Game Cooking

INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

Venison is the generic term for meat from a large group of related
grazing animals. It includes caribou, reindeer, deer, moose and elk.
For all practical purposes it also includes musk oxen, antelope and
buffalo [bison]. The recipes are generally interchangeable. musk oxen
and buffalo cuts tend to be more tender as these animals are more
sedentary by nature.  You can do anything with venison that you would
beef. Just remember  that it is drier- less fat, so steaks should be
marinaded/tenderized/pounded and cooked just to medium, not over-done.
It is important to realize that wild meat can vary in quality and
toughness, whereas commercial beef is a pretty uniform product.
Venison factors are:  ~1- Age and sex of animal. Meat can be as tender
and mild as veal in a  young doe. (And you always get steer meat in a
store never bull.  Castration does make a difference.)  ~2-Clean kill.
If a deer is stalked while it is peacefully grazing and  dropped dead
in its tracks, it will taste far better than an animal  that has been
chased by hounds, then gut shot, then it runs a few  more miles before
collapsing. The blood is full of adrenaline and the  acidic by-products
of exercise and exertion and the flesh is tainted  by the torn up
organs.  ~3- Aging and butchering. When I was a kid growing up in
Eastern  Ontario, we went deer hunting in the fall, when it was cool
and deer  were hung to age and tenderize, then  butchered at a local
abattoir  that handled beef and pork professionally. We received nicely
wrapped, properly cut and trimmed frozen packages. It was generally
pretty good. Up here caribou is shot all year long and traditionally
butchered immediately [before it spoils in the summer or freezes  solid
in the winter] And some hunters are more skilled at butchering  than
others... I have been made "gifts" of quarters of caribou that  have
been field frozen with the fur on and wrapped in green garbage  bags
and stored in somebody's back yard for a month or two! I have  also
received superb sausages made by a man who apprenticed as a
sausage-maker in Germany.  If you know where your meat came from, you
will know whether it should  tenderized or just cooked.  If your steaks
are coming from a commercial game farm, they will be  from a young
animal, carefully slaughtered and aged. I would treat  them the same as
any prime beef T-bone. Probably charcoal BBQ'd or  gas grilled to just
medium rare and sprinkled with a little salt and  pepper AFTER it has
been cooked... nothing fancy, no marinades and no  strong BBQ sauces.
That way you will be able to truly taste the  venison.  For wild meat
you may want to marinade first, if it's tough.  File
ftp://ftp.idiscover.co.uk/pub/food/mealmaster/recipes/caribou.zip

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