Anyone for Wild Game Recipes???

If so, let me know and we'll fix you up...
Looking for a specific game type, just ask...
Yum:

I've got several hundred of them myself, Doug, not to mention the ones in wild game cookbooks. So we could probably get quite a thread going.

My husband got a doe and a buck over the weekend. How about some deer steak recipes? He usually has the meat made into "Summer" sausage. Any way to serve that other than with cheese and crackers?
Thanks for an interesting post.

For simple things like steak, just treat it like very lean beef. But watch the cooking times; venison has little fat, so it can dry out quickly. And maybe add some fat in the form of bacon.

How you cook it depends, too, on where the steaks were cut. Obviously, the loin will be more tender than the rump.

As for the sausage, instead of actual crackers, run the changes on some of the root veggies. Jicama, turnips, etc., sliced thin, make great platforms for things like summer sausage.

Venison Steak Recipe

First wash and rinse steaks, then soak them in lemon juice/water mixture until ready to cook. When ready to cook, rinse steaks and pat dry; sprinkle liberally with lemon pepper seasoning and garlic powder and onion powder.

Dredge the seasoned steak in flour then brown in hot oil in an iron skillet until nicely browned on both sides. Place steaks into a crock-pot; pour in enough boiling water to cover steaks then add 3 beef boullion cubes and 1/2 cup freshly diced onion and 1 tsp. dried parsley. Place lid on crock pot set heat to high and cook 6 to 8 hours.

This makes a nice gravy and I serve mine over rice. The meat melts in your mouth! It is so tasty, and has no strong gamey taste!

yummy

CCCathy -
Sounds GREAT! Don't know if I'll get any steaks. My hubby has it all ground into sausage
I can't even stand the smell of the sausage.
Thanks to you too KYHeirloomer. Maybe I can get hubby to eat some veggies. I'll probably have to stop buying crackers to do so.

I have quite a few friends that hunt and most of them butcher their harvest themselves. Seems at least 3-4 times throughout the season, I get dropped off a couple of leg quarters that are mostly only good for stew meat or to grind. I usually just cut it into stew meat.

There are a million tricks with venison but here are some things I do with this particular cut:

If your situation is like mine, prepare to get bloody as you carve it up. Set out some newspapers under your cutting board.

Chances are, there will be a bit of hair on the meat itself. This is just part of the skinning process. Deer shed like a dog in a heat wave. What I do to get rid of this excess blood, and remove 99% of the hair is before I butcher up the meat, I set aside a two large bowls filled with COLD salt water. About 1/2 cup kosher salt to 1 gallon of water. Make sure it is pretty cold, you may even want to add some ice to the water.

When you cut up the pieces, throw them in the first bowl.. By the time your done butchering, you will notice the bowl is dark red and there will be a bit of hair floating on top. Pour into a strainer and let sit for a minute and then put it all in the second bowl and let sit for a couple minutes and then strain.

You should avoid all of the white tendons and tallow in the meat when butchering. None of it is fat in the culinary sense of the term and will convey gamey flavors and tough textures (i.e. grizzle). Just try to use the meat that is red all the way through.

At this point you want to let the meat dry a bit, and I usually blot it with paper towels. Then, using butcher paper, separate the meat into suitable packages and freeze.

As for preparing the stew meat. Heat a large pot (I use a dutch oven) with canola oil. Enough oil so the bottom is covered by 1/2 inch. Heat to medium high.

Liberally salt and pepper the pieces. I usually do this by putting the pieces in a bowl, cover the pieces with salt and pepper, stir it, and repeat. Sift flour over the pieces and then stir, repeat until all the pieces are coated with the flour.

Working in batches, place the pieces in the pot when the oil is hot. After a couple minutes, stir so you sear all sides of the pieces.. Depending on their size, this should only take a total of 3-4 minutes per batch. At this point, you can eat these pieces right there and then and they are delicious. Usually though, I place them into my stew concoction at this point and slow cook them until the meat is just falling apart.

Like you, I've usually used those leg sections either for stewing or grinding.

Recently, however, I saw where somebody used them to make a venison version of occo buco. What you want to do is cut those shank pieces, crosswises, into pieces about 2" thick. You'll need some sort of bone saw for this.

I haven't tried this, so don't know what they do about the potential gaminess of the fat and connective tissue. But it sounded like an interesting alternative.

I would definitely give that a shot if I still had my ban saw. Back in the days when I used to hunt, I had a special blade on the saw I used just for venison. Made butchering much easier.

I was wondering what about ground venison? If you wanted to use it as you would gr. beef - would you want to soak the meat prior to grinding it? I think you could do that and not compromise the nutritional value? I used to grind for making sausage, but never made it into anything else. I was thinking it would make good Sloppy Joe's, and such recipes that use a moist cooking method, since the meat is rather lean. Can anyone let me know?
Thanks, Cathy

Well, it comes down to this:

If you don't mind some venison hair in your meat, don't soak it.

Yeah Jafo I guess you've got a definite point there! Do you use it like you would ground beef? I guess I wash mine so well it gets all the hair off, but I soak it to remove some of the "gamey" taste.

I never soak wild game.

Instead I just brush it with a soft cloth, moistened with a vinegar/water mix. Any hair comes right off.

For high-liquid dishes the ground venison should be fine. Just don't cook it as long as you would beef. For hamburgers and the like, I would want to add some fat. Ground pork works well, or even some beef suet if you can find it.

BTW, unless they've been eating red acorns, if the venison was field dressed, butchered, and frozen properly there should be no gaminess about it. The "gamey" taste people complain of usually comes from semi-rancid fat.

Cook Chatty Cathy said:

Yeah Jafo I guess you've got a definite point there! Do you use it like you would ground beef? I guess I wash mine so well it gets all the hair off, but I soak it to remove some of the "gamey" taste.

Click to expand...

The leg quarters I was speaking about are perfect for grinding. As KY said, most of the gaminess is from the fat and I usually cut that out of the meat wherever I can.

As for soaking, that is probably the wrong word. You are only leaving the meat in the water for a couple minutes. It just helps dissolve the blood on the meat so it will release the hair. The blood gets sticky when it is exposed to air, such as when it gets skinned and quartered.

Thanks KYH & Jafo for the helpful hints. I certainly needed them. Semi-Rancid Fat YUCK!!!
CCCathy

Here is a recipe I whipped together last night, it was delicious! Anyway, here you go:

Jeffs Recipes » Savory Asian Venison

My hubby is into Deer hunting big time and loves to eat the meat. I don't eat wild meat ...lol..just call me picky.... I have a long list of things I don't eat !
Can't stand that "wild " taste of Venison.
Any tips on making it taste less gamey ? I have tried soaking it with a touch of vinegar or garlic and even over night in Buttermilk but still can't get around that wild taste.

Much of the "gaminess" of wild kill isn't just an automatic taste that all game has, mrsjimmyp- much of it is caused by the adrenaline that pushes through the animal's system in moments of fear and haste. For instance, if the deer doesn't know the hunter is even there- and the shooter gets the animal "just right" and there's no fear, no panic, running for miles literally "for it's life", then the animal will likely be pretty free of any severe "gamey" taste. However if the animal senses danger and is literally hunted down and chased, and then if after being wounded the animal continues to run for miles and miles like deer are prone to do, then you're gonna have one freezer full of gamey meat!

I'm a purist- I prefer my venison, moose and caribou like I like my beef- salt & pepper only- maybe a brush or garlic-butter if I'm feeling fancy. But if you've got a gamey taste to work with, lemon juice & red wine, and LOTSA juniper berries and TONS of fresh rosemary all do a decent job of masking some of that- but not all, mind you.

Another idea is to cut the meat into workable thin "cutlets" or medallions, dredge in flour seasoned w/ S&P, then saute in a pan of clarified butter. When the meat is nearly as done as you want it, deglaze the pan w/ a swaller of whiskey/brandy/cognac (watch the flames! They'll subside in a few seconds...) ladle-in a couple ounces of demi-glace, or rich beef gravy. Heat well, then stir in a spoon or two of currant jelly- or cherry. The resulting complex flavored sauce is delicious and will help mask a strong gaminess quite well.

Kevin is absolutely right about the adrenaline thing. This shows up especially in animals like pronghorn, which are often "hunted" by running them with jeeps. Not my idea of sport.

With deer (especially nowadays, when most of them are ambushed from tree stands) the major contributor to gaminess is improper field dressing and butchering.

Game should be field dressed and cooled as quickly as possible. The better insulator it's hair is, the faster that should be done. Again, using pronghorn as an example: they have the best insulation of all game animals, and should be dressed and cooled within 15 minutes. Otherwise their own body heat promotes spoilage.

Venison fat has a unique property: even while frozen it can turn rancid. And that's the usual cause of gaminess.

When butchering a deer---or any other game animal---I remove every iota of fat, silverskin, and connective tissue. The meat is then packaged using butcher paper and tape, the contents clearly marked, and kept in a 0 degree freezer until needed.

I have never had gamy meat doing that.

BTW, this whole question of gaminess is open to interpretation. I don't consider venison to be gamy. But lamb can be. And mutton is, by definition.