Venison rump steaks, marinated in red wine and garlic

Venison is one of my favourite meats. It should be one of your favourites, too, given how lean and flavoursome it is. Of course, it's not cheap. Unless you're loaded or you and a friend go out to blow Bambi's mum's brains out on a regular basis, venison is an expensive, once-in-a-blue-moon treat. Me, I found a place that sells it at a reasonable price. A Vietnamese butcher in Springvale that sells venison rump for about $25 a kilogram. Used to be $20, but they've gone up. Still, if there's only one of two of you, that's pretty good. You'll get a couple of meals for two, right there.

Anyway, the venison rump--roughly one kilogram in size--is sold frozen at this shop, so I have to thaw it a couple of days in advance. Once it's thawed, I slice it into steaks about 1.5 centimetres thick. As for the red wine, I mention a bottle. You don't need that much for the venison, of course. Drink some. Seeing as you're drinking some, you won't buy nasty wine. That old rule about never cooking with wine you wouldn't drink is a good one. In this dish, you can really taste the flavour of the wine. Too, as for what kind of wine, that's really up to you. Me, I use a nice merlot.

Ingredients:

thawed venison rump steaks (one per person)
bottle of red wine
two or three crushed cloves of garlic
pinch of sea salt
pinch of freshly ground black pepper

Place the steaks in a bowl with the garlic cloves. Cover with red wine. Cover. Refrigerate for a half-day. If you marinate this for too long, you'll kill the flavour of the venison. Remove from refrigerator a hour or so before cooking. Take steaks from bowl. Season with a little sea salt and black pepper. Pre-heat fry pan or grill pan over a medium heat for maybe 3 minutes on each side. Alternatively, cook over a coal fire.