Venison Carpaccio

Cooking, , , ,

Deer Carpaccio

 

Ingredients:
  • Frozen deer tenderloin (elk, deer, oryx or antelope works as well)
  • Red onion
  • Capers
  • Olive oil
  • Kosher salt
  • Fresh ground pepper
  • Lemon

Preparation:

Use a meat slicer or razor sharp knife to cut paper thin slices of the frozen loin. Place the cut meat onto a plate and do not overlap any of the meat on top of each other.

Squeeze fresh lemon juice over the raw slices of meat to chemically cook the tenderloin.

Add several splashes of olive oil over the plate. Then place cappers throughout the dish. Cut the red onion into very thin slices and place on top of the meat. Finally, sprinkle salt and fresh-ground pepper across the dish.

Wild Game Butchering

So you have unloaded that elk, deer, oryx, wild boar or what ever you hunted from your truck and are ready to process it. Garage butcher can help you nicely slice up the steps to process the meat and put food on the table. Butchering is a great experience and makes it really worthwhile once your dinner is cooked.

First you will need to gather the right supplies. Once you have your working area clear and the right tools, you can start cutting into the meat. I prefer the garage, but if I have an antelope at the end of August and my wife is out, the kitchen island will suffice.

Gather the following supplies:

  • Knife – Fillet knife and a sturdy fixed blade
  • Table – Plastic table or something similar
  • Saw – Wide teeth will cut through bone like butter (almost)
  • Butcher Paper and Tape – AKA freezer paper
  • Cutting Board – Your favorite one
  • Medical Gloves – This is optional

Now it is time to start processing the game. You can have the animal hanging from a rack, in the back of your truck, laid out on the table. If it is on a table, you will need an additional surface for the processing. I usually start out by covering my table with butcher paper to give a clean surface. When butchering large game you can break down your major sections into a several areas.

Major Cuts:

  • Loins – Inner loins and outer loins
  • Hindquarters– Both rear legs
  • Ribs – Very delicious if you still intact and know how to cook them
  • Front-quarters – Both front legs
  • Neck

Liberating the loins.

Back straps are the first things to cut if you did not already do this in the field. Using the fixed blade knife, insert it at the edge of the spine cutting along the edge of the spine to separate the meat from the bone. Cut along the spine starting from the edge of the shoulder down the rump. Make lateral incisions at both ends. The underside for the loin lies on top of the rib cage. Cut and pull on the loin along the top of the rib cage to remove the cut of meat. Once the loin is pulled off, use the fillet knife to trim away any dried meat and sinew. Repeat the process for the other loin and again for the inner loins on the under side of the rib cage.

loinTrimCrop             cutloin

Handling the Hindquarters.

The hindquarters provide the majority of meat on the animal and fair amount of it can but cut into round steaks.  When attached to animal, the top of the leg is connected to the hip. You can move the leg in a circular motion and notice that the top of the femur pivots around the hip. I cut around the leg in towards to the bone , and if done correctly you should see the ball at the top of the femur.This is exactly where you should cut to remove the leg. The meaty portion above the leg is the rump roast and can be cut out as an single piece. Totally remove the leg and you are ready to start cutting steaks.  While cutting the meat off the leg, in general, you can identify major  muscle groups and cut them away from the bone.

The upper portions of the hind leg are the most tender and are comprised of the eye round and top round steaks. This area covers approximately the top third of the leg starting from the end down towards the knee. The middle area is considered  round steak, and the lower third is bottom round. The round and lower round cuts still make great steaks, but you might marinate or tenderize these sections prior to cooking.

The remaining portion below the knee is the shank, which is great for hamburger or stew meat. There is more sinew in the shank and the fillet knife is utilized for this task. As long as your game has two hind legs, repeat on the other side.

hindQuarter

Racking the Ribs.

Not every hunter eats the ribs on a wild game animal. Well they are missing out, because if prepared correctly you can get some excellent and flavorful meat. Using a saw, cut the ribs off the body. After the rack of ribs is separated, use the fillet knife to trim off any dry areas and remove as much sinew as possible. Depending on how you would like to cook the ribs, you may want to use the saw to reduce the size into multiple cuts.

ribs

Slicing up the Shanks.

The are  multiple ways to parcel up the front shanks, but I like to use the front legs for the majority of my stew and burger meat. Similar to removing the hind quarters, grab the front leg, move it around to see where the top of the leg attaches to the shoulder. Cut around this joint to remove the front quarter. At this point you can basically cut up the upper portion of the leg for stew meat and the bottom of the leg for burger. The lower shank has more sinew and is suited for processing with a meat grinder. If you do not plan to grind the meat, then you can take the time to remove the meat from the sinew and use for a stew type of dish. The front leg is a well utilized muscle of the wild game and is generally a tougher portion of the animal.

If the animal is younger  and tender or a wild pig, you can simply smoke or slowly cook the front leg as single piece.

Negotiating the Neck

You are pretty much left with the neck and few scraps of meat here and there. The solution is your boning knife and a little bit of work. The end result is a bunch of meat for making burgers, sausage or stew. This is great for curried wild game if you are a well cultured butcher.