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 Posted By: roobee71 
Dec 5  # 6 of 19
CCCathy -
Sounds GREAT! Don't know if I'll get any steaks. My hubby has it all ground into sausage :mad:
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. :p
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 Posted By: Jafo232 
Dec 5  # 7 of 19
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.
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 Posted By: KYHeirloomer 
Dec 6  # 8 of 19
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.
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 Posted By: Jafo232 
Dec 6  # 9 of 19
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.
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 Posted By: Cook Chatty Cathy 
Dec 7  # 10 of 19
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