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Montana Elk Backstrap with Huckleberry Sauce
- Intermediate
- 50 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
Leads with richness that coats and comforts.
Ingredients
- 800g elk backstrap (loin), in medallions
- 2 tbsp oil
- 55g butter
- 2 tbsp thyme
- For the sauce: 200g huckleberries, 120ml red wine, 120ml stock, 2 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp balsamic, 1 tbsp butter
- Salt and pepper
The skills inside
Allergen screen
Found: dairy · alcohol
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Season the elk medallions well and let them come to room temperature.
- Sear in the hot oil 2 min a side for rare, basting with butter and thyme. Rest: elk is very lean and must stay pink. 2 min
- Simmer the huckleberries with the wine, stock, sugar, and balsamic 10 min until syrupy. 10 min
- Whisk the butter into the sauce off the heat for gloss.
- Slice the rested backstrap and spoon the huckleberry sauce over.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Searing: the hard crust 141 recipes
- The pan keeps a hard, steady sizzle from the moment the food lands and does not fall quiet; silence within the first half minute means the pan lost its heat and the surface is now steaming rather than browning.
- It releases itself when tested: slide a thin edge under and it lifts without tearing. Anything that grips the pan has not formed a crust yet and is not ready to be moved.
- Deep even brown across the whole face, edge to edge, when it is turned under the light: no pale ring left around a browned centre, and no black patches that taste bitter on their own.
- The pan floor carries a dry browned layer that dissolves and lifts the moment liquid hits it: not a wet grey film, and not black flecks that stay put and stay bitter.
- Cut into it: the browned band is thin, a few millimetres at most, sitting straight on top of correctly cooked interior; a thick grey collar under the crust means the heat was too low for too long.
Where it goes wrong The pan was not hot enough, or too much went in at once, so the food released its water and sat in it: the surface goes grey and steams, it sticks when moved, and the crust that eventually forms arrives over an interior already cooked through.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Syrah (northern Rhône) or Nebbiolo
- Also Right
- The braising wine itself, better bottle
- From the Taps
- Belgian dubbel
- Zero-Proof
- Beet & blackcurrant shrub
Long-cooked beef trades bite for depth: savory, structured reds echo the pot; and pouring the braise’s own region is law.
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