Venison Taquitos

I won't insult you - today, at least - by offering up a venison taco recipe. My guess is, if you're capable of finding and reading this website on your own, following the rules on the box of Ortega should be no big deal.

But I have been wrong before.

Preferring the Taco Bell brand seasoning myself, I make venison tacos at least once a month. They're easy and delicious, and since it's just my wife and me eating them - for now - there's typically plenty of leftovers. If you run into similar situations and want to improve upon the Ol' Microwaved Taco Reheat, try making a batch of taquitos.

Generally speaking, we'll have 1/2 pound of leftover venison taco meat after dinner, so that's going to be our measuring point for this recipe which is enough for 12 -15 taquitos.

What you'll need:

1/2 Pound Ground Venison cooked in favorite brand of Taco Seasoning
15 Corn Tortillas
1 Can Enchilada Sauce
1 Cup Shredded Sharp Cheddar Cheese
Sour Cream
Cilantro
Favorite Salsa
Any Variety of Hot Sauce that graces your fridge

Preheat an oven to 350-degrees. Taquitos are often fried in vegetable or peanut oils on the stovetop, and that's probably how God intended it; however, sin aside, I don't always feel like cleaning up stovetops after pops and sizzles of the oil. The baked method is easier, healthier, and the difference in taste is negligible.

Add one can of enchilada sauce in with the 1/2 pound of cooked ground venison. You may think that the enchilada sauce may seem like Mexican Overkill after the deer has been cooked in taco seasoning, but trust me, it's not. Add to this a half cup of the shredded cheese and mix well.

Meanwhile, you'll need to cook the tortillas to make them pliable. Again, you could cook them 10-15 seconds a side in a skillet on the stove; to save time and energy, it's far more efficient to wrap them in a paper towel and nuke in the microwave for 2 minutes.

Once everything is prepared, lightly grease a cookie sheet. To stuff the tortilla, place the venison mixture on the edge of the tortilla and roll tightly to the other end. Placing the meat in the middle and trying to fold it is a waste of messy time. Place seam-down on the greased sheet and finish your batch. Before tossing them in the oven, I like to give them a quick blast of spray butter.

Bake for 30 minutes and remove, covering the rows of taquitos with the remainder of the shredded cheese if you feel the need. I usually do - though not in the picture to the left. They will be piping hot and should be left to sit for a few minutes, and it's now that you can whip up the accoutrements.

I'm a straight-up hot sauce and salsa guy. Carolyn likes sour cream. Chopped cilantro and lime juice are popular garnishes for taquitos. Guacamole, if you're down with that.

Enjoy.

Country-Fried Venison

I love country-fried steak. I want it written as the Cause of Death in my obituary – not “Congestive Heart Failure” or “Myocardial Infarction.” “Country-Fried Steak.” I want people to know I crossed over Jordan on a slick of white gravy. Whether at a Cracker Barrel or a Greasy Spoon in the middle of nowhere, CFS is my go-to order breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Add some form of potato in there to mop up the goodness….Dig It!

It’s also easy to make, and cubed venison steak is the golden-fried ticket for a great home-cooked meal.

What you need:

2lbs. venison cubed steaks or about 8 steaks

Vigo Italian Breadcrumbs

Flour

3 Eggs

Garlic Salt

Canola Oil

Packet of White Gravy Mix

Defrost the cubed steaks in the sink with warm water. When thawed, drain the water and re-fill with cold water and ice cubes to draw out blood and any gamey taste. After 30 minutes or so, remove from the water and pat dry. Season steaks with Garlic Salt and set aside.

While the venison is thawing, set up a little prep station. In one shallow bowl, dump flour seasoned with garlic salt. In another bowl, beat the three eggs into a wash. And a third bowl will be used for the breadcrumbs – yes, this is fairly dish-intensive, and yes, you’ll probably be too full and suffering from gravy shakes after dinner to want to mess with it, so clean as you go. When the steaks are ready, press them into the flour, rinse through the egg, and press well into the breadcrumbs. Set aside the breaded cutlets while the oil heats.

There are two ways to go about frying the steaks. I prefer an electric deep fryer. Get the temperature to around 365 degrees and cook for about a minute or until golden brown. These thin cuts don’t require much more than that. The other option is pan-frying in a cast iron skillet. I suppose it is more traditional, but I always have trouble with loose breading burning and ruining the second and third batches of steaks. Heat about an inch of canola oil over medium heat and cook for a couple minutes, flipping the steaks once or twice.

For the gravy, I just buy the mix that comes in whatever packaging looks more Old-Timey. I suppose I could make the gravy from scratch – or the breadcrumbs for that matter – but for $0.99, who cares? It’s worth saving the time.

When everything is ready, slather the steaks with gravy and serve with mashed potatoes. A little A-1 never hurts, either.

So there you go, one of my favorites, Country-Fried Venison. The reason I’m sweaty, a little dizzy, and out of breath from typing this.

Gorgonzola Stuffed Venison Sliders

I’d assume if you can make a hamburger, you can make sliders. There’s just a slight change-up in the overall design and purpose of sliders. They’ve become rather popular in sports bars and at parties.

To wit, I was invited to a Daytona 500 get-together this last weekend. My plan called for venison burgers, but I couldn’t be certain how many people would show, and I couldn’t sacrifice 6 pounds of ground venison - it’s gotta last a few more months. So sliders were the answer - everyone gets a taste.

The trouble with venison burgers is they dry out quickly and fall apart. I have the butcher add beef fat to guard against the patties desiccating, but they still tend to crumble. Some folks prefer to add crumbled soda crackers or stale bread to their meat to combat this; I use Vigo Italian Breadcrumbs. They add more flavor, in my opinion.

1 lb. ground venison with beef fat added
½ cup Italian Bread Crumbs
3 tbs. Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce
1 tbs. Garlic Salt
1 tsp. Dark Brown Sugar
Charbroil Seasoning
Potato Rolls
Crumbled Gorgonzola Cheese
Land O’ Lakes Colby Jack slices

I work in the order listed. Start with half the bread crumbs and knead into the meat. Add the other half and repeat. Do the same with the Lea & Perrins. Then add the garlic salt and brown sugar. (Don’t overdo the brown sugar – it can really ruin the recipe.)

After it’s all well-blended, roll into 6-8 meatballs. They should be slightly bigger than a golfball. Take your thumb and push a hole into the meatball and stuff with a pinch of gorgonzola. Wrap the meat back around the cheese and flatten into a micro-patty and dust with charbroil seasoning.

However you grill them – charcoal or gas – don’t leave on too long. Overcooked venison is still overcooked venison no matter how you doctor it up. I prefer to cook hot and fast on gas – 3 minutes a side, at most.

Place the patties in small potato rolls and top with a slice of cheese. I like A-1 as a dipping sauce, but I guess you can ketchup and mustard it, if you prefer.

People like them – they didn’t last nearly as long as that race!

Enjoy!

Easy Fried Venison Chops

I remember learning to fry venison in college. No, it wasn’t a class. Wish it was – I would have actually attended. I always had plenty of deer meat but little in the way of cooking experience, especially frying. As with other aspects of collegiate life I was inadequately prepared for, I blame my parents. My mother rarely fried foods, I guess, caring for our hearts more than our appetites. The backstraps and tenderloins were left whole to grill, and the rest was generally converted to ground venison for tacos, spaghetti, and the like. So, frying venison chops in the apartment was an exciting proposal.

And the fire alarms were exciting as I invariably filled the room to the brim with smoke. See, somehow, I had it in my mind that the proper way of frying anything was to heat the oil on the stove at the highest setting. Made the oil hotter faster, why not? The chops were always over-cooked coated in singed breadcrumbs. Delicious when covered with enough BBQ sauce and after several adult libations.

Luckily, these meals never ended in fire trucks and smoke inhalation trips to Shands. Turns out I became a whole lot smarter after I left college than when I was enrolled there, and I slowed my act down. It seems one can fry foods without a rolling plume of smoke emanating from the stovetop.

I bring this up, not only to satisfy my insatiable need to ramble and relay inane stories, but also to pass this knowledge around to others who may be in similar straits. The Internet was very much in its infancy then. I searched and surfed for recipes and help but found little. Recipes I did find took it for granted that any Joe Shmoe knew what they were doing in the kitchen.

The key elements to fried venison are a cast iron pan, canola oil, and medium-high heat. With this combination, you can fry just about any cut of venison. But for today’s purpose, I want to stick with fried venison backstrap chops.

In the field, leave the backstraps and tenderloins attached to the backbone and have your butcher cut bone-in chops about an inch thick. You can, of course, make boneless chops on your own; I like the little handle of bone to eat without a fork and knife like a savage.

In the kitchen, pour oil in the skillet until it’s about an inch deep. The oil will shimmer when it is ready. If you have any doubts, take a few fingertips of breading and flick it in the pan. It should immediately bubble and cook on the surface, and as they say, you’re now cooking with grease. If you're the anal type, though, use a thermometer to gauge when you hit the optimal temperature of 360-370 degrees.

Defrost your chops – talk about a mess if you don’t – and soak in icy cold water for 30 minutes or so to remove blood and gamey tastes, if you’re concerned about such things. Trim any fat or sinew away from the meat. Pat dry and press into Vigo Italian Breadcrumbs.

Place the breaded chops in the hot oil until browned on both sides for medium-rare to medium and remove to a paper towel-lined plate. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes. Nothing wrong with A-1 or a Mustard-Style BBQ sauce for dipping.

It’s not all that hard and is delicious. I’m a constant advocate for trying new things when cooking venison. If you’ve not tried frying a batch, you are missing out.

And remember, always put out grease fires with salt or an extinguisher. Never use water. Or adult libations.

Trust me.

Maple Syrup Venison

Last week, the Suburban Bushwhacker posted a recipe for venison carpaccio that instantly drew my attention. Carpaccio is generally served as an appetizer of thinly sliced raw veal, venison, or beef. If you read through his recipe, you’ll see there’s an awful lot of preparation for serving something raw.

I was willing to give it a whirl, but my pregnant wife is a little off her feed for wild game. Those changing hormones have created an uninvited distaste for what were some of her favorite meals. Raw deer wasn’t likely to remedy this.

So I compromised. We’ll just use his recipe but cook it. That’s the kind of supportive husband I am.

Anyway, I soaked a whole pepper-coated venison backstrap overnight in generic maple syrup. I had my doubts that the meat would absorb much of the syrup’s flavor. Next, I worried the syrup would char and burn once I placed it on the grill.

Maybe it was the Sugar-Free syrup, but the meat did not charcoal as I feared. I placed the backstrap on the gas grill over high heat, cooking four minutes a side for medium to medium-rare. I let it sit for about ten minutes before carving.

The venison was tender – no surprise there – and the syrup had in fact penetrated the meat for a unique maple flavor that took me back to the wistful days of tapping trees in Vermont’s Big Woods.

I liked it. Carolyn loved it – thankfully. Krunk thought it tasted funny. Of course, his palate has become victimized by years of grilling for hours at a time on a smoker, and I’m convinced if meat doesn’t taste like mesquite, oak, or hickory, he’s not as impressed.

He was right, though, it did need additional spice. Hard to say what I would use with the syrup. Maybe garlic? More pepper?

This is one to keep working with. Maybe cooking it slow would help out. Either way, I’d never considered using maple syrup on venison. We’ll get it perfected in the years to come.

Venison Francese Recipe

Love veal. Tender. Flavorful. It’s the tops. I wish I could hunt veal – a backpack adventure into the Wilds of Wisconsin where the great veal herds prosper. Well, I suppose I could hunt them here, but I would not be allowed back on that property ever again.

Luckily, I have plenty of venison which itself is tender and flavorful and an excellent substitute for many veal-based recipes.

Today, we’re going to do Venison Francese. Francese is scallopini – a cutlet of veal, venison, or poultry sliced or smashed thin and covered in flour – in a lemon butter sauce. It’s a close relative to picatta, the large difference being picatta utilizes capers which are, quite frankly, gross.

The Palace Restaurant in South Lakeland serves the best Francese, and their version inspired me to give it a try with venison. Important note, though. This is NOT their recipe. I’m afraid I would only do injustice to their plate. Instead, I browsed through several Internet recipes and substituted for what I did and did not have in my fridge or pantry. I've made my shopping trip for the week already.

So. What’s the cut of deer that would be mostly likely to serve as a fill-in for baby cow?

That’s right, the tenderloin!

Ingredients

2 tenderloins
Milk
Olive oil
Butter
Salt
Pepper
2 eggs
Flour
Lemon juice

Cut tenderloin across the grain so you have tenderloin nuggets. Soak in milk for up to 24 hours. Remove from milk and pat dry. Cover meat with saran wrap and hit a couple times with a mallet until it is a ½-inch to ¼-thin. Dredge in flour and dip in egg wash with ½ tbs of salt and ¼ tbs of pepper. One recipe called for 6 tbs of parmesan cheese added to the egg wash, but again, I have made my shopping trip for the week. Separate the scallopini into three batches.

Set your oven to its lowest setting – 180 degrees or thereabouts. On the stove, heat a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 tbs of olive oil and 2 tbs of butter. When the butter starts bubbling, add one batch of venison, browning on each side, about a 1 ½ minutes a side. Remove to pan in the oven to keep warm. Repeat with 2 more tbs of butter and olive oil for each of the next two batches.

Once all the meat is cooked, return it to the pan and sprinkle the juice of one large lemon or 2-3 tbs of lemon juice over the meat and cook for an additional minute or two.

Serve over angel hair pasta, making sure you pour all that lemon-butter goodness out of the skillet and over the meat and noodles.

Now, a couple things I will do different next time I cook this. One, I’m gonna add a clove of garlic before I toss in the lemon juice. Also, I’m adding the parmesan to the egg wash. I love cheese.

This is a simple-as-can-be recipe that fits venison very well. Suggest you give it a whirl.

Recipe Review - Grilled Drunken Venison Chops

The December/January issue of Outdoor Life published venison recipes from various chefs. The one that caught my eye was the Grilled Drunken Venison Chops from John Reilly. It just so happened I had a few packs of recently wrapped chops courtesy of a North Carolina doe. The picture in the magazine looked awesome. Why not?

(Real quick, venison chops are a fantastic alternative to just cutting the whole backstrap loin out. Take the entire backbone with backstraps and tenderloins still attached to your local processor. It can be hell on cooler space, but it is worth it.)

Here’s a summary of the recipe:

Loin Chops
1 Cup Stag’s Leap Cabernet Sauvignon
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 Tbs. cracked black powder
½ cup olive oil
1 large shallot
2 sprigs thyme
1 Tbs. crushed juniper berries
Pinch plus Kosher Salt

Mix ingredients (except salt) and marinate for 2 – 12 hours
Grill. Let sit. Sprinkle with salt.

Bam!


With recipes like this, ingredients are always a problem. I’m not Rachel Ray – my supply of spices like coriander and smoked ragweed is typically compromised. Professional cooks just can’t help but throw stuff like this in, and Mr. Reilly is no exception. Juniper berries. I don’t even know what a juniper is. I assumed some species of fidget bird - which made the berries sound awfully unappetizing for a meal. I asked the produce guy at Publix where I could find juniper berries. He looked at me as if I’d just told him I went speeding through a busy school zone, hit something, and was seeking a place to hide out until the heat died off.

Turns out a juniper is the vital ingredient in making gin, which, knowing the taste of gin, I still believe juniper berries could be bird crap. Just so happens I had a couple bottles of gin, a spoonful of which I could use as a substitute.

(Another aside – though my wife and I are in our 30’s, people come in and out of our home on a daily basis like a fraternity house to grab a drink and shoot the bull. On NFL Sundays it is positively infested with folks. Now, a number of these people, when out of refreshments of an adult nature, would suck the last drops from spent beer cans even if the lids were covered in cigarette ash and snot. I still can’t seem to get rid of this gin, however.)

The next issue was the wine. I’m not sure what Stag’s Leap Cabernet Sauvignon is – we had a bottle with a leaping Kangaroo on the front, which true oenophiles would faint in disgust if it were served to them.

So I whisked together all the ingredients and left the concoction in the fridge for about 6 hours. I got the grill red hot. When cooking these thin chops, cook very hot, very fast. The meat was dark purple from the wine. Smelled awesome.

And...they were OK. Carolyn wouldn’t request them if on Death Row. I ate four or five of them. Tender. Not bad, but it received a tepid response. The wine was a tad overpowering; I have had this trouble with other wine-based recipes in the past. Could just be my tastes.

No insult to Chef Reilly. My outcome could be the result of using gin instead of juniper. Or it could be the low-quality wine, wine that should be pressurized and used as insecticide, quite frankly.

Maybe someone can tell me what I did wrong. Mostly, this just illustrates the frustrations I have with recipes you find in such sources.

I shouldn’t be surprised.

Most of these magazines have been showing me how to kill big bucks for years, and I’ve had no luck there, either!

Venison and Gravy Recipe

Carolyn claims her last meal, if she were ever on Death Row, would be my venison and gravy. Of course, if she does end up there, it will probably be for killing me, especially if I ever again wait til noon to call her when I go on one of these far-flung, gator-infested adventures down south.

When this does happen, I suppose it would be important to her - in my final acts of grace and charity - for me to pass around this recipe. It shouldn’t go wherever she buries me.

OK, venison and gravy. Start with a pound of cubed ham steaks. Soak in icy water for 30 minutes to remove excess blood and any lingering game taste. Pat dry and season with garlic salt.

Cut steaks into bite-sized pieces and dredge in flour spiked with additional garlic salt. Set meat aside and heat a skillet with just enough vegetable or peanut oil to coat the bottom of the pan.

In a separate container, mix two cans of Campbell’s Double Strength Beef Broth with two tablespoons of flour. Shake well and keep shaking.

Add the meat to the skillet and brown on both sides. Once done, remove from pan. Add the beef broth/flour mixture slowly, stirring and scraping up the fried bits of flour and goodness as you go. Keep stirring until mixture thickens and bubbles. Reduce heat and add venison bites. Cover and cook on low for 45 minutes.

The result is comfort food at its finest. The gravy is flavorful. The venison is tender. Serve over white rice with some bread for mopping up the mess.

Enjoy. It’s my legacy.

Father's Day Venison Recipes - Fajitas and Kabobs

Yes, it's scorching outside, but summer is all about grilling. And it's Dad's Day Sunday, the U.S. Open is in full swing (ha!) - the whole afternoon lends itself to family banter, perhaps a couple coldies, and chowing down. Assuming you have any venison left in the fridge - which if you do, it's time to start making room for this upcoming season - I think I have a couple recipes that'll let you enjoy your day instead of slaving away in the kitchen or sweating in this stifling heat for too long.

Easy Venison Fajitas

I love fajitas. I played for years with different mixes and marinades for venison steaks. Never could hit the right combo of spices until I tripped across this simple recipe.

Take your steaks or backstrap and hit a couple times with a meat mallet. Sprinkle Lawry’s Seasoned Salt and Garlic Salt on the meat (some would think adding chili powder would make this more fajita-y, but anything I add chili powder to, I ruin). Put in Ziploc bag with enough lime juice to cover the cuts, pour a little olive oil in, and marinate for 2-4 hours.

As your grill is heating up, cook the peppers and onions in a little olive oil in a skillet – I skip this part since I’m not much of a veggie eater.

I cook venison hot and fast on the gas grill. When I’ve hit around 400 or so, I put the steaks on, cooking for no more than a minute or two per side. (Minute and a half for medium rare usually).

When finished, cut the steaks across the grain fajita-style and assemble in warm flour tortilla with cheddar or Monterrey Jack cheese, cooked onions and pepper, or whatever else you want. I personally top these off with healthy shakes out of the Cholula Hot Sauce bottle.

Florida Venison Kabobs

I found a honey-based marinade recipe online one day, and with subtle adjustments to my tastes and a creative nod towards the Sunshine State, this formula is pretty darned good.

Now, let me preface this – I hate finding recipes online without exact measurements of how much of what goes into the meal. But now I’m gonna do it since I usually just taste test it in the kitchen. And it’s a marinade anyway, most of which is going down the drain when you’re done.

I’ll go ahead and try to measure it out for you, but you may want to adjust.

2 cups veg. oil
1 cup Leighton’s Orange Blossom Honey
½ cup vinegar
½ cup soy sauce (I like to use less – as with the chili powder above, I tend to ruin recipes with soy sauce)
½ tbs. salt
½ tbs Everglades Seasoning
½ tbs ginger (again, see soy sauce warning)
½ tbs minced garlic

Stir these ingredients well. Cut ham steaks or backstrap into pieces appropriate for the skewers and marinate for 4-6 hours. With all the oil in this recipe, the grill is probably going to flare up, so keep a watchful eye, but cook 4-5 minutes per side. Serve with rice, and while I’ve not tried it yet, cozied up in warm French bread would make a pretty awesome sandwich.



Again, just a couple of suggestions. Enjoy and have a great Father’s Day!

Brats & Bacon Kabobs

I've heard it is sacrilege to many people - Wisconsin-Americans in particular - to pierce the casing of a bratwurst while it’s on the grill, but how about carving the links up and threading them on skewers? Have we reached the point of paganism with this or what?

Every year I turn a venison shoulder or two into bratwurst. Technically, the local meat processor does, but whatever. My thinking is, it’s right in the middle of football season when everyone is grilling out, and I’m probably just returning from a hunt and don’t have the time or enthusiasm to whip up burgers or a fancy tenderloin recipe that I don’t want to waste on my boozehound friends anyhow. And brats and football (and beer!) just go together. I submit back to the Wisconsin-Americans out there to agree with me.

Call it all charity work, though. My passion for linked sausage, of any kind, is low - great for football, not so much for a Wednesday night in with the lady. Unfortunately by April, the unsettling realization dawns that I have few friends, wasn’t invited to many football parties, and have like a dozen packs of brats left. This glorious cycle repeats itself every year. Some packs are gifted away. Some packs turn into catfish chum.

Then one day, suffering through another soul-crushing shopping trip, I flipped through a recipe book that was mercifully placed in a bin near the interminable checkout line. I browsed the typical chicken and pork chop dishes and found a recipe for sausage kabobs cooked in the oven.


OK, well I have the brats already, the oven route is a little lame, but I think we can work with this.

Thus, I dreamed up the grilled brat and bacon kabob.

Last night’s Venison Wednesday launched this experiment. I started by marinating the brats overnight in a mixture of beer, mustard, chili powder, red pepper flakes, and brown sugar. Then I cut the brats into one-inch chunks and threaded them on pre-soaked bamboo skewers with thick, hickory smoked bacon. Cooked ‘em 4-5 minutes on each side. Finally, I brushed them with a mustard based BBQ sauce Carolyn’s father makes that should be bottled and sold.

Annnnnddddddd, they were pretty good. Carolyn enjoyed hers. Ansley barely paused to chew her so-called “meat stick." Krunk had no qualms. It’s not a recipe I’ll cook every other week, but it’s a fine change-up from your normal “simmer in beer” brat recipe. Give it a try!