Venison, combined with pork for extra succulence, makes a mean burger. For the best texture, pass the meat through a mincer; if you don't have one, ask your butcher to do it for you. (Failing that, you can get by with chopping it very finely in a food processor. Do be careful, though, not to reduce it to a paste.) Incidentally, this is the exact same mixture I use to make venison sausages, so if you're a home-made sausage fiend, go for it - just add a small glass of good red wine to loosen the mix. These quantities make 12 good-sized burgers.
1 tsp juniper berries
3 bay leaves
1 tbsp sage leaves
2 tsp white peppercorns
7-10g of salt (around ½ tbsp)
1.5kg lean venison meat (shoulder or haunch)
500g fairly fatty free-range pork (belly or shoulder)
Put the juniper berries, bay leaves, sage, peppercorns and salt into a coffee grinder or mortar, and grind or pound until you have a fine powder.
Combine the venison and pork, and put through a mincer on a fairly coarse (5-8mm) plate. (If the butcher has minced it for you, simply combine the two.) Add the pounded spices and salt, and mix thoroughly by hand. Ideally, leave the mixture to settle for an hour or two, so the spices mellow and mingle with the meat.
Mix one more time. You can test the spicing - by frying a mini patty of the mixture and tasting - and then adjust as necessary. Form the minced, spiced meat into patties about 2cm thick and fry or barbecue them for 3-4 minutes each side, until nicely browned on the outside, and cooked through.
Serve in good-quality baps with a few slices of hot, butter-fried apple.
· The River Cottage Venison in a Day course will show you how to get to grips with a whole deer carcass, transforming it into a range of joints, sausages and pates. For more details, see rivercottage.net.