Venison Marsala Burgers | FoodsOfOurLives.com
I had planned to make lamb burgers with all kinds of yummy ingredients and I was all excited about them… and then my husband had a deer run out in front of him on the freeway the other night.
Why, you may wonder, does that have anything to do with not making lamb burgers?
Oh… that would be because after hitting it, he pulled over. Opened the trunk, threw the deer in (which died instantly) jumped back in the car and called me to tell me to get the kitchen and butcher paper ready for a deer.
Whhhaaaaaaaaaat????
Yes, this is legal. He has a permit to do such things.
It seem kind of crazy, but I tell you the meat was all perfectly good and since the thing is costing us $1000 deductible to get the car fixed (assuming it isn’t totaled) we figure this helps to offset that cost a little, although it works out to being something like $30 a pound.
At any rate.
After packaging up all this meat, I found myself thinking, seems kinda silly to get MORE meat out of the freezer for dinner…
So I made venison burgers instead.
Then I decided to get tricky and make a marsala sauce….
Oh heaven. They were amazing. I made the buns from my Super Easy 5 Minute Artisan Bread recipe, which I actually mixed up in my stand mixer, let rise in there for about 30-40 minutes then shaped into large buns, baked them on a baking sheet at 425˚ for about 40 minutes. When they came out I brushed them with melted butter and sprinkle some fancy black lava sea salt on them and voila! They were amazing.
Of course I haven’t been eating wheat flour at all for about a month now so I went into a hard core food coma after eating these, which was amazing until I had to get up and do dishes.
- FOR THE BURGERS
- 2 pounds ground venison (when we grind it we add 10% pork fat which helps a tiny bit)
- 3 tablespoons additional fat (I use bacon grease but olive oil or something like that works well also)
- 1 small yellow onion, minced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- 3 tablespoons heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
FOR THE MARSALA SAUCE - 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2 shallots, minced
- 1 pound crimini mushrooms, sliced
- 2 teaspoons rubbed sage
- kosher salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- ½ cup water
- 1 cup marsala
- ¾ cup heavy cream
- ½ stick cold butter
TO SERVE - Buns of your choice (to make the ones I made click here to use the dough instructions and then just shape into buns, see my instructions above)
- Swiss cheese
- To make the burger patties, combine all the ingredients in large mixing bowl. Use your hands to mix it all together and then form into patties really pressing them together otherwise they crumble when you cook them. Set aside while you heat a grill or griddle to medium high.
- To make the sauce add ½ cup water, shallots, mushrooms sage, salt and pepper to the pan. Allow it to cook until the mushrooms are just starting to soften and release their juices.
- Add the marsala and heavy cream and cook until thick, about 10-15 minutes. (if you are at sea level 10 minutes should do it but those of us at high altitude will need more like 15 minutes or longer).
- Once it is thickened, remove from heat and allow to cool about 5 minutes. Then add the cold butter, stirring until melted.
- While the sauce is cooking add a little oil to your griddle if you are using one (one beautiful thing about venison is it sticks since there isn't much fat so you have to be really careful not to let it).
- Cook the patties until medium well and have some nice charred bits on them, once you flip them over add the swiss cheese so it can get all melty.
- To serve, place on half a bun and top with a generous amount of the sauce, add the top of the bun and you're good to go!
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