Life has been a bit busy, lately, and mealtimes hard to predict; so I have had my fortnightly Riverford fruit and veg box suspended for a while. Of course, I forgot to check when the deliveries would resume, and so I got home last night, after a day out, to find the box sitting by my gate, drenched by the rain. My fault, both for forgetting, and not leaving them somewhere sheltered to put it.
No problem, it took 10 mins to quickly wash/wipe/dry the produce before putting it away. But now I have lots of fresh stuff in the fridge, which reminds me of how badly I have been eating lately, going back to my bad ways with pre-prepared food.
So what have we got tonight? This is an invention, based on what I have in the fridge; time will tell how successful it will be – I will add a postscript later.
- 2 venison burgers Edit: 1 per person
- 1 leek, finely chopped
- 1 portobello mushroom, sliced
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley Edit: optional, not really needed
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 tablespoons plain flour
- 200ml milk
- salt
- ground black pepper
- smoked paprika
- olive oil
Cut the burgers each into quarters or smaller, and roll into meatballs. Take a tablespoon of plain flour, and season it well with the salt, pepper and paprika. Dust the meatballs with the seasoned flour.
Heat some oil and add the garlic and leek. Stir for 3-4 minutes until soft. Add a tablespoon of flour and cook gently for 1 minute then add the mushroom, and turn the heat up for 3 minutes. Stir in the milk over a high heat, but don’t let it boil. Reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 4 minutes until thickened.
Meanwhile, fry the meatballs gently in a pan lightly coated with olive oil – I am using my own oak-smoked olive oil – then, once browned, turn them down to low heat to cook through.
When the sauce is ready, stir in parsley and serve over the meatballs together with either home-made bread or a pasta of your choice.
This sounds delicious!
Having made the meatballs from one venison burger, I decided that was more than enough. I ended up cutting it into 6 pieces and rollig them into balls.
I also decided it didn’t need the parsley, and so left that out. The mushrooms I had were actually huge; so I sliced half of one for the sauce, and grilled a whole one as a base for the dish, instead of pasta. So mushroom in centre of dish, with meatballs piled on top, and sauce over that.
It was very nice, but once again, hunger meant that I didn’t get to take snaps. Will try it again soon, and post pictures.
Oh, and I had more than enough sauce, so it also got used up on a baked potato the next day.