AS winter snow begins to cover the Highland hills, wild red deer head for lower ground. Driving through Scotland, I see many beautiful sights, often including deer discreetly camouflaged against the landscape. Whole herds can be seen peacefully grazing, usually at a safe distance. However, a single deer leaping from the roadside can prove hazardous, particularly if it is a large stag with a magnificent set of antlers. I am also conscious that wild herds have grown in number over recent years and how important it is to manage these on large and mountainous Highland estates.

Buying wild venison is straightforward for Scottish chefs and it is very popular in restaurants, though sadly neglected as an ingredient for home-cooking. As a low-fat meat, reared naturally in the wild, venison is very good for us, but it has the unwarranted reputation of being tough, troublesome and time-consuming to cook. Home cooks of a bygone era, particularly in rural areas, were far more at ease with cooking game and, in particular, venison. Haggis was frequently made from the liver, as every part of the beast was used and nothing went to waste.

I wish it was not so difficult to buy Scottish venison for cooking at home. In fact, it's ridiculous that most venison sold in our supermarkets is farmed in New Zealand. The choice of cuts is limited and they are not prepared with much care before being shoved into shrink-wrap, which makes it difficult to select a good piece. A skilful, high street butcher would make much better work of creating neat cuts and providing advice on cooking.

Stagison is a purpose-built abattoir for Scottish venison, located at Downfield in the hills above Cupar in Fife. It was the brainchild of a local farming couple, who wanted to make farmed venison a more viable product in Scotland. I have visited the site and it is an excellent local resource for Scottish farmers and game dealers, as farmed and wild game can be processed there. The meat cutting room is a great facility and I watched as the butcher demonstrated how every part of the beast could be used, creating cuts very similar to those we buy and cook every day as beef and lamb. Shoulder, shank, rump and loin were set aside neatly on the tray beside the cutting block, rolled, diced, minced or sliced; lean, fresh and ready to cook.

Stagison directly supplies a small number of catering distributors and local butchers in the immediate area, but the business appears to be calling out to farmers to raise more animals and make greater use of this unique processing plant. I would love to see venison much more readily available to buy for home-cooking. Farmed deer is usually slaughtered at a year old, when the meat is tender and very flavoursome. It would be difficult to tell the difference between wild and farmed meat of the same age.

Preparation and cooking times are on a par with beef and lamb. The outdated reputation venison has for being tough and strong-tasting, requiring complicated marinades and long slow-cooking, belongs in the past. Mature animals culled in the wild can be cooked in these ways with delicious results, but shop-ready products don't need lengthy preparation.

Venison has been an immensely popular ingredient for centuries in Scotland, with many references to cooking it in old recipe books. Collops-in-the-Pan can be made with thin-cut loin or rump steaks of beef or venison. The addition of pickled walnuts to the sauce is an old tradition. A collop is one of those Auld Alliance words, stemming from the French escalope, meaning a thin cut of meat without bone, used for quick cooking. Scots also cooked minced collops, which seems to be very similar to today's mince (as served with tatties), but cooked with fewer vegetables, often with a poached egg on top, and sometimes including oatmeal for thickening the natural juices. If you want more advice on buying venison, visit Stagison’s great website: www.stagison.com.

Venison Collops-in-the-Pan

A beautiful piece of venison would make a superb alternative to turkey at Christmas, and this recipe is ideal for a small number of people. Although it serves four people, quantities can be halved.

4 x venison leg steaks, approx 150g in weight, each sliced into two collops OR 1 loin of venison, weighing approximately 600g, sliced into 8 x 75g medallions

1 large onion

4 pickled walnuts

150ml red wine

50g unsalted butter

1 tbsp Scottish rapeseed oil

Freshly-ground sea salt and black pepper

Method

1. Prepare the collops of venison by slicing the leg steak in half to make thin steaks, around 2cm thick, or slicing the loin into medallions of the same thickness.

2. Season both sides of each collop with salt and pepper and set aside.

3. Lift four pickled walnuts from the jar and chop into small pieces.

4. Cut the onion in half and lay flat-side down on your chopping board. Starting from right to left of the short side, cut each half into thin, half-moon slices.

5. Melt the butter and olive oil together in a large, thick-based frying pan.

6. Add the sliced onion, season lightly with a little more salt and cook until very soft and slightly coloured, but not dark.

7. Remove the onion to another dish and cook the venison slices in the hot buttery juices, in two batches – four slices at a time. Seal the meat quickly on one side for no more than two minutes, pressing the meat to the pan with the back of a palette knife. Turn the meat over and cook for no more than a minute. Remove to a warm oven-proof dish or tray, and place in a very low oven to rest while you cook the remaining meat.

8. Return the softened onions to the frying pan, together with the chopped pickled walnuts. Stir together quickly and pour over the red wine.

9. Heat the contents of the frying pan, working quickly as you mix everything together gently to ensure that all is completely heated through.

10. Place a spoonful of the onion mixture on a warm plate for each serving, placing two venison medallions on top. Pour over any residual juice and serve with braised red cabbage and creamy parsnip mash.

Shirley Spear is owner of The Three Chimneys and The House Over-By on the Isle of Skye www.threechimneys.co.uk