Venison?

SteveJWatson

Interesting. When I buy venison in Germany or get some from my uncle who hunts, I never have to soak it. Do folks in the US not let the meat hang or whatever it's called in English?

LOL -- perhaps it is a regional thing in US? I know in my family and in the community i grew up hanging venison (and beef) to age was common practice. It helps break down the collagen and makes the meet more tender and flavorful. I am pretty sure this is why beef served in the finer restaurants is always aged a couple of weeks or more.

We definitley hang it in a chiller here.

rowanwood

Venison is lean - so you either need to cook it forever or for seconds - when I have venison steaks from the loin I have them super-rare. When I roast legs etc, I have them pink. Stews need cooking for a day, at least.

+1

I love slow cooker venison stew and steaks on the grill that are still practically prancing around....

dennik15

We don't soak it, in fact I've never heard of that. We hang ours for a bit before doing the butchering, except for the ocassional immediate grilling of the back straps. Personally I love the gamey flavor of wild meats, so I would never do anything to lessen that.

Another thought that I haven't seen come up...we can a good bit of venison in a traditional pressure canner. It is fabulous in chili, soup, and stroganoff. It's fall apart tender and a great way to make a quick meal.

Dragonwolf

DH got a deer two weeks ago, and now I am looking for a "tried n true" recipe to cook it. We got several roasts, and ground venison out of it, plus he is taking some to the processors to make summer sausage.

In culinary school, we only touched on game meats briefly, and I haven't had to do anything with it since then. I know I need to run it under cold water for ten minutes and soak it in salt water for ten minutes. After that I would treat it as any other very lean piece of meat. Still, though, a good recipe to compliment the venison would be welcome!

For the most part, you can treat it like a drier form of beef. So any recipe you have for beef, you can generally use with venison, though you might need to add some liquid to keep the texture/thickness right.

We never soaked it in salt water, but we soaked it in vinegar and water mix (we butchered the deer ourselves, and would do the soak as we cut). Probably does the same thing, but might be a good alternative to try. We only hang it when it's cold enough outside (we don't have room anywhere to hang it otherwise), and only for a few hours (so the scavengers don't find it).

If you have dollar steaks (loin medallions?), they are absolutely awesome pan fried with some coconut oil and a little salt and pepper.

It's great as the meat in stroganoff or spaghetti sauce, but like someone else mentioned, it works best mixed with ground beef to add some fat. Barring that, be prepared to use a lot of oil when cooking it.

firstsip

My husband's family has quite a few hunters, so we have a pretty good flow of venison. I'm not a huge fan of backstraps, but for ground venison, this is my tried/true burger recipe (it's the only red meat I can handle):

~18-20 ounces ground venison
1 egg
1-2 tablespoons mayo (I use light mayo, so, whatev)
1-2 tablespoons parsley
1/2 cup panko
Salt and pepper according to your tastes

Form into however many patties--I get a 8 good palm sized, 1-2 inch thick patties from these. It's not too complicated because most of the additives are just to moisten/keep the venison together without detracting from the taste of the meat.

ilizzyd

Bump

kgerm317

<--- Hoping my brother gets one soon, as I LOVE deer meat!! I mix mine with ground beef for meatloaf, or use it solo for a spaghetti meat sauce, in chili or soups.

I also like to take steak medallions and fry it in butter with onions over a camp fire... YUMMMM!!!!!

ENJOY

pbl1966

Crock pot works well to keep venison moist. This weekend we made shredded BBQ venison by cooking roast overnight on low totally covered in liquid ( we used onions, beef stock, Lipton onion soup mix and water). Made an awesome stew out of diced tenderloin and lots of root veggies yesterday.

skullshank

i enjoy taking cubes of backstrap and marinating them for a couple days in a mixture of soy sauce and brown sugar.
then i wrap it in bacon and broil em up. awesome appetizer, or main course if you have enough.

Mainebikerchick

ANYTHING with venison is GREAT!!!! I like to wrap it in bacon and bake it....guarantee you will like it!! This works great on steaks, loins and roasts.

teresamwhite

Alrighty...so I had a roast in the fridge, marinating in HM teriyaki sauce overnight. DH popped that bad boy in the oven at 3PM, with sliced onions and peppers, tightly covered. I will get home at 7PM, with dinner shortly thereafter, so we will see how it goes.