Preparing Venison

C

Colduglandon

New member
Never made deer sausage. Would like to try this year. Any recipes. Also any good suggestions for spices, cooking times on roasts.
Bagged a 145lb doe. Would like to do her justice in the kitchen.
 
Sausages are sausages and just pick the type you like best.

As for cooking venison, the one sin is to overcook it. Leave it pink in the middle and it will be tasty and tender, overcook it and it's leather.

My favorite venison recipe is to take about a 5 pound roast, coat the outside with olive oil or melted butter and then sprinkle it liberally with with fresh thyme and garlic powder. Pop it in a HOT oven (425 or 450) until a deep stab with a fork lets out mildly pink fluid instead of red blood. How long that takes depends on how the roast is cut and how large it is, maybe 45 minutes to an hour. Be careful not to overcook - easier to pop it back in for a bit longer than to chew through overcooked venison.

Good stuff! Fresh thyme also lends itself well to pan frying smaller steaks and chops or whatever.

Keith
 
We make an exellent breakfast sausage with our pronghorn meat. We mix in about 1/3 to 1/2 pork butts and grind it in a large professional type grinder (family purchase just for hunting). My wife does the measuring but I can get the recipe tonight if you are interested.
 
Sure I'd like the recipe for the sausage. Especially the spices. Thanks for the tip on using Thyme. I always use a liberal amount of garlic on the roast.
 
Go to Amazon.com and look up Bruce Aidells. He has a great sausage book (several venison recipes in it) that covers many of the finer points of sausage making.
 
Many of the game meats are way lean & easy enough to "cook till dry." :barf:

I use a (Brinkman, I think) smoker to do almost all game meats.

Use wood chips/marinade, if you want, but the "secret" is to stick a pan of water in the rack just below while cooking. Unless a total fool (I have ;) ) & you really botch the job, no matter, it's nice 'n moist.

Hosted a couple 'Springs' TFLers last Sat for some antelope - they'll testify.
 
Paul,
I use a sausage spice mix from the grocery store. If there is none in the spice isle, go to the meat counter and ask for some.
They'll usually glad to sell it to you. We like it hotter than what's recommended.

We mix our venison with cheap hamburger, about 1/2 and 1/2.
Make "deer burgers" this way and make smaller sausage patties (deer burger with sausage spice mix added). They're good.
 
There have been various threads on cooking game here in The Hunt forum over the years. Look for Art Eatman's barbecued venison roast recipe, it's dandy.

Backstraps are good butterflied, sautee'd just past rare and served with a mushroom wine sauce. Sautee mushrooms first, dredge the meat in seasoned flour and sautee, and use the pan scrapings with a cup of beef broth and a cup of dry sherry to make the sauce. You can do the tenderloins in a similar manner.

Keith is mostly right, venison roasts are best served between rare and medium, but slow cooking in barbecue sauce in the oven (7 or 8 hours at 225 for a 5lb roast) or in a Brinkman smoker as mentioned by Labgrade and the meat is wonderful.

Kurt
 
OK, I got our recipe from my wife last night. It's really very simple, but very tasty. We have used this recipe for at least 20 years. It's actually my late father-in-law's pork sausage recipe.

Good Pork Sausage:

16 lbs fresh lean venison or antelope
8 lbs. fresh fat pork (pork butts)
8 tbls salt
6 tbls black pepper
9 tbls sage
6 tsp red pepper flakes

makes 24 lbs sausage

Grind meat together, run through the grinder twice. Mix seasonings in well.

(My favorite part) Fry a patty, taste and then add more seasoning to taste.

You can substitute lean beef or pork for the game.
 
Thanks Trophy Shop.
I had already worked the taste testing into the plan. Picked up some casings and some boneless rib ends tonite(did not have pork butt). Will try some with variety of seasonings including sage. My wife suggested a chinese 5 seasonings I think she called it as well. Ever tried red wine as a marinate in the deer sausage. Going to try some with garlic, dehydrated onion, fennel and red pepper along with salt and pepper.
Got a Brinkman smoker last summer. Only used it once for chicken and a fresh ham. Ham was great. Will break it out when my son comes home from active duty early next year and do some roasts in it for the celebration.
 
Paul,

It's important to have enough fat in the sausage. If you can't find pork butt, and still need fat; you can get it from a place called Niman Ranch. They have a website, Nimanranch.com.

I had difficulty getting pork fat at the local grocery (NOT the same as salt pork!) for my sausage making, and Niman Ranch shipped high quality pork fat via fedex (sounds kinda funny..pork fat by mail).

Let us know how it turns out.
 
Haven't tried the red wine marinade, but it's worth a try. When my wife was adding the seasonings this year, she misread the red pepper flakes and put in 6 tablespoons instead of teaspoons. The sausage came out a little spicier, but still fine, a little hot for the grandkids though. We don't use casings, just wrap in about 1/2 lb packages and freeze.
 
found some pork butt today, and picked up some ground pork. Spent most of the afternoon grinding the meat. used a big piece of chuck from my friends buck. I was using the grinder attachment on the wife's Kitchenaid mixer and it took quite a while. didn't work as well as my gransmother's old hand grinder. Going to put it all together tomorrow. Got plenty of ground meat so I might work up a batch of chilli. Picked up a bottle of vino as well.
 
Crock pot

My wife and I got a very fancy crock pot as a wedding gift this summer. A while ago we made a large venison roast in it with carrots, potatoes and some onion. This roast was a good portion of the rear leg of a 10-point Iowa buck.

This is so simple. The large roast goes in the crock pot with a packet of beef crock pot seasoning called Crock Pot Gourmet and a few cups of water. Set the temp at low and cook the roast for at least 10 hours. Do not open to peek because you will let out the moisture.

During the last three hours add carrots, potatoes and onion. Use a turkey baster a few times to cover veggies with meat juice.

When the meat is done, it will be so tender you won't need a knife. Good eating, but a large meal to be shared with guests (or lots of left-overs).
 
Crock pot sounds good.
Made two types of sausage today. Italian with fennel 3 to 1 venison to pork and breakfast 1 to 1 ratio. Had the italian for supper with some linguine and green pepper sauce, and the vino. Used a combination of the recipe that came with the kitchenaid and a recipe I got off Sausagemania

http://www.sausagemania.com

Anyone got the seasonings for bratwurst, used to love that stuff in Germany. Had some from local stores but not the same at all.
 
Crock pot! (duh & slaps head)

Excellent way to cook shoes on up. Works very well for those cuts that're normally too, uhm, stringy, et al to really do that much with - even jerky sometimes.
 
Marinade in Italian dressing and soy sauce. Also baste with this while it is cooking. Tastes real good and keeps it from drying out. Give it a try.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top