C2, beautiful pix and delectable looking dish. I'm most interested in knowing what you did with the strap (if you did anything, yet, which I'm guessing you didn't).

David Hammond wrote:C2, beautiful pix and delectable looking dish. I'm most interested in knowing what you did with the strap (if you did anything, yet, which I'm guessing you didn't).

Thanks! It is a good dish for scenting the house with lovely aromas.

You're correct, I have not yet used it. I have the good china and linens syndrome. When I know something is special, I get hung up on when and how to use it.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:

David Hammond wrote:C2, beautiful pix and delectable looking dish. I'm most interested in knowing what you did with the strap (if you did anything, yet, which I'm guessing you didn't).

Thanks! It is a good dish for scenting the house with lovely aromas.

You're correct, I have not yet used it. I have the good china and linens syndrome. When I know something is special, I get hung up on when and how to use it.

Regards,

I'd suggest a pan fry drizzled with an herb-laced cream sauce.

David,

Thanks! I appreciate the advice.

Regards,

Hi,

Defrosting in the refrigerator is a venison 'ham roast.' I did a search to find people have cured and smoking this cut. If someone has experience on this, I'd appreciate any thoughts. Especially if you didn't like it cured and smoked, but came up with a better use for this cut. Everything I looked up circled back to curing and smoking, which I am perfectly willing to do. I would prefer an affirmation this is a best use of this meat.

I will be doing something with it tomorrow evening one way or another.

Thanks!

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

Defrosting in the refrigerator is a venison 'ham roast.' I did a search to find people have cured and smoking this cut. If someone has experience on this, I'd appreciate any thoughts. Especially if you didn't like it cured and smoked, but came up with a better use for this cut. Everything I looked up circled back to curing and smoking, which I am perfectly willing to do. I would prefer an affirmation this is a best use of this meat.

I will be doing something with it tomorrow evening one way or another.

Thanks!

Regards,

We cooked our venision ham and it wasn't much like a pork ham. We didn't cure or smoke and, as I recall, we just baked it.

I've done venison roasts just like beef roasts but I oil them with a light rub of garlic. Same for the strap, I cut it into fillet sizes and grilled them. The main thing is to keep them moist so I bush them lightly with oil mid way.

David Hammond wrote:We cooked our venision ham and it wasn't much like a pork ham. We didn't cure or smoke and, as I recall, we just baked it.

How was it as a roast?

Regards,

HI Cathy - if you are referring to the round roast that comes from the rear leg, you can do a lot with it, e.d. slice it into round steaks, dissect the eye of round for a smaller roast and use the rest in the crock pot, or roast it whole.

IMO, after taking and eating probably 30 deer, ibest use is to cook it whole "Italian Beef style" in the crock pot. I have an easy recipe that is quite good if you care to give it a try. PM me if you're interested.

BTW - my nine-year-old son took his first deer on 10/10/10 and we grilled the backstraps a few hours later - delicious!

Davooda

Davooda,

Congratulations to your son!

I went to the kitchen to take a picture to make sure we are talking and thinking of the same cut. This is just over 3 pounds and two-three inches thick:


Venison, ham roast by cal222, on Flickr

Have you ever cured and smoked this piece?

Regards,

Yep - that looks like a nice piece of bottom round. The top round has a point on it and would reside over top of this portion. I do whole rounds in the crock pot. The eye of round is to the right of the bone. I think if this as the "poor man's filet" of venison. It makes a tasty steak.

I have never cured any venison, but I did try smoking some years ago when I had a Brinkmann cylinder smoker. I don't think venison lends itself well to low and slow, Cathy, due to the lack of any marbling or interior fat. I recall the smoked venison was overcooked on the outside, kind of raw on the inside and generally inedible because it was so tough. I have make jerky out of venison, but not this cut. Venison jerky can be delicious but in my experience it smells up your whole house. I was able to do this as a single man, but Mrs. Davooda has a sensitive nose

Davooda -

Because the roast comes from the same part of the leg a ham would come from on a pig, does not make it suitable for treatment like a ham. If cut thin (1/2"), this cut can be chicken fried quickly and served hot. As venison cools from cooking, the gamey taste starts to become stronger but the strength of the taste depends on the feed. Here in SE Wisconsin the deer feed in the cut corn and have very little gamey taste but in the UP, its the reverse as they feed on browse. If cubed this cut can be used like beef stew meat also. It much too large for a roast unless you would roll it up and then it should be braised.
I just shot a 'button buck' last Thursday in the Wisconsin early 4-day season in a cut corn field. i process myself so I know the quality but because the incidence of CWD, deer are boned out and no bones severed. So all our meat is boned and for the legs i make a couple of small roasts, cut some steaks as described previously and the rest is for stew, chili or what have you.
I do not make sausage, cure or brine or any other masking type of process but prefer to enjoy the venison for its unique quality and taste.-Dick

bud,

Do you hang your deer a few days before processing or do you go straight to it? I noticed the meatlocker waited almost 10 days between kill and processing.

I was eight or nine when a neighbor hung a deer in his backyard. For suburban Washington, D.C. kids, this was quite a unique site. Where I live now, a deer prancing around the neighborhood is fairly common. I never saw one in Maryland.

Regards,

For those with a larger venison roast, you can roast it as you would beef BUT since it is so lean, you may wish to help it by threading some bacon through it. To do this, you will need a larding needle. They are not easy to find, even in kitchen/cooking shops, but I recently saw them in Big Lots of all places. IIRC, the price as only $2.99 and is a decent quality.

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywor ... lhr7uen3_e

And thanks to the bacon the pan drippings make a mighty fine gravy. Add some beef stock, a sqeeze of lemon and a dollop of sour cream . Heaven.

Hi,

I made Schnitzel from the long round muscle on the lower right quadrant.


Venison, ham roast by cal222, on Flickr


October-20-2010 Venison schnitzel by cal222, on Flickr

I cut out the round to make a small steak tomorrow. The remainng meat will be made into Italian beef per Davooda's recipe.

Thanks for all the ideas. This one piece of meat will test at least three of those suggestions.

Regards,

Cathy - that schnitzel looks great! Did you pound the meat thin before dredging/coating or just slice it very thin? And did you brine/marinate it in anything?

I hope to try this as it looks delicious!

The ingredients I provided for the Italian Venison are scaled to cooking a whole round roast so I would suggest much smaller amounts of everything for a much smaller piece of meat. The goal is to make it piquant but not to overpower the venison flavor - the slight gaminess sets Italian Venison apart from its more domesticated cousin Italian Beef

Cheers,
Davooda

Hi,

I prepared the Schnitzel similar to the thread I linked to. I sliced a piece to half to a quarter inch, began pounding it with the flat, then the small toothed tenderizer hammer. Started in the center and worked myself out.

Each piece took 2-3 minutes to cook, then it waited in a 300 degree oven until they were all finshed. We took out a portion each, then left it to stay warm in the oven.

I started late and dinner took a little time to prepare, we had dinner at 8:30 pm. This converges with one family member's bed time. I fully expected this person to eat a small piece, then declare the rest for breakfast. Instead, he ate it all. I just learned he liked the crunchy texture, because otherwise he does not like Schitzel. I take my compliments however they arrive.

Thanks for the reminder to adjust the ingredients for the Italian Venison as well as the recipe.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:bud,

Do you hang your deer a few days before processing or do you go straight to it? I noticed the meatlocker waited almost 10 days between kill and processing.

I was eight or nine when a neighbor hung a deer in his backyard. For suburban Washington, D.C. kids, this was quite a unique site. Where I live now, a deer prancing around the neighborhood is fairly common. I never saw one in Maryland.

Regards,

I don't hang but that is primarily because of a lack of temperature control. The garage is where we keep the gambrel rack permanently mounted and unless the weather is below 35F for the duration which is rare now for SE Wisconsin during the hunting seasons, its not cold enough. A 10 day wait may have been because of volume to process?-Dick

Hi,

OUr deer was snagged two days before Christmas. Processing did not occur until January 3rd. I think it was a combination of volume and holidays that affected our processing.

Maryland is rather temperate weatherwise compared to Chicago. I am sure our neighbor's deer hung in temperatures warmer than 35 degrees. I don't think he had any alternatives available to him, either. All the kids in the neighborhood visited their backyard to stare at the upside down beast.

Regards,

Hi,

I have finished cooking all the various parts of the Venison ham roast.

I used my slow cooker to prepare Davooda's Italian Venison. This was served on a baguette with lots of juice soaked into it. (The pepper was pass onto someone else after this picture)


Italian Venison by cal222, on Flickr

I finally cooked the round muscle to the lower right quadrant as a steak. I went for black and blue (rarer than rare) and medium rare for Mom. No pictures, because I don't take pictures of everything I eat.

Regards,

Made dinner for The Wife: venison burgers (sorry, no pix). Fabulous. I just cut the circles off the roll, gently formed and pan-fried in a bit of butter (helps a lot for crust and moisture for the lean meat). No additional seasoning necessary; deep wild taste.

David Hammond wrote:Made dinner for The Wife: venison burgers (sorry, no pix). Fabulous. I just cut the circles off the roll, gently formed and pan-fried in a bit of butter (helps a lot for crust and moisture for the lean meat). No additional seasoning necessary; deep wild taste.

Did you cook the burgers medium-rare? I have some ground wild venison, and I prefer my burgers medium-rare, but I'm a little weary that defrosted, ground, wild game meat may present bacterial issues. Thanks for any feedback.

pigOut wrote:

David Hammond wrote:Made dinner for The Wife: venison burgers (sorry, no pix). Fabulous. I just cut the circles off the roll, gently formed and pan-fried in a bit of butter (helps a lot for crust and moisture for the lean meat). No additional seasoning necessary; deep wild taste.

Did you cook the burgers medium-rare? I have some ground wild venison, and I prefer my burgers medium-rare, but I'm a little weary that defrosted, ground, wild game meat may present bacterial issues. Thanks for any feedback.

pigOut, yes, I did them medium rare. I think there's always some risk involved in eating medium rare meat.

"but I'm a little weary that defrosted, ground, wild game meat may present bacterial issues."

You have been conditioned by the problems that the huge amounts of commercially processed meat that flows through the system experience because of poor sanitation. In this process, their are many points for contamination to occur and spread especially with ground product that disperses any local contamination among huge amounts of product.
Wild venison processed by a competent hunter, quickly and with good sanitation, that knows what he/she is doing is actually at less risk of bacterial contamination. Our last carcass went from field gutting to deboning and then packaging for freezing without any need to wash any cuts except for the heart and liver from the body cavity where the deer bled out. Trimming of any blood shot meat was all that was needed.
I trust its quality more than any animal that has gone through the US system of meat slaughter.-Dick

Hi,

I finally cooked the holy grail of venison: backstrap or venison loin. I called the people who processed to make sure the package labeled venison loin was really backstrap. In one of my futile efforts to obtain venison, I was advised everything was available but the backstrap. I was also warned by the friend who obtained this venison to make sure I asked the packing house for the back strap. "Otherwise it may just disappear into their lunch."

Looking around the internet, I found a recipe from Paul Kahan at Field and Stream's website. The loin is seared on the stove, then finished roasting in the oven. It is served with roasted pears and pickled raisins steeped in vinegar, maple syrup and mustard seeds.


Venison backstrap a la Paul Kahan by cal222, on Flickr

I was ready for someone to reject their dinner. Fortunately, they liked it and welcomed additional portions of meat and roasted pears.

I have a small piece of backstrap left. I want to roast it with juniper berries, then served with cranberries and cloudberries. I saw a similar prep on a Swedish cooking show.

Regards,

Looks very well done (no pun intended) and cooked properly. I have to assume its a farm raised animal which would have feed instead of browse giving a less gamey taste. Deer that have fed exclusively on browse have a stronger taste the is countered by serving hot as the taste seems to become more prominent on cooling. but a friend in Northern Wisconsin who regularly takes a few deer each year, likes to boil the hearts and serve cold with salt and crackers. It is very good. Go figure.
My October deer test came back negative for CWD and the first cut we had was backstrap. since then I have made a stew a couple of times with bits and pieces packages. superb!
I was not able to get out during the regular season, so all we have is the one in the freezer.-Dick

HI,

I made the mistake once of overcooking venison. Kahan's recipe suggested pulling these at 135 degrees. I stopped them at 125-130, though by the time I served they were at 135-138.

My deer was wild caught from the wilds of Iowa, which suggests it is somewhat cornfed.

You may want to read the comments to Kahan's recipe.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:HI,

I made the mistake once of overcooking venison. Kahan's recipe suggested pulling these at 135 degrees. I stopped them at 125-130, though by the time I served they were at 135-138.

As observed in this weeks' stunning Food Detective article, overcooking venison changes the flavor profile of venison, bringing out livery iron flavors.

I picked up my shoulder roast today, and unfortunately the guy who knows how to cook it had already left. As per the other fella on duty, I looked on Google for an idea of temperature, and I'm getting wildly different info: 225 degrees for 4 hours, 350 for 2 hours and 400 for 1-1/2 hours, with an internal temp of 135 or 175. Some say roast with "NO WATER", others braise. I thought I had my trusty 1950s meat & poultry cookbook that's falling apart at the seams and is held together with rubber bands, but I'm pretty sure mom still has it. Tips?

A shoulder roast requires a slow moist braise as you have meat, bones and tendons to cook and you cannot cook and serve it rare. I would also use a seasoned stock for the braise liquid (juniper berries, bay leaves, garlic, onions to your taste). It is then in cooking terms a 'pot roast'.-Dick