Collect together your equipment (see Recipe Notes below) and ingredients.

Preheat oven to Fan Oven 130°C /150°C/300°F/Gas 2

First, cook the vegetables: pulse the roughly chopped onion in a food processor until finely chopped. Alternatively chop by hand.

Heat half the butter and oil in a cast iron casserole dish (the one that you will cook the casserole in) over a moderate heat and add the onion. Cook on a moderate to low heat for 10 minutes, stirring from time to time, until soft and lightly caramelised. You may need to turn the heat down as the onion cooks – the onion should only be lightly browned.

As the onion cooks, finely chop the celery, (either in the food processor or by hand) trim and chop the carrots into larger pieces and chop the smoked bacon into small pieces.

When the onions are ready, add the celery, carrots and smoked bacon and cook for a further 10 minutes, stirring from time to time.

As these are cooking, finely chop the garlic, prepare the mushrooms and crush the juniper berries. Wipe the mushrooms clean; button mushrooms can be left whole whereas larger mushrooms can be halved or quartered.

When the onion mixture is ready, add the garlic, juniper berries and mushrooms and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring from time to time.

Finally add the red wine and simmer for a minute or two, stirring constantly and scraping up all the gorgeous sticky bits on the base of the pan.

Cook the meat: whilst you cook the vegetables, put the venison in a mixing bowl with the flour, ½ teaspoon salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly.

Melt the remaining oil and butter in a frying pan and brown the venison a handful at a time. It is important not to cook too much meat at a time or you will end up boiling it in its own juices rather than frying it. As the meat cooks, turn over to brown the other side and then remove from the pan. Add further meat to the pan and continue to cook until all the venison is browned.

When all the meat is browned, deglaze the pan with the port and boil for 1 minute scraping up all those gorgeous sticky bits. The base of your pan should look clear!.

Reduce the stock: at the same time, pour the stock into a saucepan and use a little stick to measure the depth of the stock. Make a mark. I then make a mark at half way so I can use this to know when I have reduced it sufficiently.

Simmer the stock to reduce.

Take off the heat when your stock has reaches the lower mark on your measuring stick.

Bring it all together and cook: add the venison, ½ teaspoon brown sugar, redcurrant jelly, rosemary and bay leaves to the onion and red wine mixture in the cast iron casserole. Pour in the port from the pan you cooked the meat in.

Also add the stock.

Stir well to mix. Cover and cook on a low heat in a pre-heated oven for 3½ – 4 hours until the venison is soft and succulent and the rich sauce slightly reduced.

Taste and adjust the seasoning - you may wish to add more salt and/or sugar

Ideally leave overnight to allow the flavours to develop and infuse.

To reheat the following day, simply heat on the hob over a low temperature until piping hot

I like to serve casseroles with mashed potato, but roast potato is also delicious, and some vegetables, either roast or steamed or a mixture of them both!