Whipping up a firecracker

The weather might be against them, but Leon Challis-Davies still manages to feed the team a hearty caramelised breakfast burger

- Leon Challis-Davies

I always look forward to April and the start of the roebuck season. Roe meat is much sweeter than fallow and red, and it has a finer texture that makes it ideal for burgers. That sweet caramelised venison smell and flavour was all I could think about at 5am as I drove to meet Stuart Eborall of Warwickshire Wild Game. I was drooling, knowing that the day’s breakfast was to be a mouthwatering, juicy breakfast burger — a McVenison, perhaps?

The huge success of Warwickshire Wild Game’s Firecracker burger at this year’s Stalking Show inspired this outing. I wanted to show how easy it is to prepare this dish and prove it’s not just for a BBQ or dinner. We had tried for a buck back at the start of the season, but a pesky pheasant spoilt our luck. Today we were determined to strike gold. But once again, we found ourselves faced with a very wet morning.

Waiting for dawn to poke its head out on a day like today made daybreak tricker to predict, so we decided on an early meet in order to gauge just the right time to set off. Stuart had already been out earlier in the week and seen a couple of deer that needed to be culled, so we knew where to go first. We took our time starting off. Stuart pointed out that at any given time we could spot the bucks he had carefully been scouting over the past few days. We walked up the hill along the grass verge, trying to be as quiet as we could, knowing that the deer could pop out anywhere along our route.