Arabica Venison Canapés with Young Garlic Mayonnaise

In our organic veggie box delivery last week we got some young garlic. I hadn’t cooked with this before so we experimented. The  cloves of the garlic head have not yet formed in young garlic, so it looks like a more bulbous or fleshy spring onion. It has a mild taste and can quite happily be eaten raw, sliced up in a salad. For a dinner party we made a broad bean and asparagus salad with roasted pomegranate chicken that was served with a young garlic mayonnaise.

The next day we had some mayonnaise left over as well as some marinated pieces of thinly sliced venison from another event. The venison was rubbed with Ground’s Arabica blend. This is a mix of star anise, black, red and Szechuan peppercorns and ground up coffee beans. It goes really well with venison and also surprisingly well with mushrooms!

So wanting to cobble together some canapés or tapas, we decided to use what we had. We toasted some day old focaccia, smeared it with the young garlic dressing and then topped that with the venison slices that had been pan-fried for 1 minute on each side, and then topped it off with some young rocket leaves from the garden. The combination was superb. If you don’t have venison or Arabica blend, then you could do this with some thinly sliced rump steak rubbed with Baharat or Ras al Hanout instead.

Here is the recipe for the delicious mayonnaise.

2 young garlic heads (white part only) chopped

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 egg yolk

2 anchovy fillets, chopped

200mls extra virgin olive oil

Blanch the young garlic in boiling water for about 1 minute. Then refresh in cold water and drain. Put into a food processor with the lemon juice, mustard, anchovies and egg yolk. Blitz it thoroughly then slowly add the olive oil, as you would to make mayonnaise. Check for seasoning and add more lemon juice and some salt if needed.