Hjortestek

Name: Hjortestek
Total time: 2 h
Cuisine: Norwegian
Ingredients: 1.5 kg venison roast (deer leg), tied; 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp black pepper; 3 tbsp butter; 1 carrot and 1 onion, roughly chopped; 1 rosemary sprig; 200 ml red wine, 400 ml beef stock; For the sauce: 2 tbsp double cream and a spoonful of rowanberry jelly

Roast wild venison larded and glazed, served with root-vegetable purée and a dark berry jus.

2 hrAdvanced

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Cultural Context & History

Where reindeer gives way to red deer in the northern forests, hjortestek takes the festive stage — dark, lean and mineral, finished with a jus sharpened by wild berries.

Ingredients

1.5 kg venison roast (deer leg), tied
2 tsp salt, 1 tsp black pepper0 kcal · 0 g protein · 0 g fat · 1330 g carbs per 100 g
3 tbsp butter714 kcal · 0 g protein · 78.6 g fat · 0 g carbs per 100 g
1 carrot and 1 onion, roughly chopped
1 rosemary sprig533 kcal · 0 g protein · 56.7 g fat · 6.7 g carbs per 100 g
200 ml red wine, 400 ml beef stock19 kcal · 0 g protein · 0 g fat · 0.3 g carbs per 100 g
For the sauce: 2 tbsp double cream and a spoonful of rowanberry jelly

Per-100 g values shown for ingredients verified against Nutrition data: USDA FoodData Central (snapshot 2026-09-11). Ingredients not yet verified show no nutrition line.

Recommended Tools

Meat thermometerCatches the exact 58°C pull point for rosy meat.
Heavy roasting tinHolds the roast, aromatics and wine for even braising.
Butcher's twineTies the leg evenly so it cooks uniformly.

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Step-by-Step Instructions

1
Tie the roast into an even shape and rub all over with the salt and pepper.
2
Brown it well in the butter in a hot pan, turning to colour every side.
3
Transfer to a roasting tin with the carrot, onion and rosemary, pour in the wine and stock, and roast at 125°C until the internal temperature reaches 58°C.
4
Wrap in foil and let rest for 15 minutes while you finish the sauce.
5
Strain the pan juices into a pot and simmer with the double cream and a spoonful of rowanberry jelly until glossy.
6
Carve into thick slices and spoon the sauce over to serve.

Chef's Tip

Venison is lean and dries fast — a low 125°C oven and a pull at 58°C keep the centre rosy, and the carryover under the foil settles it to a perfect medium-rare.

How this page was made

Written by: The Norcook editorial archive. No individual author is named yet — see the editorial and food-safety policy for what that means and what has to happen before a byline appears.
Content last checked: 2026-07-21 — “checked” records an editorial check, not a qualified review. Where one exists, the recipe-specific review record appears in the food-safety callout.
Regional context: Sápmi — the hub carries the wider background, the ingredient glossary and its own sources.
Sources: No page-level sources are recorded for this recipe yet. The cultural background above is written as general context, not as a sourced historical claim.

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