How to Ruin Your Venison

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I disagree on several levels with what is pointed out in the OP. It seems to me that there are a few people (in the world at least, if not on this board) who do not know much about how to cook. The Complete Guide to Game care and Cookery and The Joy of Cooking should be in everyones library. period.

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guid...=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222963685&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.com/Joy-Cooking-I...bs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222963707&sr=1-2

Cooking:

Soaking the "steaks" in milk and eggs or buttermilk and eggs and a modest mixture of spices (a dash of paprika, garlic powder and oregano) for a few hours is a perfectly acceptable way to prepare the steaks for frying... From there you go into flour or seasoned flour or cracker crumbs and fry. Don't use the soaking mixture for gravy or anything else once finished. If using cracker crumbs, or not, pay attention to the salt level, as crackers have salt already, so none need be added, but if using flour alone, make sure you use some salt. Best to use cracker crumbs and seasoned flour until you work the kinks out of your system.

If you tried to use milk as a marinade for the barbq, I would predict the results would be ungood. But it depends on how you are deciding to cook.

The most important thing is to give the venison a familar flavor. Of course venison doesn't taste like beef, so you would chicken fry it or you would marinade it with something that has a familar flavor or cook it in a sauce that will lend it a familar flavor. Grilling the venison is the same story. BTW, as with most things, you do not barbq with the sauce on it. You wait until the last 10 min of cooking and baste with the sauce or just serve the barbq sauce with the meat....

The best way to ruin venison, any game or any food it all is to cook it poorely. By that I mean have someone who the extent of their cooking experience is taking pre-packaged foods (hamburger helper) and preparing them.

Learn how to cook. If you do, then you can't fail.

Spoilage:

The "bacteria" that you are talking about isn't bad per se, it is part of what breaks down the meat and leaves steaks (beef or venison) tender if properly done. That is the purpose of aging.

The reason why you dress and section / quarter the game quickly is so that you can get at the organ meats (liver, heart, kidney's and brain), which spoil quickly, but if harvested soon after the kill are a true delicacy. That is what we eat in the deer camp after we take a deer or elk or moose or whathaveya. I am not a big brain fan myself, because I do not cook it well, but when cooked by an experienced party it is very good.
 
We have recently used a coffee rub and served with jalapeño jelly. The key is to cook the meat as close to rare as possible.

Also, cutting the backstrap into 1" thick medallions, beating them out to thin cutlets, and then pan frying them is a very good way to go.
 
Hi MBT....

I guess you fired that B*B at me.

Two points....

1. Cookbooks can, and are, often written by people who is afraid of game meat and also by people who is just "parroting" what they got from someone else (especially the latter).

2. "The Joy of Cooking" is one of the worst and, it may surprise you but the first "L.L. Bean Game Cookbook" isn't much better.

As I think 35Whelen said... If someone thinks venison is "Gamey" do they also think beef is "Tame-y"?

But, please, feel free to soak your venison in milk or apple sauce or DDT and then coat it with lipstick if that's how you like it. And fry those venison steaks (even though I bet you don't fry beef steaks.:rolleyes:). Do whatever the game experts at the Book-of-the-Month Club in downtown Chicago tell you. I'm not at all worried about you inviting me to dinner.

;)
 
A few points:

Seems we're just taking a few different angles here. I am of the thought that properly cared for venison has a fine flavor of its own, and does not need to be "covered up" or made to taste "familiar" (ie like beef). But just like everything we eat, tastes will vary across the country...so be it.

FWIW, and I don't expect to change any minds with this, meat handlers in my area strongly recommend against using water to rinse out or cool the body cavity of an animal.. A simple drain and wipe, letting the blood form a "glaze" is better, as the water can act as a carrier of bacteria into the meat (that's my understanding, which may be wrong...) then again, we're generally not fighting 80 degree weather during deer season around here!

Lastly, Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is showing up in more and more deer/elk areas - the carrier or 'cause' is called a "prion", and can be found in the eyes, brain, spleen, spinal cord, tonsils, and lymph nodes of the animal. It is NOT destroyed by cooking, bleach, temperature, radiation, etc. It is suspected, though NOT PROVEN, of causing Creutzfeldt Jacob disease in humans (an incurable, degenerative neurological disease). Recommended precautions include wearing latex gloves while dressing, not cutting into or handling or eating the brain, spinal cord,etc. It is advised to bone out your meat, and isolate all knives and tools used in the process from other household implements. For instance, those who have made "chops" by sawing thru the spine would be better advised to filet off the backstraps, etc. If you saw off a skull plate to save antlers, do not use that saw for anything else. Again, note these as precautions, not fear-mongering... Though, I must admit eating the brains must be a regional thing (shiver) - not against a good heart steak, though!
 
+1 Shawnee on hanging them to age.

My first deer was cut up and in the fridge within 12 hours from my gun shot. It was a real chore to butcher during rigor-mortis. It would have benefited greatly had I left it to hang for a day before I began the cutting. I've found that it makes for a bit sweeter taste and definitely easier cutting!
 
Situational tactics

Lots of good points made on this one, might as well toss in some of mine :)

Alot of what we face hunting is very situational, early season archery hunts, antelope, etc, when its warm out call for differnt tactics than a Thanksgiving deer hutn in MT...

For the warm weatehr hunts, I carry a cooler in my truck with 6 1 gallon milk jugs frozen. get an antelope, archery deer, archery elk down, get teh guts out fast, including the entire wind pipe. get it to the truck fast, if legal, skin it then, if not, put a few of teh jugs in teh body cavity, a few against the neck and shoulder, and teh last 2 against the hind quarters, get that meat cool fast.

Cooling aside, grammas cleanliness is next to godlyness applies on any meat. No hair, tallow, tendon, bone, etc. Plain sweet red meat...

I have had teh best luck hanging meat for 7 - 10 days, but as earlier people have mentioned, thats not always an option for everyone. really seems to make a difference letting the blood vessels tighten and squeeze out the blood over time. I see the difference in aging by the amount of blood in teh paper when you thaw it from teh freezer, the shot and into the freezer in 24 hours ones have a ton of blood in the paper, the aged ones have 1/4 the blood or less.

Next situation is when its time to cook. Are we cooking a late season post rut pig of a buck, or a nice fat forked horn 3 weeks before the rut?

Those older bucks or any less prime meat, i haven't found a better method for than "braising" i liek to call it. If you look through some of the general cookbooks out there, these will be the recipes for lower quality of meats, beef shank, etc. In a smoking hot skillet with a little olive oil in it, just sear both sides of a sirloin deer steak for 30 seconds a side. After that, i put them in a dutch oven or other pan/pot that seals up nice and tight, add in some wine or beer, a littel crushed garlic and some onion, put them in a 260 oven for 4 - 6 hours, baste them once or twice through that process with the same solution, and you have some of the most tendor flavorful venison you will find, all from what most would call a burger buck... Just about any favorite marindae/sauce combo works with this method, i have used bottled teriyaki sauce, BBQ sauces of all varieties, beer, wine, even scotch whiskey and water.

For the roasts, i have used similar methods in a crock pot/slow cooker, all seemed to come out great.

One of my fast favorites is deer or elk kabobs if you have a prime cut of meat from an animal, 1 inch cubes on a stick, lightly rubbed with olive oil and black pepper, 2 minutes a side at the most on a hot charcoal fire, eat tehm straight up, or with your favorite dipping sauce, A1 to bbq to honey mustard, anything you like.

Well, enough rambling, i could talk cooking game for weeks :)
 
Shawnee, that is a very good post. A deer that is gutshot is ok if the animal is found within an hour or two. The body cavity of a gut shot deer must be carefully flushed with water-lots of water. When the animal is not found for several hours no amount of flushing is going to help. Bow hunters who gut shoot a deer late in the evening often do not followup until the next morning. Then it is too late; the meat is ruined.

If you think that the animal is gut shot get after it right now. Gut shot a big sow last winter with the muzzleloader: Immediately went after the animal, found her standing about 300 yards away and killed her at close range. The guts of that animal were shredded. Flushing with a few gallons of water from the truck did the trick.

Sometimes it is well over 80 degrees in this part of OK during deer season. At temperatures this high it is necessary to get the body cavity iced within about five hours. At 90 degrees a hog will usually spoil in four hours or less.
 
When an animal is gut shot or just shot through the paunch, its not the end of the world people. simply gut as usual, and use alotof water to flush the body cavity out. then when you skin the deer, you need to cut the skin off around the bullet holes where the guts would have leaked out, as well as along the original cut through the skin made to gut the animal. if you do that, the only edible portion of meat that has a chance of being flavoured are the tenderloins, and those normally come in a ncie layr of fat. so they should be fine.

As far as salt goes, salt is fine on deer. If you use sea salt youll enhance the flavor. and if you use sea salt that was smoked with say, apple or cherry smoke in a smoker, it really perks the flavor up.
And most people i know use the store baught jerky seasoning packs for their sausage/ground deer snack stik things. Look in the nutritional content, youll find those are mainly soy sauce with extra salt or msg added in. and most city bumpkins i know go ga ga for that junk.

Flavor of a game animal depends on what its been eating for its life. something that only eats acorns and corn during poaching season is not going to have the same fine taste as a deer thats been corn/carrot/beet fed its WHOLE life.
Time of year will also make a huge impact. A buck in rut has the worst taste to it, but if its been living on corn, carrots, and beets its whole life, its gonna taste better then a deer that hasnt had the same diet.

For me the only seasoning i use or enjoy is extra virgin olive oil. and that includes a buck that was shot in full rut,gutshot, and left to hang skinned in the garage for a week in december with the fat left on the carcase.
Im hungry now.
 
Having hunted and butchered my Deer from Michigan to Arizona, I have a couple of different methods of Prep.. Arizona deer typically Mule deer, are shot from Mid August to the first week of November. A mule deer here can have a varied diet from desert scrub browse, to pine forests and sage flats. I prefer my deer from the sage flats and pine forest as I think it tastes better. Also the mule deer don't put on the fat layers that a typical whitetail does. Temperature dictates how fast I butcher, if its Aug. & 90 deg's Field dress and washed out as fast as possible then get the skin off to help with cooling the meat down as the heat will spoil it fast in those temps. I get it cut up asap. I haven't been able to see the benefits of aging a Mulie out here so I don't anymore If the deer is shot in the Oct-Nov. hunts and the temps are 30-50 degs Field dress and washed out as fast as possible then get the skin off and get it in a cheese cloth sack, I'll then butcher within 48 hours at most, usually within 24.

Michigan Whitetails, Farm deer taste better to me than the ones from the deep forests or swamp. An archery deer Field dress and washed out as fast as possible then get the skin off and get it in a cheese cloth sack they then may hang a few days after Field dressing and skinning if the temps are cold enough in the garage. Aging a little. Rifle season deer Field dress and washed out as fast as possible then get the skin off and get it in a cheese cloth sack then we'll try and let hang for a week or more aging if possible before butchering for the freezer.

Butchering, Keep things clean, and knives sharp. Trim off all the tallow fat, Get all the gray membranes off the meat you can get and any blood clots. I bone out my deer with the exception of the ribs and neck roasts, I like to BBQ the ribs.

Cooking, I like to Grill my premium steaks with a little olive oil and lightly seasoned, cooked medium rare to medium. Other steaks I'll cook in butter and garlic with seasoned flower until they are medium rare to medium. Roasts are done with lots of veggies and slow cooked till the meat falls a part. The grind I split between Sausage for breakfast and stew meat for soups and chilie.

Hope this helps anyone.
 
another observation

last week of the season last year, we had a hard cold snap, sub zero temps. A friend has his elk and a deer hanging in my barn from the weekend before when it hit. Obviously, they froze solid as a rock.

Brought them up to the shop Friday night to thaw so we could butcher on saturday. As those things thawed out, they bled like they were just shot right there in the shop, just like a frozen pack of meat does as it thaws if it wasn't aged a long time.

We were pretty worried how the meat was going to be after a freezing then thawing, then refreezing. Amazingly, it was excelent, all of it. Not sure if it improved it or not, but it certainly didnt do any harm to it like we feared, as i have read alot of different things saying dont freeze/thaw refreeze. Maybe that is due to bacteria counts going up or whatever, not sure.

In the end, that was the nicest meat to handle all winter and summer, almost no blood in the packs when thawed, and tender, i think more tender than anything else we butchered last year. Will have to delve into the aging process more and see what i can find for true facts on it all, exactly how it breaks things down, etc.

Best part of having a freezer full of game meat all year long, even the occasional crash that you can't chew, the dogs will still eat, and the ones that turn out great are worth all the work.
 
-Biggest help for venison is to drop a young animal quickly and cleanly, gut, skin, and quarter it immediately, then hang it at 40 degrees or just under for at least a full day.

Then you'll have meat fit for a king's table, much less yours!
 
Favorite recipe for any deer/elk

Here is one that will make any round steak out of any deer or elk be better than just edible. Need a crock pot for it.

Elk/Deer Stroganoff

1.5 - 1.75 lbs of round steak(or whatever cut you have, ie uncle bobs hack and whack steak, home butchering being what it is today :))

2 table spoons of flour
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
1/2 teaspoon of paprika

1 envelope dry onion soup mix (1oz)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup of water

7 or 8 fresh mushrooms, or 1 can or jar of mushrooms
3/4 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon of parsley

In the crock pot, mix flour, garlic, pepper, and paprika

Cut meat into 1/2 inch by 1&1/2 inch strips, then put into crock pot with flour mix. Toss all of this together until the meat is covered in powder mixture.

Add the envelope of dry onion soup mix, cream of mushroom soup, and water into the crock pot with the meat. Stir it up until its all well mixed.

Can cook this on high for 3 - 3.5 hours, or low for 6 - 7 hours in the crock pot.

Once it is cooked, mix in the sour cream, mushrooms, and parsley and leave on low while you cook up a 1 lb bag of egg noodles per instructions on the bag. When noodles are done, its chow time.....

I like to have fresh asparagus with this one, but any veggie you like goes pretty well with it.

One more note, i put the cooked mix in a 1 gallon ziplock bag and freeze flat with other meals when i take the ponies in the wildernes for extended hunts. all you have to do is put the frozen glob in a pot and reheat back there and make some noodles to go with, and you have one hearty hunting camp meal in a matter of minutes :)
 
I always take the "sausage cuts" and cut them into long, thin strips that are more or less diamond-shaped in cross-section, then lay them out on waxed paper, roll them up, wrap 'em in butcher paper and freeze 'em.

Then, for breakfast, I take a handful of these strips, dip 'em in thinned pancake batter, and fry 'em up.

Who needs bacon!
 
Whiskey is also good at taking out the "gameiness". Whiskey, lemon juice and BBQ marinaded for a few hours. Wipe the meat off before you grill the steaks.
 
Riding around with deer carcasses clearly visible on our vehicles is definitely not going to help us win anyone over. Put 'em down in the bed if possible. Better yet, quarter it in the woods and put it in an ice chest.
Click to expand...

Bah, don't be so weak. I'm a vegetarian and it doesn't bother me... where do these people think their mcdonalds burgers come from?

As a side note I was driving on a local highway when I saw a guy that I work with passing me by... with a dead deer in the passengers' seat of his geo tracker. Pretty funny, nice guy, kind of a hoosier though!
 
Times sure have changed. Used to be, thirty/forty years ago, you had a nice buck visible on your vehicle, folks on the highway would give you a thumbs up and the neighbors would all come over to admire it.
Click to expand...

Guess I am glad to live in a place "behind the times", because here local lots of folks still show their trophy off and lots of folks still walk over to look and congratulate the great hunter!
 
Second, on the Dales Steak Sauce for a marinade. I'm surprised that no one has mentioned using a pressure cooker to tenderize the meat. Putting the meat in a pressure cooker, 10 lbs pressure for 5 minutes, then marinate.
 
DECKER's Oct 8th post above reminded me of this:

Cooking in a slow cooker...low heat, overnight...is a sure way to tenderize tough meat. Depending on the meat, I may use red wine, onions, mushrooms, a hine of garlic. Wonderful for venison strogonoff! Stir in sour cream and spoon over noodles.

We invited a couple of friends over for dinner, and during casual conversation before serving, it turned out that the one meat they didn't like was venison! Just did not like it in any form. My wife and I just looked at each other and didn't say anything...because venison strogonoff was the entre! So, we crossed our fingers and served dinner...and they raved about it! Said it was one of the best meals theiy had ever had...couldn't get enough of it! They were dumbfounded when we finally told them what it was...;)
 
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