Writer, Editor Share Recipes - The Best Wild Game Sauce Ever
They may not agree on how to prepare it, but food blogger Hank Shaw and Delta Editor Dan Nelson agree the best companion for duck, venison and a lot of other game dishes is an apricot-port wine sauce.
Hank is the California food blogger who wrote the Camp Chef column in the summer issue of Delta Waterfowl magazine. When we asked him for an additional recipe for our web site, he directed us to his blog at http://www.honest-food.net/blog1/, where we found the following recipe for an apricot-port wine sauce.
Hank’s Apricot-Port Wine Sauce
This is a surpassing wild game sauce. You start with the pan drippings from whatever you have roasted or seared — duck, goose, venison, wild sheep, antelope, etc — and you end up with a fantastic combination of sweet, sharp, silky and rich. One of my best sauces.
- 2 tablespoons duck fat or butter
- 4 tablespoons apricot jelly or jam
- 1 cup game or vegetable stock (duck, venison)
- 1/2 cup Port wine
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon red pepper puree, such as Sriracha
- Salt to taste
If there is only a little fat in the pan you used to roast or sear your meat, melt the extra duck fat or butter first — but there will often be enough fat already in the pan. Deglaze the pan with the Port and stock. Let this boil furiously until it is reduced by half.
Add the tomato paste, apricot jelly and the red pepper puree and mix well. You might need a whisk. Let it boil until it thickens, about 4-5 minutes.
Taste the sauce. Add salt if needed.
If you have one, pour the finished sauce into a fat separator and serve as fatless as possible. This is optional: The sauce is equally good with all the fat, but it looks less refined.
Our editor agrees it’s one of the best sauces for wild game, but he has his own way to fix it:
Dan’s Balsamic-Apricot-Port Sauce
If you have a homemade duck stock, use it. If not, use a half-and-half mixture of beef stock and chicken stock. Most grocery stores now sell stocks, which are richer and more flavorful than broth.
Place in a saucepan over medium heat and reduce to slightly less than one cup:
- 1 1⁄2 cups of stock
- In the saucepan used to sear the duck breasts, add:
- 1⁄2 cup tawny Port
- 2 tablespoons of brandy
Using a wooden spoon, deglaze the pan, stirring up the caramelized bits. When the liquor is almost gone, add the reduced stock and boil for five minutes or until thickened. Then stir in:
- 1 tablespoon apricot preserves
- 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Off heat and finish by stirring in:
- 1 tablespoon butter