I need info on cooking deer meat

[ExitMisery]

I would like advice on how to cook various cuts of deer meat. I gave permission for 2 neighborhood hunters to track/hunt on my land this rifle season. One came to my door this morning, and said while he didn't bag them on my land, he got 2 good sized deer yesterday morning. They are being processed this week, and as a thanks for allowing him on my land/tracking them, he will be bringing over about 20 (!) pounds of various cuts. I have a deep freezer, so I can store the meat. I know I can look up recipes and stuff on the net, but wonder if there are any special favorites you can share. Maybe in my life I have eaten deer meat twice, and the last time had to be 10 years ago.

Thanks! Marilyn

 

[Dennis Olson]

I make deer meat exactly as I do beef meat. Except for ground deer (which is WAY too lean, and must have fat ADDED to it!) you can do the same.

For deer steak my fav recipe is to bake them until about medium-rare. Then I heat a skillet HOT, add butter, and sear the steaks in butter on each side for about 30 seconds. (They end up a nice medium.)

Then I place them on a plate, add a butter pat and a little Lawry's seasoned salt, and dig in. Quick, easy and VERY yummy...

 

[BillBk]

I/we always defrost any wild game in cheap wine to take some of that gamey taste out ( espcially rutting bucks! )
Deer taste soooo much better if they still have the spots on them. ( don't bother yelling at me,heard it all)
Venison sausage is good,but ya have to add beef fat to make it stick together.
If you want to get used to it a little at a time, dice it up and pressure cook it and fix it like stew meat and noodles or with rice and veggies.
It's ok,just different when you're used to beef.

 

[BillBk]

How about a little thread drift,stories from the home front?
We were all over at MILs eating steak and baked taters yrs. ago.
I knew it was venison and figured everyone did.
She had fixed it pretty much like Dennis' recipe and everyone was really enjoying them talking about how "cut them with a fork" tender they were and how the pepper seasoning was just right.
Then,,, one of the girls commented on how small the bones were!
Then all the girls and two of the boys started almost gagging and couldn't even leave the rest of theirs on the plate!
So the rest of us got all we wanted that day.
We still make a joke 'bout it when we have beef steak,telling the girls that those bones sure look little and maybe we'd better eat that piece of meat for them.....

 

[Homestyle]

Deer meat is very lean and I love it. Use/cook it just as you would beef. We always have the roasts, steaks cut but the rest of the deer meat is ground into ground meat with as much fat as I want added, usually about 10%. You can soak the roast and steaks in salt water over night to get the gamey taste out of it and it will be just fine.

 

[Ramangel]

I have had good results soaking the meat in butter milk or beer overnight to get rid of gamey taste.

I like to make chicken fried steak with it. Yummy!
I mix the ground vension with ground beef or ground pork when making meatloaf so it doesn't dry out as bad..

I also make jerky with it. I just posted some jerky recipes on the preserving venison thread for Cowardly Lion.

 

[craig bertok]

the guys I know...

The guys who I know who eat a lot of venison marinate the steaks in canola oil and spices and vinegar I think(but I'm not sure) over night.. The whole day before, kind of thing.
____ actually, to get right to the mark.....more depends on what the steaks or ground meat tastes like. As in: what were the steak-bearing animals eating. It makes as much of a difference as "how old" the animal was, I think.
__________________
But these guys always load the freezers with strickly grain-fed, cattle-ized whitetails and muleys......and they marinade the stuff anyways. garlic, sage, ginger that kind of thing
(yum)

 

[Peanut]

I know I'm coming into this a little late but....

The problem most people have with venison is the smell when its cooking. The easiest way to avoid that is to season the oil before you cook the meat. To do this, cut up an onion and brown it in the oil before adding the meat, remove the onion then cook meat. Your house will not have that "deer" smell.

 

[Dogwood]

You've probably already figured out how to cook the venison but for you and others who might be interested, here's a pretty good site with lots of various game recipes.

Game Recipes