Bacon-Wrapped Venison Backstrap w/Garlic Cream Sauce
Ditalini’s sister Gina Cannoli visited over the holidays, accompanied by her husband Lengua. They brought along several frozen packs of dressed venison from a recent hunting trip. Two of the packages contained backstrap, the tenderloin of a deer, a highly-regarded cut of meat. The other day I thawed out one package, which contained four cuts of backstrap, and went looking for a good recipe. This is the one I found and adapted.
Bacon-Wrapped Venison Backstrap w/Garlic Cream Sauce
- Venison:
- 4-8 slices thick-cut bacon
- 4 pieces venison backstrap, cut in 3″ to 4″ lengths
- olive oil
- onion powder
- kosher salt
- ground pepper
- Garlic cream sauce:
- 1 1/2 tbsp butter
- 8 mushrooms, sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 tbsp green onion, chopped
- 1/2 cup heavy or whipping cream
Directions
Venison:
Preheat oven to 375°F. Place bacon on a slotted baking pan, bake 6 minutes until partially cooked but still soft. While cooking, brush venison w/olive oil and sprinkle w/onion powder, salt, pepper.
Wrap venison in bacon, place in roasting pan and return to the oven. Roast until bacon is browned and meat reaches 145°F, about 45 minutes.
Garlic cream sauce:
Melt 1 1/2 tbsp butter in saucepan, add mushrooms and garlic and sauté until soft. Stir in green onions, pour in cream. Cook while stirring until sauce is hot, serve with or over the venison.
Serving Suggestion
The Swiss chard is one of Ditalini’s recipes, which I have not yet shared here, but since it includes bacon (and feta cheese), our hunter’s feast was a heavy on bacon … which is a good thing, especially if you want your guests to think you were the hunter! The potato recipe is here.
Venison always seems to cook up dry, and that was our experience with this recipe (the bacon wrapping and cream sauce are clearly meant to ameliorate that, and definitely help). It was tasty and I would try it again, but since only one package of venison backstrap remains in the freezer, I’ll use a different recipe next time and post the results here.
Happy hunting!
