Love is a big rare roast

Well, it is in our house anyway. Our valentines dinner consisted of a nice rare elk roast with a vodka, cranberry and orange reduction and caramelised onion mashed potatoes. The roast was beautifully tender, but with that nice tight texture that Elk has. This would make a nice change for the ole standard Sunday beef roast and would be sure to impress your guests without too much trouble. The sweet and tangy sauce goes beautifully with the gamey roast. I reckon it'd be pretty nice with any game meat or with a nice pork tenderloin.

To serve six you will need:

• 1.3 kg (3 lb) elk roast
• 180 ml (3/4 cup) vodka (set 1 tablespoon aside for finishing the sauce at the end)
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1 cup orange juice
• zest of 1/2 orange
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups beef broth

Combine all ingredients in a large ziploc bag and allow to marinate in refrigerator for 24 hours.

Preheat oven to 500F.

Place roast on rack in bottom of a roasting pan. Pour marinade, including cranberries, in bottom of pan. Hold back some liquid if it looks like the level will come up too far to touch the bottom of the roast.

Place roast in oven. Cook at 500F for 25 minutes, reduce heat to 425F and roast until a meat thermometer inserted in the middle reads 138F. Remove roast from pan and tent with foil. Transfer pan juices to a saucepan and add all remaining marinade liquid. Use an immersion blender to blend in the cranberries. Bring liquid to a rolling boil and reduce until the flavour is strong enough. There will probably not be any need to thicken, but you can use another 1/3 cup stock or orange juice into which you've dissolved 2 teaspoons flour if tyou wish. Remove sauce from heat and stir through a tablespoon more vodka to finish.

Slice meat and serve with sauce over the top.

Comments

[Lydia]

I confess that I've never tasted elk, but your photo makes it look absolutely wonderful.

[Fabienne]

waou, vodka !!! Oh, i think it's delicious !

[hélène]

I just love it !

[CurlyCook]

Hi There, love the site...great name. I ate reindeer once, but have never tried elk. I'm thinking that your method of preparation would probably work for other dark wild game (i.e. venison, reindeer, etc..) what do you think?

[CurlyCook]

Me again...one more question. The picture you use as your header, are those fresh green olives before pickling??

[Michel]

Mmm, elk. Don't think we can get that here in Québec, but we can get buffalo.
Anyhow, learned a trick on the weekend for testing the wellness (?) of a roast if you don't have an accurate meat thermometer: stick a metal skewer into the middle of the roast. When you want to know if the roast is done, remove the skewer and place the tip against your tongue. If it's slightly warm, you know your roast is rare/medium-rare.
Works like a charm.

[Monika]

Looks delicious. I like the reduction, great idea :-)

Monika

[Lisa (Homesick Texan)]

I had my first taste of elk over Christmas in Oregon, and it was so succulent. I don't know if I can find it here in NYC, but I'm on the hunt--this recipe sounds divine!

[lyn]

Curly - Yes it would work for any dark game meat. And yes, those are uncured olives in the header. I brined some olives this past autumn.
Michel- that's a great trick. I'll have to remember that. I always take my meat thermometer camping with me. Maybe I don't have to do that anymore?

[Brilynn]

I've got a roast of venison that would probably be pretty nice done like this.