Venison goulash

Ingredients for 6 servings:

• 1 ½ kg venison (venison loin or venison goulash)
• Clarified butter
• 10 juniper berries
• 3 bay leaves
• ½ bottle of gin
• ¼ liter red wine
• 1 kg deer bones
• onion(s)
• Carrot(s)
• Ham (leftover smoked ham if you have it)
• 1 can/n tomato paste or 1/2 tube of tomato paste
• ¼ liter red wine
• ¼ liter of water
• salt and pepper

Instructions

Working time approx. 45 minutes; Total time approx. 45 minutes

Clean the venison loin and remove any tendons (they can be added to the stock), then brown the pieces of meat in clarified butter in batches, season with salt, pepper, and plenty of juniper berries (around 10 can be enough), 3 bay leaves, a large glass of gin, and a good glass of red wine, and then simmer gently. If you have bones, you can make a nice stock, which is delicious, of course. But it works without: I briefly fry small onions and carrots with a leftover piece of Black Forest ham (or other ham), and add meat scraps. Stir in tomato paste, pour in a little wine, add a little water, and simply let it simmer! I add this stock to the meat halfway through the cooking time and then reduce it considerably! With this quality of meat (loin), a good hour of cooking time is perfectly sufficient. And now the joke at the end: just before the end of the cooking time, I add another generous splash of gin to the sauce. The gin gives the dish something incomparably light, not as heavy as a game goulash usually comes across, but something very fresh and elegant in taste!