Jamie Oliver’s roast venison with Barolo and chocolate sauce wraps coffee-and-rosemary-rubbed venison loin in prosciutto, roasts it blushing pink, and serves it with a dark, silky sauce built from roasted venison bones simmered in Barolo and finished with dark chocolate and butter. The sauce alone takes three hours. The whole thing serves ten and is built for a proper occasion.
The recipe appeared on BBC’s Saturday Kitchen and later on Jamie and Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast, and it’s also in Jamie Oliver’s Christmas Cookbook (2016). Oliver calls it “phenomenally delicious” and “foolproof,” because the fatty prosciutto wrapping protects the lean venison from drying out as it roasts. That protection is the whole trick with game meat.
The coffee rub is the detail no one expects. You crush coffee beans with white peppercorns, rosemary and garlic into a rough paste, stir in orange zest and balsamic, then rub it all over the loin before wrapping. The coffee doesn’t taste of coffee in the finished dish: it deepens the savoury, roasted character of the meat the way it does in a mole or a beef chilli.
Jamie Oliver Roast Venison With Barolo And Chocolate Sauce
Course: DinnerCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy10
servings30
minutes3
hours20
minutes420
kcal3
hours50
minutesJamie Oliver’s Christmas centrepiece: venison loin rubbed with coffee, rosemary and orange, wrapped in prosciutto and roasted pink, with a bone-roasted Barolo sauce finished with dark chocolate and butter. A three-hour project for a ten-person feast.
Ingredients
- For the sauce:
1kg/2lb 4oz venison bones (from a local butcher)
1 red onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 celery stick, roughly chopped
1 tbsp plain flour
375ml/13fl oz Barolo wine
25g/1oz dark chocolate, minimum 70% cocoa solids, broken into pieces
25g/1oz unsalted butter
salt and freshly ground black pepper
- For the venison:
1 tbsp coffee beans
1 tsp white peppercorns
2 fresh rosemary sprigs, leaves picked
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 orange, finely grated zest only
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 x 750g/1lb 10oz venison loin fillets, trimmed, at room temperature
14 prosciutto slices
2 tbsp olive oil, for drizzling
- To serve:potato and celeriac mash, braised winter greens.
Directions
- Roast the bones:Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas 6. Place the venison bones in a large, deep roasting tin with the onion, carrot, celery and flour, toss together and roast for 1 hour.
- Make the stock:Transfer everything to a large casserole. Add boiling water to the roasting tin to scrape up the sticky base, pour it into the casserole with the wine, and just cover with more boiling water. Simmer on low for 2 hours, skimming and topping up the water as needed.
- Strain and reduce:Remove the bones, then strain the sauce through a coarse sieve into a saucepan. Simmer over low heat to your desired consistency, then set aside.
- Make the rub:Crush the coffee beans and peppercorns in a pestle and mortar until fine. Pound in the rosemary leaves, then the garlic to make a rough paste. Stir in the orange zest and muddle in the balsamic.
- Prep the venison:Cut each loin in half to give four pieces. Rub the coffee paste all over the meat.
- Wrap in prosciutto:Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas 6. Divide the prosciutto between two large sheets of baking paper, slightly overlapping the slices. Stack two pieces of venison on each sheet, thick end against thin end for even thickness. Roll up tightly in the prosciutto, tucking in the ends, and tie with string at regular intervals.
- Roast:Place in a roasting tin, drizzle with oil and roast for 30 minutes, turning every 10 minutes. Remove and rest for 10 minutes.
- Finish the sauce:Bring the sauce back to a simmer, stir in the chocolate and butter and whisk until smooth. Leave for a few minutes, then season.
- Carve and serve:Remove the string, carve into thick slices and serve with the sauce, celeriac mash and braised winter greens.
FAQs
What does the chocolate do in the sauce?
It adds silkiness and depth, not sweetness. At 25g of 70% dark chocolate whisked into a bone-reduced Barolo sauce, it melts into the background, giving the sauce a glossy, velvety body and a subtle bitter edge that rounds out the wine’s tannins. You won’t taste chocolate; you’ll just notice the sauce is richer and more complex than a straight red wine jus.
It’s the same principle behind a Mexican mole or a good chilli con carne, where dark chocolate deepens the savoury character without announcing itself. Oliver whisks it in with the butter right at the end, off the heat, so it emulsifies into the sauce rather than cooking out. If the idea makes you nervous, it’s 25g across ten servings, so each plate gets a barely-there 2.5g.
Why wrap the venison in prosciutto?
Because venison is extremely lean and dries out fast under direct heat. The prosciutto acts as a fatty, salty jacket that bastes the meat from the outside as it roasts, keeping the loin juicy and adding its own cured-pork flavour to the exterior. When the prosciutto crisps, it also gives a salty crunch against the tender, pink venison inside.
Oliver calls this method “foolproof” specifically because of the wrapping. Without it, you’d need to sear the loin and monitor it constantly to avoid overcooking. With it, the prosciutto absorbs the oven’s heat first and protects the delicate meat. Stack the two halves thick end against thin end before wrapping, so the roll has an even thickness and cooks uniformly.
Does the coffee rub taste of coffee?
Not in the way you’d expect. The tablespoon of crushed coffee beans blends into the paste with white peppercorns, rosemary, garlic, orange zest and balsamic, and once roasted on the venison, the coffee reads as a deep, roasted, slightly bitter savouriness rather than a morning-brew flavour.
It does the same thing here that it does in Oliver’s sauce with the chocolate: it adds a layer of dark, complex depth that you’d struggle to identify as coffee if you didn’t know it was there. The orange zest and balsamic in the paste brighten it, so the rub doesn’t taste heavy or one-note.
Does the wine have to be Barolo?
Barolo is a big, tannic, complex Italian red from Piedmont, and it makes a magnificent sauce, but it’s also expensive. Oliver uses half a bottle (375ml), so the cost adds up. For a Christmas centrepiece, the splurge is justified; for a test run, a good Nebbiolo (same grape, less money) or any full-bodied dry red works.
Avoid light, fruity reds like Pinot Grigio or Beaujolais, which lack the tannin structure that makes the sauce dark and glossy after reduction. The wine simmers for two hours with the bones, so its flavour concentrates enormously, and a thin, sweet wine would taste flat and dull at that intensity.
How pink should the venison be?
Blushing pink in the centre, which Oliver’s 30-minute roast at 200°C delivers for 1.5kg of loin (two 750g fillets stacked in pairs). Venison loin is a lean, tender cut that’s best served medium-rare to medium: overcook it and it turns dry and livery, since there’s almost no fat to keep it moist.
The 10-minute rest after roasting is essential. It lets the juices redistribute so the meat stays pink and moist when you carve rather than bleeding out onto the board. If you’re worried, use a meat thermometer: pull it at 55-58°C for medium-rare, knowing it’ll carry over a few degrees as it rests.
Can I make the sauce ahead?
Yes, and you should. The sauce is a three-hour job (one hour roasting bones, two hours simmering), so making it the day before and refrigerating it takes most of the work out of the day itself. It also improves overnight, as the flavours meld and deepen.
Reheat it gently, then stir in the chocolate and butter just before serving, since that final enrichment is what gives it its glossy, silky finish and should be done fresh. The venison itself is roasted and carved to order, since game meat doesn’t reheat well. That split, sauce ahead, meat on the day, makes this genuinely manageable for a Christmas dinner for ten.
