Food What's For Dinner Tonight?

Advise needed! Ground venison recipe(s).


This is my first time cooking ground venison. A neighbor was given some ground venison which he gave to us (he doesn't do much cooking). I have no idea if it's a mix or straight venison, and neither does he. The meat looks very bloody (my apology to the more squimish folks) if that helps. I do know that venison is a very lean meat, and it's way too easy to make it nearly inedible if it's not cooked properly.

I'd like to cook something tasty, but relatively simple. Without ruining the venison.

 

I found several good recipes for ground venison, but all of them were a little more complicated than I wanted to attempt, given this was my first time cooking venison.

I mixed the meat with a beaten egg, mayo (with olive oil already in it), dijon mustard, garlic, and soy sauce (my last second improvisation). Formed it into three patties, and broiled them in the oven. Used a flat broiling pan (not one with a wire rack), HI broil, oven rack in second from the top slot, cooked them 4, 4, 2, 2. Much to my surprise the patties came out slightly pink, very juicy, & they tasted great. I'll need to tweak the recipe a bit, but this was a pretty good start.

 

I was thinking of you when I made the post. I could've done a conversation, but I hoped that some other folks might appreciate knowing how weird venison can be to cook properly. I knew before I looked up the recipes that venison requires some help keeping it moist. I've had some venison roast that was pretty much inedible because it was so dry & tough. A friend of a friend tried cooking venison strips on a charcoal grill. He kept fishing for compliments, saying how good it was. That was easily the worst meat that I have ever attempted to eat.

The bad news is my wife likes her meat cooked well-done; it drives me crazy when I cook steaks. I noticed that the venison burgers kept cooking after coming out from under the grill, much more so than ground beef (FWIW I like the 90/10 from Sam's Club, even more than the 93/7 from Kroger). They were quite pink & a little bloody at first, but by the time we sat down to eat they basically cooked through without being dry. I better be careful, I might pull a muscle patting myself on the back.

The good news is my neighbor says the person who gave him the ground venison offered him as much as he wants; I'm going to be sucking up to my neighbor . And one of the teachers or parents where my wife works has two freezers full of venison. She's already given my wife a bag full of sausage. Her husband is a successful deer hunter, but their family is not big on eating venison. More sucking up!

 

Left over LASAGNA, this is from a place here in Ft Lauderdale that has the BEST LASAGNA I have ever had outside Italy.

 

Me? No way. You start it, and I'll take notes.

There's a hardware store, Stanton's, in Alvin, a small town about 25 miles south of Houston. They carry a good variety of wild game meat, but damn the prices are through the roof. Borla, do you get alligator meat up your way?

 

3 oz NY strip... grass-fed, young beef. and a ton of cabbage braised with bacon.

 

Business dinner at a local upscale steak house. Peppercorn crusted strip steak, haricot verts, lobster mashed potatoes.

 

A couple of ham sandwiches and a can of soup.

Back into frugal mode for a while.

 

T-Bone steaks, baked potatoes, sauteed fresh asparagus, & strawberries with brown sugar for desert.

This was a splurge for us. Mostly because Kroger had some really good sale prices.

 

tofu spaghetti bolognese before setting sail for a Frank Turner gig!

 

Damn right!