- ½ red cabbage, shredded
- 150g/5½oz demerara sugar
- 40g/1½oz sea salt flakes
- 20 juniper berries, crushed
- 50g/1¾oz butter
- 250g/9oz cold, dry mashed potato
- 75g/2½oz plain white flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 125ml/4fl oz milk
- 2 free-range eggs
- 3 tbsp rapeseed oil
- 200ml/7fl oz red wine
- 100ml/3½fl oz red wine vinegar
- 100g/3½fl oz redcurrant jelly
- 4 cloves
- 500ml/1lb 2oz beef stock
- 50g/1¾oz butter
- 4 tbsp rapeseed oil
- 4 venison T-bone steaks (about 250g/9oz each)
- salt, to taste
- ½ lemon, juice only
- 150g/5½oz crème fraîche, to serve
- 1 tsp crushed Sichuan peppercorns
- 1 lime, juice only, to serve
- Thirty minutes before you plan to cook, mix the red cabbage, demerara sugar, sea salt flakes and juniper berries together in a non-metallic bowl and leave for the cabbage to soften.
- Meanwhile, make the potato pancakes, preheat the oven to 160C/325F/Gas 3 and then turn it off. Mix the mashed potato, flour and baking powder together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk and eggs, then stir the liquid ingredients into the potato mixture to form a batter.
- Heat the rapeseed oil in a large non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. Drop spoonful of the batter into the pan and fry for 2-3 minutes on each side until golden-brown. Transfer them to the turned off oven to keep hot. You should get 12-16 pancakes from the batter.
- To make the clove sauce, bring the red wine, red wine vinegar, redcurrant jelly and cloves to the boil in a saucepan over a high heat, stirring to dissolve the jelly. Continue boiling until the volume of liquid reduces to a glaze. Add the beef stock, return to the boil and reduce again by half to make a sauce. Pass the sauce through a fine sieve into a bowl to remove the cloves, then set aside and keep warm.
- For the red cabbage, rinse the cabbage thoroughly under cold running water. Melt the butter in a pan over a medium heat, then add the cabbage to warm through. Do not overcook – the cabbage should still have some crunch. Keep warm until ready to serve.
- For the venison steaks, melt the butter with the rapeseed oil in a large frying pan set over a high heat until the butter just starts to turn a hazelnut-brown colour. Season the steaks with a pinch of salt, add them to the pan and fry for 3-4 minutes on each side, or until they are a lovely dark colour. Squeeze in the lemon juice and baste the venison with the pan juices (do not overcook them, as venison has a very low fat content and can become dry). Remove the steaks from the pan and leave them to rest, covered with foil, for 10 minutes.
- While the steaks are resting, mix together the crème fraîche, Szechuan pepper and lime juice.
- To serve, put a couple of pancakes on each plate, add some red cabbage and a venison steak, and then pour over the clove sauce. Serve with the spiced crème fraîche on the side.