Venison Tenderloin with Blueberry Sauce
November 03, 2014 | Updated June 06, 2022
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Venison and blueberry sauce, or huckleberries if you live here in the West, is an ancient and well-respected combination. One that I’d hated for years. Every version I’d had was cloying, sticky, a weird sweet and not very sour flavor that just didn’t suit me. Long ago I told myself that I’d just avoid this particular classic.
And then I read a quirky little book on, of all things, the food of Iceland. Icelandic Food & Cookery, by the memorably named Nanna Rognvaldardottir, has all kinds of cool recipes in it, and you can expect to see some here in the coming months.
Her version of this dish, done with lamb, was the first one I’d seen that was not obviously sweet. Her use of mushrooms in a berry sauce was pretty unusual, too. So I studied the recipe, made a few changes and gave it a go.
I am glad I did. This dish is a knockout.
The venison itself is cooked very simply — just seared medium-rare in a pan with some clarified butter — but the sauce has all kinds of layered flavors. Seared onions and wild mushrooms, a little garlic, wine, stock, the mushroom soaking water, and only then the blueberries. I used wild huckleberries I had frozen, and they are smaller and more acidic than store-bought blueberries. They actually act as a zippy tart balance to the savory sauce, not as a sugary bomb.
One cool option might be to use pickled blueberries, which last forever in the fridge. That adds even more tartness to the dish.
I served this alongside some Irish colcannon, which is a fancy name for mashed potatoes with a green thing mixed in. I used nettles I had from the freezer, but any green will do. Spinach would be easiest, but kale is pretty traditional in Ireland, and the Icelanders eat it, too.
The blueberry sauce is a must-try with your next piece of venison tenderloin or backstrap. It’s a date night dish that takes less than an hour to put together, too.
Venison with Blueberry Sauce and Colcannon
Ingredients
- Tenderloins from a deer or 1/2 pound venison backstrap
- Salt
- 2 tablespoons clarified butter, regular unsalted butter, lard, duck fat or vegetable oil
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 small onion, peeled and sliced root to tip
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 3/4 ounce dried mushrooms, wild if possible, reconstituted in 1 cup hot water
- 1/2 cup venison stock or beef stock
- 1/2 cup red wine
- 1/2 cup blueberries or huckleberries, fresh or thawed
- 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary minced
- Black pepper to taste
- Malt or red wine vinegar to taste
- Sugar optional
COLCANNON
- 2 large russet potatoes, peeled and diced
- Salt
- 2 or 3 three tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 or 2 heaping tablespoons sour cream or heavy cream
- 1 cup chopped spinach or other greens
Instructions
- Take the venison out of the fridge and salt it well. Let it set on the cutting board while you rehydrate the mushrooms and boil the potatoes for the colcannon.
- Put the diced potatoes into a pot of salted water and bring to a boil. Simmer until tender. Drain the potatoes and put them back in the pot. Turn the heat to low under the pot and let the potatoes steam for a few seconds.
- Beat in the butter, sour cream and chopped vegetables. You want nice mashed potatoes with green streaks. Add salt to taste, cover the pot, turn off the heat and set aside.
- Get a large saute pan and put 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter into it. Turn the heat to high and when the butter is hot, add the sliced onion. Saute over medium-high heat until browned along the edges, about 4 to 5 minutes. Turn off the heat, remove the onions and set aside.
- Wipe the pan with a paper towel. Pat the venison dry and put the clarified butter into the pan. Set it over high heat until the butter is very hot, but not smoking. Add the venison and sear until medium-rare. If you don't know to tell when the meat is done, use the finger test for doneness. When the venison is done, move it to rest on a cutting board.
- Return the onions to the pan, add the mushrooms and garlic and saute over medium-high heat for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring often. Sprinkle some salt over everything and add the wine.
- Boil this down until it's almost gone, using a wooden spoon to stir up any browned bits on the bottom of the pan. Add the stock and mushroom soaking water (strain the water if there is any debris in it) and boil this down by two-thirds.
- Add the huckleberries or blueberries and cook another minute or two, Add black pepper, salt and vinegar to taste. If you want it sweet, add some sugar now; start with a teaspoon or two. Garnish with the rosemary.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Fantastic with a moose backstrap chunk and dried morels. I used port instead of red wine. The blueberry sweetness is subtle and shows up late in the taste. Another one for the must-repeat list. Paired well with a malty Oktoberfest beer.
Hi There, Your Blueberry recipe sounds wonderful but do you have a venison recipe with dried cherries which would emulate a Hungarian venison dish? Cherries in general are quite sweet but Hungarian ones tend to be sour cherries.
Your response and insight you be greatly appreciated.
Hi Hank – do you have a mushroom preference?
I can get Morel, Porcini, Shitake or a blend. Looking forward to trying this!!
Holly: For this one, go with a blend or morels.
Great dish, followed to a T w / a whitetail backstrap.
Omg Hank, my lips are still smacking from this delicious meal!! I chose this recipe because I had everything on hand; only had to sub apple cider for the wine. The colcannon was the perfect pairing. The sauce so beautiful and tasty; I really felt like I was eating the forest! Thanks for sharing such a winner.
This was too easy and too good not to enjoy everyday. Sadly the wild ingredients are only available once a year. Sugar was definitely not required. I can’t wait to try it again with some vinegar or maybe a little lime. Thanks for posting this fantastic recipe.
Absolutely delicious. I didn’t make the colcannon but have been looking for a less sweet blueberry sauce for game. This was so good and so easy! I love the blueberry/mushroom combination. It sounds weird but it works!
Very good! I couldn’t find dried mushrooms, so I dried some in the oven. It seemed weird to dry them just to re-hydrate them, but it was worth it to get the mushroom water.
awesome
Especially because I really like Spanish wine.
This is a $65 entree if ordered in a restaurant! Excellent flavors. Didn’t have beef broth—had to substitute the morel soaking liquid. We added more salt to taste and a tbsp or two of butter for a silky mouth feel. Thanks, Hank. Another winner!
Okay, when you get a set of tenderloins and you want to do something special with them, this is your recipe. I don’t do it every time, but I do it a lot, and every time I do, I kinda kick myself for the times I was lazy and just salted and seared them. But they are unbelievably good that way too haha!
I rarely follow recipes to the detail, but I did with this one and it was phenomenal! We tried to age and process our deer as carefully as possible with 2 weeks aging prior to sealing and freezing the backstraps. It was so tender, I didn’t even need a knife and this recipe really did justice to our prized venison cut!