Henley Game Stew

About five years ago, when Freddie and I were in between houses, we spent a couple of months living in Henley, where his parents had a place we could stay, and where we met their wonderful friends, the Blackwells.

Graham is an ex-game keeper who still keeps his hand in, going beating with Barbara, his wife, most weekends throughout the season. So we developed a barter system: I’d bake seed cakes and Madiera cakes (or bring back that frighteningly sticky nougat from Malta), and we’d swap them for pheasants and partridges.

To add to my glee, their son keeps ferrets, so every so often we’d also get a rabbit with — joy of joys — no shot in it. Bliss!

This stew is a direct result of all that autumnal plenty.

Serves 4

1 onions, chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil

25g butter

1 garlic clove, crushed and chopped

3 carrots, scraped and sliced

a bouquet garni of parsley, thyme and bay

1 dessert spoon tomato purée

3 large pinches dried myrtle

1 teaspoon juniper berries, bruised

300g mixed game, cubed

30g pheasant meat, cubed

150g stewing steak, cubed

175ml red wine

1 dessertspoon redcurrant jelly

450ml stock

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

In a heavy based frying pan, melt the oil and the butter over a low to medium heat, gently cook the onion until its soft and translucent. While it’s cooking, put the carrots, the herbs, the garlic and the tomato purée into a casserole and, when the onions are done, add them too.

Now turn up the heat under the frying pan and, in batches, brown off the meat — you want to make sure it’s nice and brown and caramelised on the outside — and add it to the pot.

When you’ve browned all the meat, deglaze the pan with the wine, scraping up all the cooking residues, and add the redcurrant jelly. Dissolve the jelly in the wine and reduce the mixture by just under half its volume. Pour this over the casserole, and season everything with salt and pepper.

Top up the casserole with stock until everything is just covered, cover it with a lid and put it in the oven for half an hour.

Then turn down the oven to 180°C, and cook for a further hour.

When it’s done, you may decide you want to thicken the sauce. If so, remove the meat from the casserole and reduce the sauce down by about a third, and then add about 25g of cold butter. Whisk the butter into the sauce, then return the meat to the casserole.

Serve with mashed potatoes and greens.