Spiced rubbed venison with plum sauce, page 45

Oh, my stars. That was good. I just pulled the last two packages of venison out of the freezer, two pounds of deer loin. Our loin meat is sliced already, so I tied the slices together in an attempt to bring it back to its pre-sliced state. The spices in this recipe are a mixture of thyme, cumin, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, garlic and probably a few others I'm forgetting. Sounds like an interesting mix, doesn't it, like Mexican meets a snickerdoodle? Well, it's worth trying, let me tell you.
The plum sauce to accompany the loin, if you'd like, called for Missouri plums. Somehow, wild plums did not cross my mind when I read "Missouri" plums. I went to the store hoping for something labeled Missouri plums, and not seeing anything began to get the large kind one usually finds at the store to eat. Then at the bottom of the shelf I saw little, dark purble plums that reminded me of the ones we picked from the neighbor's orchard tree when I was a kid called damson plums. The ones in store weren't labeled, but I thought these might be close to "Missouri" plums since they looked similar to ones from our neighbor. I quickly stewed them on the weekend and put the sauce through our old food mill to get the seeds out. The seeds were a bit too big for the mill and made for quite a clatter.

Anyway, last night I made the loin. All four of us loved it. The venison was flavorful and interesting and the plum sauce acted like a chutney and really added to the meat. My connotation with plum jam is to serve it at breakfast with toast and tea, not to douse my venison with it. So, the first bite I was hesitant. But, once again the combination of flavors grew on me and I quickly came to be crazy about the dish. At dinner I served the plum sauce humbly as a blob beside the meat. I think you could really dress this recipe up for a regal dinner by swirling the plum sauce over the venison and rest of the plate. No one is going to mind a bit extra of the plum sauce, it's totally devine.

So, now we are out of venison. Wah. I can't go any farther with the venison recipes until and if we get a deer this fall. Pressures on, baby!