Your experience with venison

[Saxum]

My family hunts including my sister who is a bow hunter.  They give us meat on occasion.

 

I find the jerky less flavorful than other jerkies they make.

I do like the ground deer in chili, etc but I find with venison you need more garlic and onions.

Had some leek and venison dumplings which were excellent.

[Rico]

A guy I worked with who hunted for years bought some into work one time. Others liked it, but it made me sick, never again.

[Buffalo_Gal]

Hubby hunts. The idea of eating deer meat makes me  .    With that - hubby makes venison jerky (that people fight over to get), venison sausage (that people do NOT fight over to get),  chili (his favorite),  and venison stew (another big hit). He gives my son (who loves them) the steaks and roasts, but keeps the backstrap for himself (and the dog).  He usually keeps one deer for personal consumption, gives a second deer to a friend (who hunts to put food on the table), and anything more than two that he gets he donates to the local food pantry via the Venison Donation Coalition (NYS).

[CountryCletus]

4 minutes ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

Hubby hunts. The idea of eating deer meat makes me  .    With that - hubby makes venison jerky (that people fight over to get), venison sausage (that people do NOT fight over to get),  chili (his favorite),  and venison stew (another big hit). He gives my son (who loves them) the steaks and roasts, but keeps the backstrap for himself (and the dog).  He usually keeps one deer for personal consumption, gives a second deer to a friend (who hunts to put food on the table), and anything more than two that he gets he donates to the local food pantry via the Venison Donation Coalition (NYS).

Does he purchase seasoning packets pre-measured from companies for his sausage or does he throw together his own concoction 

[Augie]

7 minutes ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

Hubby hunts. The idea of eating deer meat makes me  .    With that - hubby makes venison jerky (that people fight over to get), venison sausage (that people do NOT fight over to get),  chili (his favorite),  and venison stew (another big hit). He gives my son (who loves them) the steaks and roasts, but keeps the backstrap for himself (and the dog).  He usually keeps one deer for personal consumption, gives a second deer to a friend (who hunts to put food on the table), and anything more than two that he gets he donates to the local food pantry via the Venison Donation Coalition (NYS).

 

That’s VERY cool. Good for everybody (except maybe the deer, but...). Well done. 

[Buffalo_Gal]

Just now, CountryCletus said:

Does he purchase seasoning packets pre-measured from companies for his sausage or does he throw together his own concoction 

Both. If you are looking for a decent place to purchase packets and flavors, try the sausage maker. They have a ton of stuff that has done well with friends & family (AKA the critics). If you are local (Buffalo area) they are down on Clinton street. Also, from what I understand, if you are making sausage, get natural casings from your local butcher (if you are local, I know he got some at Budwey's last year).

[CountryCletus]

9 hours ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

Both. If you are looking for a decent place to purchase packets and flavors, try the sausage maker. They have a ton of stuff that has done well with friends & family (AKA the critics). If you are local (Buffalo area) they are down on Clinton street. Also, from what I understand, if you are making sausage, get natural casings from your local butcher (if you are local, I know he got some at Budwey's last year).

I’m not local, but I will look at them online.  I have been buying all my seasoning at Lem products.... I’ve made their hot sticks, salami, jalapeño summer sausage, jalapeño jerky, sriracha jerky, hot jerky, bratwurst, regular breakfast sausage, maple breakfast sausage and hot breakfast sausage... all of them have been amazing- mix 50/50 pork shoulder and it doesn’t dry out

[Johnny Hammersticks]

Caribou is by far my favorite game meat.  My father bagged 2 of them up in Saskatchewan back in the day.  Kept me fed for about 6 months during grad school.

[CountryCletus]

17 minutes ago, Johnny Hammersticks said:

Caribou is by far my favorite game meat.  My father bagged 2 of them up in Saskatchewan back in the day.  Kept me fed for about 6 months during grad school.

You are SO right!!!! Dad and I went to northern Quebec in 1999... we each got 2! I looked into returning but the herd is down and they only allow 1 per person and the cost has increased...

[ExiledInIllinois]

Why risk CWD?

 

I can just come here.  No thank you.

[CountryCletus]

8 minutes ago, ExiledInIllinois said:

Why risk CWD?

 

I can just come here.  No thank you.

WTF are you talking about??

[ExiledInIllinois]

13 minutes ago, CountryCletus said:

WTF are you talking about??

Chronic Wasting Disease.  Why would you mess with it?  Getting worse through Upper Midwest.

[CountryCletus]

Just now, ExiledInIllinois said:

Chronic Wasting Disease.  Why would you mess with it?  Getting worse through Upper Midwest.

Nobody is messing with CWD... we are shooting deer and Caribou now....

[simool]

On 11/14/2017 at 6:42 PM, CountryCletus said:

I just wanted to see who out there has had any experience with eating venison, cooking venison, hunting deer, picking up roadkill, etc.... if you have eaten venison, what are your favorite ways to eat it, and if you don’t like it, how did you have it?

 

1. Backstraps sliced about a 1/2" thick grilled, we eat those right after dressing pretty much always.
2. My wife makes this dip out of the heart (chipped) and cream of mushroom soup that is pretty damn good and I am not a big fan of organs.
3. Outside of the two above, my favorite is her stew she will take a roast (usually shoulder) brown it in her dutch oven and then add broth, potatoes, and veggies from her garden.  Slow cook it all day in the dutch oven.  Throw it over a couple of pieces of toast on a plate... mmm.
4. I grind a lot of the meat and mix it 50/50 with a 80/20 ground beef... Good for burgers, meatloaf, etc.
5. My neighbor has this breakfast sausage recipe that is pretty top shelf.  Again, grind the venison but he adds kidney fat from an angus and some spice mix he has. I have had him do a few pounds several times.  Excellent stuff.

We usually marinate any meat out of older deer in milk for 24 hours which seems to lessen the gamey taste.

 

We live in a CWD zone and tags are plentful. If you kill a yearling you dont have to test it.  Needless to say we eat alot of yearlings and gamey is not an issue.

Edited November 17, 2017 by simool

[CountryCletus]

6 hours ago, simool said:

 

1. Backstraps sliced about a 1/2" thick grilled, we eat those right after dressing pretty much always.
2. My wife makes this dip out of the heart (chipped) and cream of mushroom soup that is pretty damn good and I am not a big fan of organs.
3. Outside of the two above, my favorite is her stew she will take a roast (usually shoulder) brown it in her dutch oven and then add broth, potatoes, and veggies from her garden.  Slow cook it all day in the dutch oven.  Throw it over a couple of pieces of toast on a plate... mmm.
4. I grind a lot of the meat and mix it 50/50 with a 80/20 ground beef... Good for burgers, meatloaf, etc.
5. My neighbor has this breakfast sausage recipe that is pretty top shelf.  Again, grind the venison but he adds kidney fat from an angus and some spice mix he has. I have had him do a few pounds several times.  Excellent stuff.

We usually marinate any meat out of older deer in milk for 24 hours which seems to lessen the gamey taste.

 

We live in a CWD zone and tags are plentful. If you kill a yearling you dont have to test it.  Needless to say we eat alot of yearlings and gamey is not an issue.

Are you in PA?

[simool]

Nope, land of cheese and large women cletus... Wisconsin.

[plenzmd1]

2 hours ago, CountryCletus said:

Are you in PA?

anybody who cooks all that HAS to be in bum frick PA somehwere! Sure as hell ain't near the civilized world!

[ExiledInIllinois]

Uh... I will take a pass, thanks, but no thanks on something that is gratuitous:

 

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/10/6/03-1082_article

 

Hey... Anybody read about the 14 year old that shot an elk in MO.  "Kinda looked like a whitetail:"

 

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/missouri/articles/2017-11-13/14-year-old-missouri-girl-shoots-elk-200-miles-from-herd

 

Now... Poor Gal is apparently bullied online:

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/11/15/lock-her-up-girl-who-mistakenly-shot-elk-bullied-wildlife-officials-decide-her-fate/865541001/

 

But, she won't keep it:

 

http://www.news-leader.com/story/news/2017/11/14/missouri-girl-14-wont-get-keep-any-elk-she-shot-mistake/864007001/

 

Ah... She's just a kid!  We just had two boys catch tourney winning monster smallmouth in the lock chamber this past summer.  Clearly a "no fishing zone" (for obvious reasons).  But they won!  And raked in a ton of $$$$.  They are just kids.  Millennials in the making!

 

10 minutes ago, plenzmd1 said:

anybody who cooks all that HAS to be in bum frick PA somehwere! Sure as hell ain't near the civilized world!

You've never been to WS.  Don't mess with Sasquatch!  Where do you think Jack Links is made? 

[simool]

29 minutes ago, plenzmd1 said:

anybody who cooks all that HAS to be in bum frick PA somehwere! Sure as hell ain't near the civilized world!

 

I am within an hour drive of the liberal mecca of Madison, WI.  Technically I was born and raised in banjo country, deep in the Ozark mountains.  Although I have been in Wisconsin now as long as I was in the Ozarks.  My wife and I have raised three kids.  All ate very well and I saved a lot of coin in the process.

[plenzmd1]

Wisconsin all good, Ozarks are good, its the PA thing one needs to be wary of! Weird things go one in central PA, weird things.