Venison Tenderloin with Porcini and Black Truffle | Filetto di Cervo ai Porcini e Tartufo Nero

Sep 28

11 min read

Filetto di Cervo ai Porcini e Tartufo Nero (Venison Tenderloin with Porcini and Black Truffle)

There is a kind of Italian autumn plate where everything on it came out of the same wood. The venison, the porcini and the black truffle are not three luxury ingredients assembled because they sound expensive together. They are three things a walk through a beech and chestnut forest in October could plausibly turn up within an hour.

That shared origin is the argument of the dish and also its problem. All three sit in the same aromatic family: damp soil, bark, iron, dried leaves. Put them together carelessly and they do not clash, which sounds like good news. They do something worse, merging into one brown flavour that is monotonous by the fifth forkful. So the sauce is built as three arrivals rather than one reduction.

Yield: 4 servings. Prep: 40 minutes. Cook: 45 minutes. Rest: 10 minutes. Total: about 1 hour 35 minutes. Difficulty: advanced. Course: secondo piatto. Season: October to December, when fresh porcini and black truffle overlap.

The Story

Red deer live along the whole length of the Italian mountains, from the Alps down the spine of the Appennini as far as the Sila in Calabria, and venison has been mountain food for as long as there have been mountain villages. In Trentino, the Cadore, the Valle d'Aosta and the Abruzzo highlands its arrival was a fixed point in the autumn calendar, never everyday food but never exotic either.

The porcini comes out of the same weeks and often the same slopes. Boletus edulis builds its relationship underground with the roots of particular trees, and in Italy those trees are chestnut, beech and oak. The grounds of the Appennino Tosco Emiliano, the Garfagnana chestnut woods and the beech forests of Monte Amiata each give a slightly different mushroom.

The black truffle completes the set, and its reference point is Norcia, market town for Tuber melanosporum across Umbria, the Marche and upper Lazio for centuries. It is denser than the volatile white truffle of Alba, more wet stone and cocoa than garlic and honey, and it tolerates warmth. Together the three make what Italian cooks call a piatto di territorio: no village of origin and no festival, only the principle that what grows in the same wood in the same month belongs together.

Ingredients

For the venison

Venison tenderloin, trimmed, 1 1/2 lb (680 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp (30 ml)
Unsalted butter, 2 tbsp (28 g)
Garlic cloves, lightly crushed, 2
Rosemary sprigs, 2
Thyme sprigs, 4
Fine sea salt, 1 1/2 tsp (9 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

For the porcini

Fresh porcini, firm and dry, 12 oz (340 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp (30 ml)
Unsalted butter, 1 1/2 tbsp (21 g)
Garlic clove, lightly crushed, 1
Thyme sprigs, 2
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

For the sauce

Concentrated venison or veal stock, 2 cups (480 ml)
Shallot, finely chopped, 1
Unsalted butter, 1 tsp (5 g)
Dry structured red wine, 1/2 cup (120 ml)
Grappa, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Juniper berries, lightly crushed, 4
Rosemary sprig, 1
Thyme sprigs, 2
Red wine vinegar, 1 tsp (5 ml)
Cold unsalted butter for mounting, 2 tbsp (28 g)
Fine sea salt, to taste

For the black truffle

Fresh black truffle, 1 1/4 oz (35 g)
Unsalted butter, 1 tbsp (14 g)

For the potato puree

Yukon Gold potatoes, 1 1/2 lb (680 g)
Cold unsalted butter, cubed, 5 tbsp (70 g)
Whole milk, warmed, 1/2 cup (120 ml)
Heavy cream, warmed, 1/4 cup (60 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1 tsp (6 g)
White pepper, to taste

For finishing

Thyme leaves, a pinch per plate
Extra virgin olive oil, a few drops per plate
Flaked sea salt, a small pinch per plate

Preparation

Step 1

Buy the meat properly and trim the silver skin. Use farmed or officially inspected venison from a butcher who can tell you where it came from: wild game entering commerce in Italy passes a veterinary check, and that matters because game can carry trichinella and this loin is served pink. Then shave the thin pearly membrane off completely, in strips, with a flexible boning knife.

Step 2

Salt the loin and tie it. Fold any thin tail end underneath and tie the loin at intervals of about 1 1/4 inch (3 cm) into an even cylinder. Season generously immediately before it meets the pan, not half an hour earlier: salt left to sit draws moisture to the surface and a wet surface steams instead of colouring. To salt ahead, do it 12 hours early, uncovered on a rack in the refrigerator.

Step 3

Make the puree and the sauce base. Simmer the peeled, evenly cut potatoes in salted water until a knife meets no resistance, drain, dry them a minute in the hot pan and rice them, then work in the cold butter and the warm milk and cream over the lowest heat until glossy, and hold over a bain marie. Separately, sweat the shallot in butter, add juniper, rosemary, thyme and the grappa and let it evaporate, reduce the wine to a syrupy quarter, add the stock, reduce by half and strain.

Step 4

Clean the porcini dry and sear them. Trim the soiled base of each stem, brush the caps and finish with a barely damp cloth: never a tap, never a soak. Cut them a generous 1/4 inch (6 mm) thick. Get the widest pan you own properly hot, add the oil and lay them in one layer with space around each piece, in two batches. Leave them untouched 2 minutes so the cut face colours, turn once, then add butter, garlic and thyme and spoon the foaming butter over.

Step 5

Sear the loin hard, cook it gently, rest it. Heat the oven to 250°F (120°C) and bring a heavy ovenproof pan over high heat until the oil ripples fast. Lay the loin in, leave it 90 seconds, then turn and repeat until every surface carries a dark even crust. Add butter, garlic, rosemary and thyme, baste for 1 minute, then move the pan to the low oven until the centre reads 52°C to 55°C, 12 to 20 minutes. Probe from the end into the geometric centre and pull at 127°F (53°C): no timing survives a change in loin diameter, so the thermometer is not optional. Rest 8 to 10 minutes.

Step 6

Warm the truffle, mount the sauce, glaze and slice. Brush the truffle clean, shave half into slices and set them aside raw, grate the rest. Melt the tablespoon of butter over very low heat, add the grated truffle and leave it about 1 minute. Warm the strained sauce gently, add the vinegar, then off the heat whisk in the cold butter a cube at a time followed by the truffle butter. Untie the loin, roll it through two spoonfuls of sauce over very low heat for 30 seconds, then cut medallions a generous 3/4 inch (2 cm) thick.

Plating

Use a large warm plate, warm rather than hot, because the sauce is mounted with butter and a scorching plate will break it. Spoon a generous tablespoon of puree slightly off centre and pull the back of the spoon through it once, leaving a shallow bed rather than a swirl. The puree is the neutral ground the earthiness lands on.

Lay three medallions partly across the puree, cut faces towards the diner, and arrange the porcini around them. Spoon the sauce around the base of the meat, no more than a tablespoon per plate, then lay the raw truffle slices over the meat and mushrooms so they overlap. Finish with thyme leaves, a few drops of good olive oil and black pepper, and send it at once.

Professional Technique

Everything difficult here follows from one fact: venison, porcini and black truffle come out of the same ecosystem and share a vocabulary because of it. In an Italian beech and chestnut wood in late autumn the deer browses over ground the mycorrhiza runs through, and the truffle forms a few inches under the roots of the same trees. The flavours overlap because the biology overlaps. That is why the plate reads as one place, and why it collapses into a single brown note if the resemblance is treated as a guarantee rather than a hazard.

So the sauce cannot simply be deep, because depth is the one thing this plate already has in surplus. Built only on reduced venison stock it adds another layer in the same register, and the result is heavy and oddly flat. The sauce has to supply lift as well as body, and lift comes from acid and alcohol. The red wine goes in early and reduces almost to syrup, so what survives is its fruit and its acid skeleton with no raw edge. The grappa evaporates before the wine arrives and leaves a high, faintly resinous line the stock cannot produce. The vinegar goes in at the very end, off the boil, where it stays sharp. The sauce does not turn sour: the earthiness simply gains an edge.

The other half of the technique is temporal. The three elements do not tolerate heat equally, so they are introduced at three separate moments and never share a pan. The meat takes the most violent treatment, a very hot surface for its crust and then long gentle heat. The porcini want high dry heat of their own but only for minutes, and are finished before the meat leaves the oven. The truffle tolerates the least: warm butter for sixty seconds for the grated half, no heat at all for the sliced half. Reverse any two and the dish loses a layer: truffle held in a simmering sauce turns dull and faintly metallic, porcini cooked early and reheated give up their structure. The staggering is what keeps three things from one wood tasting like three things.

Texture and Moisture Control

The crust and the interior are two problems solved in two stages. Maillard browning needs a dry surface above roughly 300°F (150°C), which is why the meat is patted down, salted late and given a pan hot enough to be slightly alarming. Once the crust exists, high heat becomes destructive, so the cooking moves to a 250°F (120°C) oven where the gradient between outside and centre stays shallow, giving an even rose from edge to edge instead of a grey band around a red core. Below 52°C the fibres have not set; above about 60°C they contract hard and force liquid out, and the rest lets the juices redistribute instead of running out on the board.

The sauce is an emulsion and behaves like one. Cold butter whisked in off the heat holds because the milk fat disperses through the liquid instead of melting into it, and the gelatin from the stock stabilises it. Boil it after mounting and it breaks into an oily film. Hold it around 150°F (65°C) and loosen it with stock, not water. The puree carries the opposite risk: blended or worked hard it turns gluey.

Professional Mise en Place

The last ten minutes are crowded, so almost nothing should be starting then. Sauce base, puree and trimmed meat are done ahead; the porcini, the searing, the truffle butter and the mounting happen in one tight sequence.

Equipment and tools

Instant read digital thermometer, without which this recipe cannot be done
Heavy ovenproof saute pan, plus the widest pan you own
Potato ricer, fine mesh conical sieve
Boning knife, slicing knife, twine
Soft brush and a truffle shaver

Prepared ahead

Sauce reduced and strained, up to 3 days ahead, unmounted
Loin trimmed and tied, up to 1 day ahead, on a rack
Puree finished, up to 2 hours ahead, over a bain marie
Porcini brushed and sliced, up to 1 hour ahead, uncovered
Truffle in dry paper in a closed jar, shaved at the end

Service setup

Loin out of the refrigerator 30 minutes ahead, salted at the pan
Oven holding at 250°F (120°C), thermometer within reach
Sauce warm and unmounted, butter cubed, vinegar measured
Porcini seared and held warm, aromatics discarded
Plates warm but not hot, puree loose, truffle sliced last

Chef Tips

Buy the loin whole and trim it yourself. Venison sold as pre trimmed medallions has almost always been cut across a cylinder that still had silver skin on it, so you inherit the membrane in every portion.

Judge fresh porcini by weight in the hand. A mushroom heavy for its size has taken up water somewhere and will steam rather than sear however hot the pan is.

Taste the sauce after straining, after the vinegar and after the butter. Those are the moments when it changes character rather than concentration. Salt at the end: reduction has already concentrated whatever the stock brought with it.

Keep the truffle out of rice. The old advice about burying it ruins the thing, because the grains pull out its moisture and the aroma with it. Wrap it in dry paper in a closed jar and use it within four days.

Common Mistakes

Leaving the silver skin on. On a braising cut the membrane has hours to soften into gelatin. On a tenderloin cooked for twenty minutes it has none, so it contracts and leaves a chewy seam through the medallion.

Cooking by the clock instead of the thermometer. Venison loins run from under two inches to over three inches across, and the cooking time changes by a factor of two along that range. Probe into the thickest part and pull the meat at 53°C.

Searing in a pan that is not hot enough. A moderate pan dries the surface without browning it, and by the time colour arrives the outer layer is already overcooked. The oil should move in thin fast ripples before the meat goes in.

Simmering the truffle in the sauce. Sustained heat drives off the aromatic compounds that justify the cost and leaves a dull, faintly metallic taste. The grated portion gets one minute in warm butter; the sliced portion never sees heat.

Boiling the sauce after mounting the butter. The emulsion breaks, the fat separates into a slick and the gloss is gone for good. Whisk the cold butter in off the heat and adjust afterwards with warm stock.

Reaching for cream to enrich the sauce. Cream flattens the contrast this plate depends on. It rounds off the acid, mutes the truffle and turns three distinct woodland flavours into one beige one.

Wine Pairing

Brunello di Montalcino DOCG: Sangiovese at this level brings high acidity and fine insistent tannin, and both have work: the acid meets the vinegar and the mounted butter, the tannin finds the protein of the meat rather than any fat, since there is almost none. Five or six years of age bring the dried leaf notes that run alongside the porcini.

Montefalco Sagrantino DOCG: The geographical match, from the Umbrian hills that give the black truffle, and the most tannic red in Italy. Its dense chalky tannin needs something to grip, and a seared crust plus a gelatinous reduction gives it just enough, while the bitter cocoa underneath runs with the truffle.

Taurasi DOCG: Aglianico from the volcanic soils around Avellino, the most savoury option here. Its smoked iron and tar character reads as almost mineral and picks up the woodland side of the dish and the crust at once. The acidity is higher than the weight suggests, so it cuts the mounted butter.

Pignolo Friuli Colli Orientali DOC: A rare northeastern red that suits venison better than its obscurity suggests, and worth hunting down. Pignolo is deeply coloured with an austere tannic frame and a note of dried herbs and forest floor that meets the crushed juniper in the sauce head on.

Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG: Fully dry despite the dried grapes behind it, and the boldest pairing here. Its glycerol weight and dried cherry concentration stand up to black truffle, which can overwhelm a lighter red, and its warmth echoes the grappa. Serve it at 61°F (16°C).

Storage & Reheating

The sauce is the component that keeps, and it improves for it. Unmounted, without butter or truffle, it holds 3 days in a sealed container and freezes for 2 months; it sets to a firm jelly when cold, which is a sign the stock was right. Reheat gently, add the vinegar, then mount with cold butter fresh each time.

Cooked venison tenderloin is best the day it is made, since there is no fat in the cut to protect it, and never keeps well. Keep leftovers whole and unsliced, covered and refrigerated up to 2 days, then warm them in a covered pan with a few spoonfuls of sauce over the lowest heat for 3 or 4 minutes.

Cooked porcini keep 2 days refrigerated and come back in a dry pan over high heat for a minute; do not freeze them once cooked. The puree keeps 2 days and reheats over low heat with warm milk, never in a microwave. Fresh truffle does not keep: grate the rest into butter and freeze it.

Nutrition

Per serving, based on 4 servings:

Calories: 620 kcal
Total Fat: 34 g
Saturated Fat: 18 g
Trans Fat: 0.8 g
Unsaturated Fat: 13 g
Cholesterol: 185 mg
Sodium: 690 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 32 g
Fiber: 4 g
Total Sugars: 4 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 45 g
Lactose: 2.5 g
Principal micronutrients: iron, zinc, selenium, copper, potassium, niacin, vitamin B6, vitamin B12