Recipe: Venison Hot Pot

PREP TIME: 30 MIN. | COOK TIME: 15 MIN. | SERVES: 4-6

One way I get inspiration for recipes is being a professional food photographer. I’m in a wide variety of kitchens, and see how various chefs cook things. I even get to try the food I’m shooting when work is done. That’s what sparked the idea for a venison hot pot.

This recipe is inspired by a flavor-dense dish eaten all over Asia called hot pot. I recently photographed it with my partner Rebecca at a Taiwanese restaurant called Chewology in Kansas City. The chef, Katie, was kind enough to share some of the basic details to create the broth for the hot pot.

There are two general types of hot pot — one spicy and one more basic — but this recipe is the more flavorful and spicier version, which matches the strong personality of wild game. The key ingredient is a fermented black bean paste. The complexity of flavor from the fermented beans and garlic, combined with stock and dried chilies or chili paste, will keep you coming back for more. Any Asian grocer, or even a regular grocer, should have at least one type.

It’s fairly easy to execute, and is surely a meal made for sharing. You get the stock to a slow simmer, and then dunk thin slices of meat, meatballs, mushrooms, and vegetables that, once cooked, are fished out with a slotted spoon.

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There aren’t really any rules for what you put into the liquid. So, feel free to try some things. I just picked up a vegetable called water spinach, which is a mixture of spinach and broccoli in flavor and texture. Plus, I added a couple different mushrooms.

The key to getting the broth just right? Taste it as it’s cooking. You want it with a strong personality, but it’ still something you can sip spoonfuls of. Katie puts Szechuan peppercorns in her broth, and it added a nice fragrant flavor. It even numbs your mouth a little to the spice. This allows you to get it a little spicier than you’d normally be able to eat. Furthermore, this seasons all the food that’s dropped into it, so make sure the ratios feel right, and tweak to your liking.

Cut it similar to how you do jerky, maybe even thinner. Get all of your vegetables sliced up into pieces large enough to grab with chop sticks, but small enough to fit into a single bite. Then, cook your rice, slice your meat thin, and get ready to party.

This would be a fantastic camp food because you can prepare your broth at home, use some hunted and/or foraged ingredients, and put it into containers to heat up on a camp stove. If sitting closest to the pot simmering on a burner or camp stove, you’ll be the honorary grandma pushing ingredients onto other people’s plates or bowls. Just make sure you put on your most ruffly apron first.

INGREDIENTS

• 2-3 lbs. venison backstrap, tenderloin, or thin-sliced leg steak
• 2 liters stock
• 2-3 heaping spoonfuls fermented black bean garlic paste
• 2 tsp. soy sauce
• 2 heaping spoonfuls chili paste (or dried chilis)
• 1 cup dry jasmine rice or rice noodles
• Szechuan peppercorns (optional)
• Bok choy or water spinach
• Mushrooms
• Optional chili crunch for extra heat

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Add your stock, black bean paste, soy sauce and chilies to a soup pot big enough to hold the stock. It should be ½-¾ full.
2. Let the pot simmer with the lid on, so as to not lose too much liquid.
3. Taste and adjust with seasonings as needed.
4. Slice up vegetables into large bite-size pieces.
5. Slice the venison while it’s still partially frozen. If fresh, try and get it as cold as possible before cutting it.
6. Cook the jasmine rice according to the bag or box.
7. Put a burner or camp stove in the middle of the table. Get the temperature appropriate for a slight simmer, and be prepared to turn up the heat when adding ingredients.
8. Add waves of ingredients into the hot pot.
9. Spoon some rice into a bowl.
10. Fish out what you’d like to eat. Be careful to not overcook the meat.
11. Add some chili crunch for more heat (as needed).
12. Eat with a spoon, chopsticks, or a fork!

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