My Wife Doesn't Like the Taste of Venison

How many times have you pulled out a hunk of frozen venison from the freezer and heard from the other room, “I don’t like the taste of venison." This happened more often than not in our household, until I figured out how to butcher, season and cook it. Most hunters are not chefs and most chefs are not hunters, so when it comes to understanding how to treat your wild game, we tend to learn from those who have come before. Growing up, I learned how to cook venison from watching my grandpa and father, and it’s all I knew. Their seasoning of choice was seasoning salt and the venison was always overcooked; this is not how it should be done. After years of honing my skills, I’m here to share three things I’ve learned on how to make your venison taste better...

1. Butchering

Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty and wield a knife. DIY butchering of your deer not only helps you understand your deer meat, it also helps you know what goes into your freezer. When you drop your deer off at a busy butcher during deer season, sadly, it’s like getting your meat from the grocery store. Sometimes you don’t know if you’re getting just your meat back, or a mixture of others. This is not always true, don’t get me wrong: some butchers take their time with just your animal. But I hear horror stories more often than not, and have even experienced this myself. Some benefits of doing self-butchering are:

• You know what cuts you’re getting. If you want more steaks, then cut more steaks. You want more ground, then grind more. You’ll also realize that when you eat it, it will taste better. Why? First because you did it yourself, so you take the time to cut off all the funk. You are more meticulous when it comes to doing it yourself. Second, because you know that it’s your kill that is going into the bag and the freezer.
• You get MORE meat. Yes, more meat. The reason is that you get to take the time to get all the meat off the bones. When you cut off the silver skin and tendons you make sure you cut it as close to the skin as you can. I asked a butcher how much waste he gets off a 90 pound doe and he said about 50% is waste. So I took a 90 pound doe and got 30% waste. That’s 20% more I got by doing it myself.
• You can drain the blood from the meat, blood holds 80% of that wild flavor.

2. Seasoning

When it comes to seasoning your venison, you need to remember it’s not beef. It does not carry the same flavors as grain-fed cattle. So figuring out what your deer was eating will greatly affect the flavor you will get. If your deer is eating corn in the fields of Nebraska, it will have a much milder flavor than a mule deer eating cactus and roots in the Arizona desert. When we look at seasonings, we need to enhance the natural flavor and not mask it.

If you harvest a young doe off the clover fields of Mississippi, her wild flavor will be so mild that any seasoning will pair well with her, but if you harvest an old mule deer from the high mountains of Montana, his wild flavor will be such a strong sage flavor and scent that if you try using your normal steak seasonings, the wild flavor will turn off most who eat it if they were not raised on it. If you pair your seasonings to enhance and mix well with the sage, you’ll have everyone reaching for seconds.

Flavors that pair perfect with sage are: garlic, soy, ginger, cumin and paprika.

Finding those seasoning and flavors that enhance will definitely have your wife singing a different tune when you reach for that hunk of venison.

3. Cooking

There is a huge misconception when it comes to the temp at which to cook venison. When I was growing up it was always “cook wild game until it is well done." I’ve come to learn that the reason I hated wild game growing up is because it was overcooked. The more you cook your venison, the worse it becomes in terms of flavor and texture (This does not come into play while slow cooking it). I’m talking about grilling or baking your venison. Venison lacks marbled fat like many other domesticated farm animals, so overcooking tends to dry it out and makes it very tough. It also doubles that wild flavor that most people tend to not enjoy. Cooking a venison to med rare is ideal for texture and flavor. This allows the natural juices to be retained within the meat and helps from drying out. The meat will be more tender with a milder flavor.

Slow cooking is another amazing way to cook your venison. Taking a roast and putting it in a slow cooker for 8 hours is one of my family’s favorite ways to cook it. By slow cooking it, you’re letting that meat absorb whatever liquids and seasonings you’ve added to the cooker. The meat will break down and become soft and able to shred with two forks. Using the meat to create tacos or sandwiches is ideal.

I’ve cooked venison steaks for people who refuse to eat them after having ones that where overcooked, improperly seasoned and have not yet had one turn away seconds. Taking the time to understand how and where your meat comes from will help you when it comes time to make some magic in the kitchen or at the grill.

Don’t be afraid to experiment.