Cooking venision
A couple of weeks after my
big kill, we've had time to try out a few venison recipes.
I've learned a lot, and find myself enamored of the taste, which seems
closer to high quality beef than anything else.
Our first and best
experiment was grilling
the tenderloin (on either side of the backbone) and upper ham (the top
of the "thigh" of the back legs). We let the meat marinate in oil
first since venison tends to be very lean, then rubbed it with some
salt and pepper before tossing it on the grill. That was so
delicious, we all ended up in rapture. Hard to beat.
For my second attempt, I
wanted to try some of the stew quality meat --- the front legs, the
lower parts of the ham, and other random spots around the deer. I
tried roasting the
venison up with some root vegetables, but I was disappointed ---
the taste was good, but I hadn't taken out all of the white stuff
(tendons?) that is so ubiquitous in the lower quality cuts of the
deer. The white stuff cooks up to be very chewy and hard to
eat. I considered this a failure, though Mark gamely munched his
way through and proclaimed it a success.
My third attempt went
much better. Again, I used some of the stew quality meat, but
this time I threw it in the food processor first to be chopped to
little bits. The white stuff stayed unchopped and was easy to
pull out, then I mixed up potsticker
filling with the remaining meat. Those were some of the best
potstickers we've ever eaten! More rapture.
For my next experiment
with the stew meat, I want to try to make Italian sausage. Stay
tuned....
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.