I’m a charcuterie freak: if it’s cured, salted, smoked, aged, potentially strange and delicious, I’m on board. Nduja, a little known spreadable salami from Calabria that’s been a chef secret for years now checks a lot of those boxes. I had my first taste of it at a dinner by Chef Wyatt Evans at his…
Venison
I love venison, and I cook a lot of it. My selection here is different hunting sites that specialize in it though: I work primarily with off-cuts, organs, cured meats, and things off the beaten path.
You can find backstrap recipes anywhere. If you're new here, make sure to try your hand at Venison Bacon. If you're adventurous, try some smoked kidneys or learn how to work with deer trotters.
Dry-Aged Elk Backstraps
I’ve really enjoyed dry-aging all kinds of meats in my Umai Dry aging bags, especially the whole legs I’ve done, so it was only a matter of time before I tried out the process on the most prized cut of venison: the backstrap. Being familiar with the process of dry-aging and having some ideas about…
Unborn Venison
I’ve always loved Halloween, and I usually do something “seasonal” when it comes around. As a disclaimer, I have to tell you that if you’re one of my vegetarian or vegan friends, you’ll probably want to skip this one. If you eat meat, and you appreciate the interesting odd tidbit, you may find it interesting,…
Honey Mushroom Bourgignon
Once the cold weather hits, a good Bourgignon is one of the first things that I usually make each year. If you’re wondering what it is, it’s just beef burgundy (here I use venison neck but another stewing cut will work). You take some stewing meat, soak it in decent red wine overnight, then brown…
Venison Osso Bucco with Dried Mushrooms
There is possibly nothing more satisfying than eating an entire venison shank, and one of my favorite ways to cook them is a simple braise with dried mushrooms, herbs, stock and wine. Cutting down the shanks Venison osso bucco or cross cut shanks need some preparation during butchery to look as they’re pictured here. I…
Venison Flank Steak
Venison flank steak is a cut of meat that every deer hunter should know. This cut is one of the more under-used cuts on the deer, and it’s easy to see why. During butchery and gutting, it’s easy for it to get bloodied and unattractive, but more specifically, I think one of the reasons this…
Blackened Venison Tips
Blackened venison tips are a secret of fine meat cutting and butchery, and a perfect example of things I squirrel away for myself when butchering deer with friends. When you cut out a venison backstrap / loin there’s some trimming involved. Before you remove the silverskin, you remove another muscle called the chain, a sort…
Dried Morel Pilaf
I’ve been craving some comfort food and hurrying to use up my stash of dried morels before the next season gets here. Dried morel-venison was one of the winners I’ve been working on lately, and if you like things like Rice-A-Roni like I did when I was a kid, I think you’ll really like this. …
Venison Tenderloins “en Colère”
Venison Tenderloins en Colère is more of a fun kitchen hack for cooking the inner loins of a deer than it is a specific recipe. Story goes that one day after butchering deer with a friend, I came home and didn’t have any plans for dinner yet. If you butcher you’re own deer, you know…
Grilled Venison Trip-Tip
If you like alternative cuts of venison like I do, than you owe it to yourself to cut and grill up a venison tri-tip steak. Tri-tips are a cut of beef from the bottom of the leg made famous by chefs from California. If there was such a thing as a state cut of meat,…
Smoked Venison Kidneys
Smoked venison kidneys are not only one of the best ways I’ve had kidneys (steak and kidney pie is my other standby) but it’s one of the best recipes for offal and organ meats in my repertoire, period. If you’ve had kidneys are didn’t care for them in the past, or if you’re new to…
Smoked Venison Brisket
Yes, deer have brisket, and so do pigs, lambs and goats. While all the briskets (they sometimes go under the name of breast as well) of these animals are smaller than the typical beef brisket that most people think of when they hear the word, every one of them is worth cooking. I know there’ll…
Venison Trotters
Today, for your viewing pleasure, I present one of the most enjoyable culinary rabbit holes I’ve been down in a very long time. Behold the lowly deer foot, also called venison trotters or Bambi tootsies. Yes, you can eat the feet of deer, including what’s inside the hoof, and, although it might sound bizarre to…