Nichola Fletcher's cooking tips for steaks:

Because venison is so lean, it can be quickly overcooked which makes it dry and dull.

For this reason, venison is at its best when served pink, because pink meat can never be dry.

The best way to cook venison steaks is to grill or pan-fry as you would beef, but undercook them and leave them to rest in a warm dish to complete the cooking while you serve up the sauce and vegetables.

The meat is then evenly pink, tender and juicy. The thicker the steak, the longer it needs to rest. Conversely, very thin steaks may not require resting at all.

Even if you like well-done steaks, undercook them to medium-to-well-done and then leave to rest to lose the pink.

If you like your steaks really rare or blue, then the resting period is not important.

Nichola Fletcher's tips for venison casseroles:

Our venison is as tender as beef, so use cooking times as for beef (1½ - 2 hours for shoulder casseroles, longer for the stew or osso buco).

Remember it is better to cook any casserole slowly rather than try to hurry it up which can toughen meat, and that it takes just as long to stew one kilo of meat as three kilos.

Our venison is tender enough to cook without being marinated, but if you enjoy the extra richness of a wine-based marinade, then by all means do so, or choose our ready-to-cook marinated venison casserole.

Vegetables which go well in a venison casserole are celery, celeriac, carrots, onions, almost any kind of mushroom, and roasted potatoes or root vegetables.

And you can use water, wine, beer, cider, fruit juices or vegetable pureés as the cooking liquid. 

Nichola Fletcher's tips for roasting venison:

Before you cook your venison, you must decide to cook it by one of two methods.

Full details are included in our recipe sheet which comes with your order, or do feel free to phone for advice.

The fast way of cooking leaves the meat pink, juicy and beautifully tender; you don't get much gravy because all the juice is still in the meat, so you may want to prepare a sauce in advance. To cook your venison this way, you should undercook it and then leave it to rest to complete the cooking. The total time (from 20 minutes to several hours) depends upon the thickness of the meat rather than the weight, and for large joints, I recommend a meat thermometer for ease of mind .

If you don't like your meat pink, then it should be cooked slowly, and you need to take steps to prevent it from drying out; you do get marvellous gravy this way, and it doesn't need so much attention as the fast method. You should lard the meat, brown it, then cook in a covered dish with some liquid and vegetables if wished. The flavour of the liquid will alter the rich gravy, and any fat used in larding can be skimmed off afterwards.

Nichola Fletcher's tips for sausages:

Our sausages are hand made without preservatives or colourings, and, rather than using proprietary butchers' spices, we mix our own.

We use natural casings, and instead of using 'butchers rusk' we use oatmeal which adds a pleasant nutty flavour.

Although we use less fat than many commercial sausages, it is necessary to use some fat, and we use pork fat since it is softer and therefore you need less.

At certain times of the year we are happy to make custom-made batches of lower fat or lower salt sausages to your requirement, though there is a price supplement for doing this and you have to order a minimum amount.

Unless otherwise requested, our packs are between 450g and 500g (approx. 1 lb.), and this gives 10-12 sausages per pack. These are slimmer than the traditional English style, and the amount varies because natural casings vary in thickness.

As well as grilling, frying, or baking them, you can make delicious sausage casseroles.

Nichola Fletcher's tips for hand made products:

Remember that because we don't use preservatives in our hand made products, their fresh shelf-life is 5-9 days.

The exception is the oak smoked which does have a tiny amount of preservative and has a 6 week shelf-life, and our carpaccio, which has no preservative other than its dry salt and sugar cure, but has a shelf-life of 28 days.

If wished, you can safely freeze all of these products.