Hot and Sour Venison Soup with Honey Fungus is a modern British recipe (based on a German original) for a classic soup of stock-based hunter's stew of venison with cabbage and honey fungus in a lightly-spiced base. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: Hot and Sour Venison Soup with Honey Fungus.
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Last autumn was a bumper one for honey fungus. As this is a parasitic species on living trees I have no issues whatsoever in picking lots of them. It also meant trying out a range of new recipes to go with the bumper harvest. Honey fungus dries and pickles well and it's a great base for mushroom powder. As honey fungus is parasitic and detrimental to its host tree it's one of the few fungal fruiting bodies that I have little compunction or feelings of guilt in collecting in large numbers.
Autumn venison is great and it's a relatively cheap meat. I buy mine direct from Scotland and have it delivered. So the base for this dish was a haunch of red deer. The base recipe here was Polish, but I meandered quite a way from the original. The result was tart and meaty with a bit of a kick from the chilli flakes. Serve garnished with dill and sour cream.
Ingredients:
500g venison in one piece (haunch, shoulder, neck, or shanks)
4 tbsp rapeseed oil for browning the venison
3 garlic cloves, sliced
2 tbsp sweet paprika
150g white onion, diced
85g Celery, diced
85g Carrot, halved and sliced into half moons
1 tbsp tomato puree
1.5l game or chicken stock (or water)
500g Savoy cabbage
generous pinch of chilli flakes
4 tbsp rice wine vinegar (plus more to taste)
225g fresh honey fungus trimmed of their stems, leaving about 1cm remaining below the cap
sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste
For the Spice Bag:
2 juniper berries, crushed
1 dried bay leaf
10 black peppercorns
2 allspice berries
3 cloves
To Serve:
fresh dill, chopped
120ml sour cream
Method:
Season the meat liberally with salt and freshly-ground black pepper and allow to rest, uncovered, in the refrigerator for at least a few hours, preferably overnight. This will help create the best crust. In the meantime, tie the spices for the spice bag together in a piece of muslin.
Place a 6l stockpot or cast iron casserole (Dutch oven) over medium-high heat. Add in half the oil and when it begins to smoke add the venison and cook, turning, until nicely browned and coloured on all sides.
Remove the venison to a cutting board to rest, then cut into 3cm thick pieces for stew.
Add the onion, celery, carrot and garlic to the oil remaining in the pan and cook, stirring occasionally until soft and translucent (about 4 minutes), now stir in the tomato puree and cook for a minute more, then add the stock (or water) and all the remaining ingredients (including the meat and spice bag but not the vinegar) then bring to a simmer.
Continue cooking for 90 minutes by which point the meat should be very tender. Taste the stock and adjust the seasoning along with the acidity (add the vinegar to taste).
The finished stock should have just a touch of acid from the vinegar. After you've added 4 tbsp, if you think it could use a little more, add a splash, stir, and taste, and continue adjusting until it tastes good to you.
Serve garnished with some chopped dill, and accompany with the sour cream and crusty bread.
