Venison Cooking Tips

1. Avoid over cooking.  The longer you cook the drier venison meat.

2. The internal temperature of venison meat should be 135 to 140.  The meat will begin to dry when internal
temperature goes above this range.  This is because venison meat is lean.  The presence of a signficant amount
of fat in beef protects this type of meat from drying at higher temperatures.  Venison meat lacks fat. 
Buy yourself a meat thermometer. 

3. Normally you shouldn't grill or broil venison meat past med-rare.  If you are cooking venison meat for someone who requests well-done, you should marinate the meat overnight in a favorite marinade. You may also want to

4. If you desire a venison stews or pot roast, these should always be cooked at low temperatures and given many hours to cook.  Crock pots are the best for stews and roasts.

5. If you have Slow cooked oven roasts have a tendency to become dry when roasting. Frequent basting is the principle method

6.  To prevent roast from drying, cook covered and occasionally bast roast with juices.

7. You want to keep the juices sealed in.  So during cooking, when picking up the use a pair of tongs.  Using a fork will pierce the meat and cause the wonderful juices to escape.

8. If you cook with alcohol and worry about your kids being exposed to this.  Don't fret alcohol evaporates at low temperatures so once cooked the alcohol content will be zero.

9. If cutting into strips, cut against the grain.  Also cutting when slightly frozen is easier.

cooking wild meat

Venison Roast - cooking wild meat

Cooking wild meat isn't difficult, here is a simple yet, tasty vension roast recipe.

2.5 lb venison roast cut
1 can of beef broth
2 tsp. garlic salt
3 sliced medium potatoes
1 cup green beans
2 sliced carrots
2 onions
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. pepper

Put in Croc, added 1 cup water and your can of broth.
Drop carrots, potatoes, onions and green beans into croc.
Sprinkle in garlic, salt and pepper.

Cook for an 2 hours at 325 degrees or on high.

Cooking wild meat

Jerky processing

Mold	Some jerky is packaged in jars or is not vacuumed seal.  When this is the case oxygen will remain present.  Mold will sometimes grow on jerky if oxygen is present.  Vacuum sealing will remove oxygen, preventing mold growth.
Salts or Sugars	The use of too much salt or sugar in the marinade.  When the marinade dries, the salts and sugars crystallize out of solution and appear as a white residue.
Tyrosine	The amino acid Tyrosine. Tyrosine also forms crystals.  This can also be seen on cheese and ham.
Sodium nitrite	A rare cause but sodium nitrite can precipitate into a white film on the surface of jerky.  This would be the case "hard" water was used during the jerky making process.
too dry	A white film also appear if the jerky is dried too long.

Elk Meat - Elk Ranching

Living in the Midwest of the United States I have never got to take a shot at an elk, let alone see one.  However, my father and brother in law took a trip up to Alberta Canada.  My father bagged an elk but my rough shot brother-in-law didn't.  So to piss my father off, like he always does, my brother-in law decided to buy some elk meat from a farm in Alberta.  When they got back to the states with the meat, they wanted me to judge what tasted better, the elk my father bagged or the elk my brother-in-law bought off a farm.

I knew nothing about this type of meat, so before I sat down an ate the elk I did a little research.  I would   suggest everyone to do a little research before they ate a new type of wild game.  Just to be safe

Elk Meat -  Elk Nutrition

 My research on Elk:

• very high in protein content
• lean meat, leaner than beef, pork and also chicken
• very high in iron and B vitamins

If you buy Elk Meat at a farm please make sure, the elk is natural feed and no growth hormone, steroids or antibiotics were used.


I found this out about processing of Elk meat in Alberta, Canada:
.

• The Canadian government regulates the processing of Elk meat through the Livestock Industry Diversification Act.

•  Both farm raised elk and wild elk are regularly inspect and monitored for tuberculosis and brucellosis by The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

• There is a government mandated surveillance program that elk ranchers must follow to protect and  ensure their elk are free from chronic wasting disease (CWD).  SInce 2002 only one case has been found and it was sequestered.

After reading up on the quality of elk meat from Canada I felt very safe eating what my father and brother-in-law brought back.  My dad was a little pissed but I chose my brother-in-laws farm feed elk over my dad's bagged elk for taste.

Return to top of cooking wild meat