deer meat

J

jmrob93

Guest
pretty slow these days on rusty's beffalo grill

it's getting close to bow season and

I moved to the country this year (Eagle lake--rice farm---yes we eat rice with chili--no beans)-- family land and plan on more than my usual one deer made into sausage (vinceks-East bernard) and a few packages of backstrap.

I usually do deer kabobs with ken's balsamic vinegar and montreal steak seasoning--cook to rare--wow

And i always chicken fry some back strap-- takes me back to my childhood

i occasionally do stir fry-- fajitas or dirty deer rice

And of course deer chili-- 1/2 ground and 1/2 cubed--guiness to taste

but I need a few new ideas

Please feel free to help expand my horizons
 
At first glance I thought this was a letter.

"Dear Meat

I miss you terribly. After 6 hours on the smoker, you and I will be reunited like famous and amos.

Love,
me"
 
Either feed it to the dogs or buy a dehydrator and make jerky.

Now I will sit back and laugh at the firestorm of criticism I will get from people under 30.
 
I would turn down ribeye to eat my deer kabobs-- lean, tender and all meat
 
VERY glad to see some replies that don't try to imply that meat cooking and preferences in that matter are not turned into silly questions of manliness instead of personal tastes.

Fwiw, the palatability of venison varies greatly with handling. You would never see a steak served from a cow that had been shot and gutted in the field and then thrown in the back of a pickup for a few hours (often the case) and then hung in an unrefrigerated palce for a day or two before the booze runs out (with the hide ON).

Of course, there are people who know how to handle a deer carcass and any of them might chime in, but even the most adeptly handled whitetail corpse (my assumption about being whitetail) pales in comparison to any beast that eats grass for a living - IMO.

It's just an opinion
 
There are glands in the inner thigh that have to be removed or they will taint the meat--- the Europeans have figured out long ago how to handle wild game and they have correctly concluded that this it a delicacy. My wife who is not a big wild game person has even figured out that wild hog tastes better--the porkchops of a "exercising" hog taste mucj meatier and less fatty than a store bought porkchop.
 
THe chicken fried with rice and cream gravy has my mouth watering.

Here is my humble offering:

Slcie some medallions of backstrap about 1/2" season with salt and pepper and lightly dust with flour.

Sautee in a little olive oil until outisde if barely brown and inside is still VERY rare.

Add red wine, carmelized onions, and nice mushrooms, maybe a little chicken stock and reduce.

Add medallions back into pan with a little sour cream and serve over risotto, pasta, etc......

You should thank me now, when you eat this dish you will be too busy shovelling to bother.

This is also very good with dove or duck breast by the way.
 
Either feed it to the dogs or buy a dehydrator and make jerky.

You da man, nick.

Most venison is not very good. Just because you spent a lot of money on your lease, gun, funny looking clothes, and got drunk on a weekend bromance getaway doesn't make your deer meat taste any better.
 
It's probably quite unfortunate that most deer are harvested when they are at the apex of hormonal levels. I gave away my bow, but I didn't notice any difference in taste between the October deer and the later ones.
 
The flavor of venison is directly related to both the skill of the hunter as a marksman and his talents with a knife once the animal is on the ground.

Venison that is well respected (and correspondingly well taken care of) is as good and delicious a source of protein as there is anywhere.

The slappys that do not honor the animal, those that shoot their bow or more likely their rifle once or twice a year and treat the animal accordingly supposing they even get it on the ground should be ashamed of themselves.

The animal deserves some respect dammit!
 
Venison that is well respected (and correspondingly well taken care of) is as good and delicious a source of protein as there is anywhere.


Sorry, but I have to call BS on that. I'm not saying that venison is inherently bad, but it's clearly not in the same league as, say, Kobe beef, or any other fine steak with good marbeling.

Venison is fine for what it is, but to say it's the equal of the best that's out there is simply not true. It's simply too lean to be in the upper echelon. Which gets me close to going on a rant about how people are generally clueless about dietary fat, specifically fat in meat.
 
I have my own persoanl opinion that what a deer (animal) eats for several years is more important than how well you shoot your weapon (kill the beast). Grazers are IN MY OPINION infinitely better to eat than browsers. A rutting buck that is wounded and ultimately retrieved after 5 hours in STexas sun tastes like a turd would probably taste, but even a doe taken with an instant kill on a frigid day and skinned immediately and hung in a walk-in cooler is no match for a cow in my book. Cow is a helluva lot cheaper for most people anyway.
 
Everyone has their opinion and I could not agree more with the analogy about the gut shot rutting buck that lies on the ground for hours before being prepared. That is why I do not shoot rutting bucks or at ANY animal where I am not 100% sure that I am going to make a precise and clean kill. I have never had to search for a deer and lord willing never will. Every deer I have ever killed has been located less than ten yards from where the bullet hit them.

But I respectfully disagree about the venison that is taken under good conditions and treated well.

IMO the loin and tenderloins off of that animal are better than any beef make that MUCH better.



But then that is why they make chocolate and vanilla.
 
To prove I don't hate it, just don't prefer it, I submit the following:

1 Strap very thinly sliced (half frozen helps the thin part)
1 stick butter
2 cloves minced garlic (minimum)
1 small onion diced finely
1/2C Shikken stock
1/2lb shrooms sliced
1/2C vermouth
1 shot brandy or cognac (go ahead and get the shiity stuff. **** the experts)
1 shot madeira or sherry
1T tarragaon
1T Basil
1.5C heavy cream
3 egg YOLKS, beaten

Saute the straplets in half the butter. Remove deer and replace with onion and garlic and when they are soft add the "brandy or cognac" and the "sherry or madiera" OFF THE HEAT and then light it up after it's back on the heat. Let it burn out. Add the stock and vermouth and spices and put bambi back in and simmer VERY slowly for 30 minutes at most. You can get by with many fewer minutes. Your call

While bambi is in the hot tub, saute (that's saute, not scorch) the shrooms in the rest of the butter for about 5 miutes and then add the cream and egg YOLKS and just let them get warm.

Then, with the deer on a serving plate, add the rest of everything together and heat it up, WITHOUT BOILING, for a minute or two and then serve it on top of the venison.
 
Another really tasty way is to soften a stick of butter and whirl it in a food processor with a tablespoon or two of sage (sage is just meant for venison imo) and a squirt of lemon juice. Roll the goo up in some wax paper and reharden it in the freezer. Then, when you have grilled your strap*, let the butter pallets that you cut from the hardened roll melt over the meat that you cut into medallions. Try not to make them look like they came off of the cardboard things at Luby's.


*Strap. Backstrap is considered the most choice cut of meat from a deer and I agree that there isn't a better one, but there is seriously no difference between a backstrap and a muscled out ham. Deer work for a living and they are very lean. They don't marble like a Bevo-wannabe might. Thus, there is no difference between most of the flesh that comes off of a deer (sounds a bit creepy, I know). Separating out large muscle bundles from the hams gives you about 3 times the meat that a strap does and it tastes no different.
 
You realize that with the above recipes, one could substitue venison with dog/cat/shoe leather and it would be equally tasty, right?

The test of the meat, as meat, is what it tastes like on its own. Venison is too lean, it lacks the fat required for superb taste. You can take just about anything (meat wise) and combine it with a stick of butter and it will come out ok.
 
I agree on the substitution. I usually tell people they could use possum testicles if they are going to chicken fry venison and I imagine that creamy recipe would work on coon dicks if you get the bone out.
 
I know absolutely nothing about this. I don't hunt. But, reading this I find myself wondering if part of the difference for those of you who like venison and those of you who don't, might have something to do with where the animals are grazing. If pasture land is overgrazed, how could it possibly produce fat meaty venison? Just as an experiment, maybe those of you who don't like to eat the venison you shoot should look to see if your deer leases have a lot of limestone showing, instead of a lot of grass. (Oh bother, I'm sounding like my Aggie grandfather)
 
Most deer (all whitetail) are browsers. They really aren't grass eaters. They eat weeds and tender growth on shrubs and trees. Axis deer are grass grazers to a point and they have much better flavor and a different texture that I personally prefer. Deer work for a living and they don't loll around chewing their cud like a fat cow might. Other than birds, there really aren't too many game animals that develop a lot of fat or marbling. And feral hogs are not game animals. They are domesticated beasts gone wild. Kinda like a frat rat and only skanks and repressed bowheads eat them.

There are a ton of people who believe that a quick clean kill produces a much better tasting beast. The theory I have heard is that a wounded animal undergoes a great deal of stress that impacts the flavor. I have little opinion on that. I personally feel that it just depends on how fast you get to the deer and get it dressed out and skinned. Taking the skin off immediately and chilling is much more important than anything else. That opinion is based upon the opinions of a commercial meat packer that used to run their own killing floor. They never handled deer (you can't handle game in the same facility as domestic animals), but his explanations made a great deal of sense.

The status of the deer's dating is also important. For your meat, shoot a fat doe without fawn early in the season. For your antlers, shoot a nasty tasting rutting buck that has run itself ragged and will taste, um, not so good.
 
A few years back, aTm tested various venison handling practices by taste testing the end result. To no one's surprise, deer that were field dressed, skinned that same day, cooled quickly and hung to age for 1 week or more at approximately 40 degrees tasted noticeably better. If any of those proper handlling steps were ignored, it negatively affected the taste of the venison.

I've eaten enough corn-fed midwest white tail and grass-fed muleys to know that grass fed doesn't necessarily mean superior taste. I'll take those midwest white tails any day. The pickens can be pretty slim for white tails in Texas, so that may account for the poorer taste.

OTOH, elk and pronghorn are grass grazers just like mule deer, and I like both of them better than the mule deer. Maybe it's just the way mule deer taste. What I do know is that farmland white tails are superior to brush country or forest (I'm talking evergreen forest) white tails.

Another thing I've read -- but have no first hand knowledge -- is that white tails that feed more on white oak acorns have a better taste than those that feed on red oak acorns. Red oak acorns are more bitter-tasting than white oak acorns, but most oaks in Texas are white oaks (live oak, bur oak, chinkapin and post oak, to name a few), so that probably isn't a factor. Think spiney leaves for red oaks and oblong leaves for white oaks.

I admit that I don't know anyone who simply throws a venison steak on the grill with salt & pepper like you would a beef steak. With any venison, you almost have to do something like marinate or slather with butter/olive oil, etc. and make damn sure you don't cook it past rare or medium rare. Beef is obviously much more forgiving than venison.
 
Interesting about the corn. I'd never thought about the deer that maraud through corn fields. Funny that grass-fed beef is considered better than corn-fattened. Sounds like browsers are at the bottom of the food taste chain.

My sister has about 5 or 6 volunteer residents from the fallow deer family. I understand they really aren't very good eating.

I'm personally opposed to marinating steaks of just about any kind. If I wanted beef to tast like Italian dressing or worcestershire or whatever nasty concoction comes out of an ice chest, I would order it that way. I HATE it when someone volunteers to bring steaks and then presumes to marinate the meat with their "special mix". Usually an $18 steak. Those are supposed to taste good without marinating. Whitetail? Not so much. Mind you a free steak is a free steak, but usually it's not free, but a proportional contribution.

Anyway, whitetail can probably be helped with marinating, but one of the simplest ways to cook it is to make a compound butter with 2-3T sage, 1/2 lemon and 1 stick of butter. Soften, whirl and glop it onto some wax paper and roll a huge Bob Marley style cylinder and put it in the freeze to firm it up. The sage is a natural with venison.
 
My Grandmother used to marinate venison in milk. I wouldn't think it would add any flavor, like italian dressing, but it did seem to make the venison more tender and less gamy. She's been gone a long time so maybe I'm just having fond memories of her, but I don't think so.
 
I'm sure you remember correctly. That is a time-honored tradition. Some use buttermilk. It supposedly draws the "gaminess" out and it seems to work. Lots of places soak their chifriesteaks that way.
 
I usually soak mine in liquid smoke, then use it to make chili...with beans. Served over spaghetti, of course.
 
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