and mix in. If you want to make the pan sauce, heat the rice in a small pot with 1 cup of the stock and simmer while you do the rest of the prep, for about 30 minutes or until completely soft and overcooked. Reserve the cooked rice.

Preheat the oven to 250 F. Make an even slit down the middle of the roast, then open it up like a book. Pound the meat lightly with a meat mallet on both sides, then season with the salt, pepper and thyme. Put the meat somewhere for a moment while you lay the caul out on the cutting board, then put the sheet of venison on the caul, top evenly with the chanterelle stuffing, and roll up the meat like a jelly roll. Trim the caul to an appropriate size to wrap the meat, then wrap it up tightly like a package, making sure the caul overlaps to help it seal, with the seam facing down.

Put the meat roll in a baking dish, cover with parchment and 1/2 cup of meat stock, and bake for 3.5 hours. Remove the pot roast from the oven, allow to cool for 15 minutes, covered, then cover with cling film to hold in moisture and refrigerate to allow the meat to set, a few hours or preferably overnight. If you don’t chill the meat after cooking it may fall apart when you try to slice it.

When the meat has chilled, remove it from the dish and harvest the pan drippings, scraping any meat jelly stuck to the meat off with a spoon. Reserve the drippings for the sauce.

For the sauce, combine the pan drippings with the reserved rice, the remaining ½ cup of stock and the cream, then bring to a simmer, and puree in a highspeed blender. Transfer to a small pot, and stir in the reserved mushroom duxelles. Taste and adjust the seasoning, then reserve and keep warm.

To plate you have a couple options, cut into slices and brown in a pan, or cut into slices and reheat in the oven gently, and then drench in the sauce. Both ways are good, but gently warmed up keeps everything as tender as possible.