Venison With Sage Sauce

Every so often a recipe arrives in your life not with fanfare, but with the quiet confidence of something that has always existed. This venison and sage number feels exactly like that: as if it’s been cooked for years in some stone-floored French kitchen, with a back door that opens straight into a herb garden.

It began, as many good things do, with a book.Tucked on my shelf is an old volume called Recipes From A French Herb Garden – the kind of cookbook that smells faintly of paper and dried thyme, with photographs that have softened over time. It’s full of simple dishes that exist to show off herbs rather than drown them: meat and one green, a handful of leaves, a splash of cream or wine. Nothing fussy, everything very intentional.

One of the recipes, something involving meat and sage in a quick pan sauce, lodged itself in my mind. It had that irresistible combination of ease and romance: a pan, a few ingredients, and dinner in minutes. I took the idea and reworked it with what I had: venison fillet from the freezer, a head of chicory, and a sage plant outside the back door that seems determined to live forever.

The result is this: venison with sage and grilled chicory. It is fast. It is deeply fragrant. And it tastes like it’s been passed quietly between cooks for decades.

Venison, sage, and a little French mood

Venison is one of those meats that feels both luxurious and grounded. It brings the scent of the woods with it – lean, fine-textured, and with a flavour that is deeper and more interesting than beef, but not so strong that it scares off a cautious eater. It loves herbs that can stand up to it: sage, rosemary, thyme. It also loves a little cream.

Sage, in particular, is beautiful here. Fresh sage leaves, sliced into thin ribbons, bring that slightly resinous, almost medicinal perfume that somehow becomes soothing and mellow once it hits hot fat. In this dish, the sage cooks in the same pan as the onion and venison, so every strip of meat gets wrapped in that flavour.

The chicory (endive) is your balancing act. Left raw, it’s sharp and assertive, but put it cut-side down on a hot grill or pan and it softens, its juices caramelising slightly. The bitterness relaxes into something more like an adult lettuce: still present, but in a good way. Paired with the richness of venison and the softness of cream, it keeps the plate from feeling heavy.

There is a little lemon, because French food is almost never as creamy as people think; there’s almost always an acid note tucked in to keep things bright. And that’s all this dish really is: good meat, a decent handful of sage, a bit of onion, lemon, cream, and something charred and green on the side.

It is not grand. It is not complicated. But it is exactly the sort of thing you want to eat at nine o’clock on a chilly evening, with a glass of red and nobody expecting you to share.

Venison with Sage & Grilled Chicory

Serves 1–2 (easy to scale up)

Ingredients

• ½ head chicory (endive), cut in half lengthways

• Olive oil

• ½ onion, finely chopped

• 1 small venison fillet, trimmed

• Sea salt flakes

• Freshly ground black pepper

• A pinch of ground coriander

• A small handful of fresh sage leaves

• Juice of ¼ lemon

• A small splash of double cream

Optional to serve:

• Extra sage leaves, fried crisp in a little oil or butter

• Crusty bread or simple potatoes alongside

1. Grill the chicory

Start with the chicory, because once the venison hits the pan, things move quickly.

Drizzle the cut side of the chicory with a little olive oil and season with a pinch of salt and pepper. Heat a ridged griddle pan or a regular frying pan over a medium–high heat. Place the chicory cut-side down in the hot pan and leave it there, undisturbed, until it has picked up good colour: dark golden char lines, the scent shifting from sharp to toasty.

Turn the chicory over and let it cook for another minute or two on the other side, just until the core is tender when pierced with the tip of a knife. You want it soft, but still holding its shape.

Lift it out of the pan and keep warm on a small plate. It can happily sit while you cook the venison.

2. Prepare the onion and venison

Finely chop the half onion. Set a clean frying pan over a medium heat and add a small glug of olive oil. When it’s warm, add the onion and cook gently, stirring now and then, until it is soft and just starting to turn golden at the edges. This is not the time for frantic heat; you want sweetness, not char.

Meanwhile, slice the venison fillet into neat strips, about the thickness of your little finger. Sprinkle the strips with sea salt flakes, freshly ground black pepper and a small pinch of ground coriander. The coriander is not there to shout; it is there as a low hum, a warm, citrusy background note that flatters both sage and venison.

Take your handful of fresh sage leaves, stack them, roll them into a tight little cigar, and slice across into thin ribbons. This simple cheffy trick (a chiffonade, if we’re being proper) gives you delicate shreds that disperse easily through the pan.

3. Into the pan: sage, venison, lemon, cream

When the onion is soft and lightly golden, turn the heat up a touch and add the venison strips to the pan. They should sizzle as they hit the heat. Add the shredded sage at the same time, tossing everything together so the meat and herbs become friendly quickly.

Venison cooks very fast, and we want it pink in the middle, so do not wander off. Stir and turn the strips for a couple of minutes, watching as the outside loses its raw sheen.

Squeeze in the juice of a quarter of a lemon – just enough to brighten the pan, not enough to make it sour – and immediately follow with a small splash of double cream. Stir, and watch as the cream and pan juices meld into a pale, fragrant sauce that clings to the strips of venison and flecks of sage.

Taste a little of the sauce and adjust the seasoning if needed. A pinch more salt, perhaps, or a grinding more pepper.

As soon as the venison is cooked to your liking (for me, this is when the strips are still rosy in the centre), take the pan off the heat. Overcooking will dry it, and we are not here for that.

4. Plate and eat

Place your grilled chicory half on a warm plate, cut side up so all those charred edges and tender leaves are on show.

Spoon the venison and its sage-scented, lemon-touched cream around and partly over the chicory. Let some of the sauce run onto the plate; this is excellent for dragging a piece of bread through later.

If you feel like it, you can fry a few extra sage leaves in a little oil or butter until crisp and scatter them over the top. It’s not essential, but it gives a beautiful fragrance and an extra little crackle.

And then – that’s it. Glass of something red, perhaps a few boiled or roasted potatoes if you want to stretch it, and you are done.

This recipe is a quiet little lesson in how a handful of ingredients and a herb plant outside the back door can borrow a tiny bit of French charm, and turn an ordinary evening into something that feels like a treat.