Recipe: Loaded Venison Fries with Bravas Sauce

Camera — Now that's some good-looking cuisine.

If you hang out with me long enough at hunt camp, you’ll eventually hear a story about living in Spain. It was fundamental for my food and life experiences. Learning Spanish, hanging out in kitchens with older generations, and getting told off for trying to use garlic and onion at the same time.

Obviously, there are a lot of traditions baked into European culture, especially when it comes to food. Dishes are wildly regional with pride being attached to recipes. While living in Madrid, my friends and I’d pop into small cafes around the center of the city for a caña or 6-oz pour of beer with a small tapa to go with it.

One of the most famous tapas in Madrid is Papas Bravas: cubed then fried potatoes smothered in a smoked paprika sauce. Much like any traditional sauce, there are lots of feelings and opinions on what process and ingredients are the “real way” to make it. The consistent ingredient in all bravas sauce recipes is smoked paprika and stock, thickened with corn starch or a roux made with olive oil and flour.

As far as potato selection, russets are your friends. Use starchy potatoes that crunch up nicely and are super soft on the inside. I love golden potatoes, but they never really get that fluffy softness inside.

I like to cut up the potatoes without peeling them, soak them in salt water (to pull out some excess starch), and then fry or bake them. Cover your potatoes with 3-4 cups of extra water. You want to use that starchy water to the stewed meat, as it will help create a naturally thicker sauce with no need for flour or corn starch to thicken it. The onion, tomato, and starch really make the sauce fantastic.

Some recipes call for tomatoes, some vinegar, some oregano, some cumin. For this recipe, use a more maximalist version, because it’ll have a more complex flavor to accompany the venison. Spaniards would never dream of putting meat on top of papas bravas, but I always have a good time taking a traditional dish, learning the classic process, and adding my own twist at home. Personally, I love loaded fries, or as our buds to the north call it, poutine.

I call it loaded venison fries with bravas sauce.

In the end, this dish is stewed meat on crunchy potatoes with a couple key extra steps. This recipe incorporates braised venison, a smoky paprika sauce poured over fried potatoes, topped with tender chunks of venison.

This recipe is a great meal to precook for camping or a hunt cabin. You can cook the potatoes partially, precook the meat, make the sauce, and fire up a cast iron skillet to finish it on the day of consumption.

INGREDIENTS

1 lb. venison stew meat (cubed)
2 large russet potatoes
6 tablespoons smoked Spanish paprika (De La Vera, if you can find it)
1 teaspoon cumin
1 large onion (diced)
8 tablespoons olive oil
3 Roma tomatoes (chopped) or 2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon fresh oregano leaves
3 cups water or game stock
4 tablespoons kosher salt

DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Rinse, then dice potatoes into ½-inch cubes. Salt with 1 tablespoon kosher salt.
Add in 3-4 extra cups of water, and let sit.
Clean up and cube meat. Salt with a teaspoon of salt.
Heat up Dutch oven on stovetop with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and brown the meat.
Dice one yellow onion and add to browned meat.
Scoop out 3 cups of water from potatoes and add to the meat. The starch will help thicken the stew.
Add diced tomatoes, 1 teaspoon cumin and 3 tablespoons of smoked Spanish paprika and put in oven for 1.5 hours.
After the first hour, check every 20 minutes to see how the meat is breaking down. It should cut easily with a spoon or fork, but not totally fall apart.
Drain the potatoes in a colander.
Add the potatoes to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Drizzle a couple tablespoons of olive oil onto that and mix. Salt with another teaspoon of salt and put in oven until brown on one side (around 20 minutes), and take out to cool.
Once meat is ready, pull chunks of meat out of the braising liquid and set aside.
Pour braising liquid into a blender. Add 3 more tablespoons of paprika. Add 1 tablespoon of fresh oregano leaves and pulse until totally smooth.
Crisp up potatoes in a cast iron skillet with a little olive oil.
Put down half the potatoes into each plate. Use ⅓ of the sauce to cover the potatoes generously.
Put half the meat on each plate of potatoes. Drizzle on remaining sauce and garnish with a few more oregano leaves and enjoy.