What do you season venison with

At , it will start to toughen up some. Steaks more than 2-inches thick will probably need a cooler part of the grill to cook for slightly longer, or will need to have the heat turned down on the skillet to cook to the proper temperature. Bard the meat with butter. If you've ever wondered why your steaks at home don't turn out quite so well as steaks ordered at a restaurant, the answer is butter. After turning the meat over once, it's a good idea to brush a little butter onto the top of the meat to help keep it moist.

If you're cooking the steak in the skillet, add a pat no more than a tablespoon or so into the pan to melt, tilting the skillet so the butter runs toward the steak. Cook the steak to rare-medium. You won't have to fiddle with the steak much, turning it once and cooking it roughly minutes on each side.

Because overcooking venison is very easy and can happen very quickly, you should periodically feel the done-ness of the meat with your finger to recognize when it's ready to come off the heat and rest before eating. For a good short-hand to steak done-ness, touch your fingertip to your thumb, and with your other hand feel the fatty part of your thumb, where it meets your palm.

Meat cooked rare should offer the same resistance. Meat cooked medium-rare should feel like your thumb meeting your middle finger, medium should feel like your ring finger, and well-done like your pinkie. Rest the steak for minutes. Let the steak rest on a plate or a cutting board for at least five minutes before slicing into and serving.

This will allow the muscle fibers to cool down some, so the meat will retain its juices, rather than spilling them out onto the plate. The meat will also continue cooking gently, if you cover it at this point. You can serve your steaks whole, or slice them against the grain into generous-sized slices.

Method 3. Lard the roast with aromatics and bacon. After cleaning up your roast by trimming it of fat, silverskin, and connective tissue, make several slits into the meat, about an inch wide and two inches deep.

Make 10 or 12 cuts all over the surface of the meat. Stuffing the roast with aromatic vegetables and a fat source, like bacon, will help to inject flavor and moisture into the meat. For aromatics, use whole cloves of garlic, sprigs of rosemary, thyme, or sage.

For adding fat, chopped bacon makes the best addition, but you could also use cold pats of butter. Coat the roast with dried herbs and refrigerate for several hours. Dry rubs are excellent for venison roasts. You can use a commercial dry rub or mix up your own in a variety of flavors. Use what tastes you like and experiment with different dry rubs—it's awfully hard to screw up. Simply take a handful of your dry rub spice mixture and rub it into the outside of the meat.

For a basic dry rub, mix up equal portions of oregano, basil, parsley, paprika, onion powder, salt and pepper. For a whole-seed dry rub, toast up a quarter-cup each of fennel seeds, coriander seeds, and cumin seeds in a dry skillet.

When they become fragrant, remove them from the pan and crack them with the flat side of a kitchen knife. Mix in dried chili powder, paprika, and brown sugar.

Alternatively, you can also brine roasts in a salt brine overnight, which many venison-enthusiasts swear by. Salt-brines can help soften the flavor of the meat and tenderize it. Either way, let the meat refrigerate overnight, or for several hours before baking. Bake the roast in baking pan on a bed of vegetables. Lining the bottom of your baking pan with vegetables will help to keep the meat off the bottom, resulting in a more even distribution of heat, as well as adding flavor and fragrance to the dish.

The most-common vegetables for the job are onions, carrots, potatoes, and celery. After rinsing your vegetables, chop them into big pieces—doesn't need to be pretty. You won't need to season the vegetables, since the meat juices will season the vegetables as they cook. Because venison has such a tendency to dry out, it's also good to add a little water or water and chicken stock to the bottom of the pan.

This will help to keep the interior of the oven moist, creating a kind of hot climate that will keep the meat from drying out. Cover and roast at F for about 3 hours. Set the meat on the bed of vegetables and cover tightly with tin foil. Place into the oven and bake for around three hours, basting periodically with the juices from the bottom of the pan. If you're using a meat thermometer, you can remove the venison when it's reached an internal temperature between F and F, depending on how "done" you like your meat.

Any higher and it'll start to toughen. Remove the roast from the pan, but let the meat rest covered for about 10 or 15 minutes before cutting into slices to serve. You can strain the pan drippings to make a nice gravy to serve with the venison. Method 4. Brown your stew meat. In a heavy-bottomed pan, heat some olive oil and brown your stew meat on all sides, over medium-high heat.

You don't need to cook the venison all the way through, and in fact you should avoid cooking it through as much as possible. Rather, you want to create a good char on the outside of the meat to create a layer of flavor, and to build up good color on the bottom of your pan. If brownish stuff builds up, that's a good thing. A good stew can be made with about a pound of good stew meat taken from the ham, neck, or rib section of the venison. It should be cut into bite-sized chunks.

To help brown the meat and also thicken the stew you make, it can be good to dust the stew meat with a little bit of white flour, as when starting a roux. You won't need to use much more than a teaspoon or two per pound of meat. Add vegetables and aromatics. After browning the meat, remove it from the pan and add in the vegetables you'd like to include in the stew, starting with the heartiest and moving to the lightest.

You want to add the vegetables that will need the longest time cooking first, to make sure everything cooks at roughly the same time. So, you'd add root vegetables like potato, carrot, or turnips first, and add mushrooms, peas, and fresh basil last. For a basic stew, start by adding two potatoes, chopped into bite-sized pieces, two medium-sized chopped carrots, and a whole small white onion.

Turn the heat down to medium and stir until he onion starts to become translucent. Add three or four cloves of minced garlic and continue cooking for a minute or two.

When the vegetables start to brown up, it's time to legalize the pan. Deglaze the pan. The bottom of the pan should now be covered with good color and flavor, but you can only get it up by adding some liquid and stirring vigorously. To deglaze you can use two or three cups of dry red wine, dark beer, or chicken stock, which all pair nicely with venison.

If you want, you can use a combination of liquids, or use half water and half of another liquid, to soften the flavor some. After pouring in the liquid, it should bubble up vigorously and then calm down some. If you are processing your own deer, you can complete this step before or after thawing your meat.

There are also two methods of aging meat: dry aging and wet aging. I prefer dry aging my meat before it is frozen. In dry aging, the meat needs to be surrounded by a constant air temperature of degrees.

This denatures breaks down the meat. To make your own aging apparatus, purchase a plastic bin and poke holes in the sides and top of the bin. Once you have done this, place butchered venison on a cooling rack inside the bin. Every few days, empty the blood from the bin and continue aging the meat for seven to ten days. Many people allow the meat to age for up to fourteen days, but I feel that ten days is sufficient to break down the connective tissue and muscle fiber for tasty meals.

Wet aging is often completed after thawing the meat. This is the common way that grocery stores age meat. No air must touch the meat once vacuum sealed. Once meat is thawed, allow the meat to age by leaving it vacuum packed for up to fourteen days.

If you have not adequately aged your venison and need to use it fairly quickly, place unpackaged venison on a cooling rack on the counter and point a fan directly at the venison for about thirty minutes. You will be amazed at how much better your meat will brown and how much more tender your venison will be. Venison is not gamey; it merely has a flavor.

Deer forage for their food. They eat grass, herbs, acorns, berries, and nuts while corn-fed cows eat corn. Corn-fed cows are really tasteless compared to foraging animals. Sometimes the simpler the seasonings, the better, especially with the tender cuts of venison such as the tenderloin and backstrap of the deer.

The backstrap can be cut into steaks, seasoned liberally with salt and pepper, and cooked over high heat with a little olive oil. Trust me, that is the best eating you could ever want! There are many cuts and methods of cooking venison where the meat must be eaten rare.

Venison cooks faster than beef, and when cooking it rare, it needs to only reach a temperature of degrees. If venison reaches degrees, it begins to toughen. Since deer forage and are usually older when they are harvested, they have an abundance of muscle fiber and connective tissue. Deer do not have the marbling in their meat that corn-fed beef has, so cooking venison like beef will not work.

Rather, look at venison as a unique protein that is healthy and exotic, yet easy to prepare with just a little knowledge. The flavor of these foragers far outweighs the necessary steps in creating tender, succulent meat. Because there is little marbling and much muscle fiber and connective tissue, there is so much flavor when the collagen transforms into lovely succulent gelatin.

There is nothing like it in the world! Braising is a cooking technique in which the main ingredient is seared and then seared in liquid on low heat in a pot. This method is usually reserved for the tougher cuts of meat. The tough fibers and connective tissue break down into collagen, which then dissolves into gelatin.

Over time, these fibers expel moisture, leaving the meat dry. Once the meat is dry, upon continued cooking, the fibers will relax and begin to absorb the fat and gelatin, creating tender, flavorful meat. Many use their slow-cookers for this method, but they continue to produce subpar meals of stringy tough meat. The optimal temperature when cooking low and slow should be between and degrees, and most slow cookers do not go that low.

Your best option is to cook in a Dutch oven on top of the stove on a very low simmer, or if you have an oven that maintains temperatures between and degrees, cook your meal for several hours in a Dutch oven inside it. If cooking low and slow, I find that if I allow the mixture to cool, then place it in the refrigerator overnight, the meat continues to relax and my meal will be even better the next day. You will want to match the cut of venison to the best cooking method that will bring out the most flavor and the most tender results.

Some cuts will naturally be tender loins and tenderloins , but other cuts will be extremely tough and stringy. Below are a few methods of cooking the various cuts of venison. Using a dry rub, marinade, or brine will tenderize your meat, allowing you to cook the tough cuts in much the same way you would cook a tender cut.

All of these methods infuse flavor and break down the meat, causing a tender juicy result in the finished product. A dry rub consists of endless combinations of dry herbs and spices. To use this method, combine spices and vigorously massage into the meat. Place meat into a glass container, cover, and refrigerate overnight or for 24 hours. Enzymatic tenderizers that are already prepared can be found in most grocery stores. They use papaya, figs, or pineapple which break down the amino acids in the meat.

I prefer using homemade dry rubs because enzymatic tenderizers take away from the flavor of the venison. If left on too long, they also will cause meat to become mushy. I usually add salt, coffee, or ginger to my dry rubs. Kosher salt improves the texture of the venison. First, it breaks down the protein and draws out the hydrogen, leaving oxygen in the muscles. This forms lactic acid, which breaks down the fibers in the muscles and connective tissue.

Coffee and ginger are both acidic and will break down the enzymes in the meat. In this way, they tenderize meat just like marinades. Brines and marinades are fantastic for tenderizing meat as well. I usually reserve brining for my fowl recipes such as wild turkey or pheasant, but many people brine venison. Brines consist of a mixture of water, salt, and sometimes sugar.

To use this method, combine ingredients, submerge venison in the mixture, and refrigerate overnight or for 24 hours. Marinades are one of my favorite ways to tenderize venison. For an excellent marinade, you will need an acid wine, vinegar, lemon juice, or lime , an oil I prefer olive oil , and herbs and spices of your choice. Not only do marinades add flavor, the acid will also effectively denature your meat, which will result in tender, tasty venison.

To use this method, combine ingredients in a non-reactive bowl, cover, and refrigerate for up to 24 hours. You can also place the ingredients in a zip top bag for easy clean-up. Kitchen tools will either make your job of preparing venison a nightmare or a wonderful and enjoyable experience.

You will need a very sharp knife that holds its edge and will not rust as well as a honing steel. If you have room in your budget, a serrated knife will perform well for cutting breads. A cast iron skillet and a Dutch oven are the most essential tools for cooking venison at its best, and they can be found at very reasonable prices.

The cast iron will evenly heat the venison, causing a beautiful caramelization when browning your meat. A Dutch oven also will hold heat well. Both the skillet and the Dutch oven can be used over direct heat. Moreover, both can stand up to very high oven temperatures. These two kitchen essentials are incredibly versatile; you can make anything from stuffed loin, stews, and soups to breads and pies. A few helpful things that will finish off your minimal kitchen needs for preparing venison are a meat mallet , mortar and pestle , and twine.

When pounding out venison, no matter the cut, a meat mallet will tear the fibers and connective tissue. This immediately produces tender meat. At this point, you can fry, stuff, or truss the meat.

You can make it a complete meal by chopping herbs and vegetables and placing them on the pounded venison. Truss and brown the loin in a cast iron skillet and then finish it off in the oven.

There are many more helpful kitchen utensils, but these are the ones that I use on a regular basis! Cooking should be fun.

With just a little understanding of the ingredients you are using, the sky is the limit. Scatter the beans, watercress, pickled walnut, shallot and walnuts over four plates, top with the venison then spoon over the dressing.

Drizzle with walnut oil and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. By Rachel Phipps. See more warm salad recipes By The Hairy Bikers. See more venison recipes How to cook venison. Preparation time less than 30 mins.

Richer and more balanced than oregano , it holds up very well to stronger-tasting wild game such as venison. It adds a depth of flavor that is unmatched and can be substituted for oregano in any venison recipe that calls for it. Actively scan device characteristics for identification.

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