Okay guys, I need some help. The only way I can get my family to eat any venison is the ground meat style dishes, Chilli, spagetti etc. or my home made jerky. Steak, roast, they will have no part of it! is there something or some process I can try to take the "gaminess" out of the meat other than covering with merinade?? Help please????

Soak it overnight in buttermilk.

Thanks WH!

My kids like when I pound out the steaks/loins, bread and fry into tenderloin sammiches.

I'll sprinkle my dry seasonings on ham steaks/loins.... then take a glass coke bottle, and use the mouth of the bottle to beat it gently. It tenderizes it, and kind of like making cubed steak.

Dip the pieces into buttermilk, then into flour. I "double dip" mine though! LOL

Fry in light oil till golden brown. Like powder said, it's good just fried like that...........BUT,

Now drain off all your oil out of the frying pan, but keep all your "drippings/crumbs" from the oil. Put the fried steak pieces, the "drippings", cut onions, mushrooms, back in the frying pan.... and make some brown gravy to smother it all with! Let simmer a good long while on low.......

Then put it on bed of rice, or mashed taters!!
I really like Wild Rice myself, wife prefers Yellow rice!

Mmmm, now I'm hungry again!! :p

Yer killin' me Bo....

Are you removing all the silverskin, fat, ect.? I have found the whole cuts of meat ares MUCH better if those parts are removed, preferably when it is cut up for the freezer. Saws, IMHO are a no no too, the bone dust gets in the cuts and gives a bad taste.
just my .02

eat younger deer

all the above is good advice.

-I you recommend you stick with using the meat in dishes with tomato based sauce, the acidity of tomato neutralizes the gaminess of the meat

-deer meat is always going to have a 'gamey' or wild flavor to it when prepped in roasts or steaks

-you might try using a tomato based broth when you cook the roasts...

Another idea (no accusations) is to make sure not to chase your game too early. Once you shoot, let them go die. One thing that makes meat 'gamey' is adrenaline building up and then oxygen depletion not carrying the acids out of the muscle.

More often than not, you can tell if someone has jumped their deer several times.

Other than that, again the above suggestions work well.

good point, a well placed heart lung shot kills quickly and drains a significant fraction of the blood, leading to better tasting meat.

IMHO, part of what people think of as venison's "gamey" taste is due to the fact that it is not a cow, and will not taste like a cow. To their way of thinking; cow=yummy. (Non-cow)=gamey. Just something that some folks can't get over.
HB

+1 HB

When people talked about getting rid of gamey taste I tell them to buy beef.

Tell that to my current wife............ Had her 18 months...... Might have to trade her in soon if she doesnt come around.lol

The main way I've found to relieve "gamey" taste on venison is to let it soak in salt water and periodically drain bloody water and refill with water. I haven't found anyone yet that hasn't liked it after doing this. Also other ideas were good. Favorite Steak dish: do what I mentioned above, tenderize with tenderizing hammer etc. dip in flour and pan fry to brown. Then put it in cake like pan with campbells beefy mushroom soup and a few sliced onions then bake for about an hour. You can cut it with a fork and it is absolutely awesome with some fried potatoes. If they won't eat that, buy beef.

+1 C.Q

That beefy mushroom soup and a slow cooker is a sho' nuff winning combination!

parson

This is one way that i cook deer meat for people who said they will "never" eat it. Marinate steaks over night in zesty ltalian dressing, than wrap the steaks with bacon and cook in oven or on BBQ until the bacon is cooked. Wife loves it that way and she hated deer meat until she tried it that way.

I believe this is the trick. The last few years I've spent extra time washing off as much blood as possible from the meat before I cook it. Even soaking it in water like Cody said. Man I'm tellin ya it makes a big difference. I started doing this after a butcher explained to me that the blood is what makes it taste "gamey". He was right!

Goes right along with my previous post about the blood drain and oxygen. I think both are the perfect pre-cooking solution. Tried the beefy mushroom soup thing too...MMMMMM!

I will be honest, I am a bit worried about some of the techniques and theories about venison 'gaminess'. I do not think that a deer tastes more gamey if they have adrenaline in them. I did not know adrenaline has a taste at all?

I think that the solution is VERY simple:
1.) take ALL the fat out. I don't think anyone would argue that 99.9% of the gaminess is in the fat
2.) eat the meat before 6-months in the freezer
3.) do not serve meat that has sit in your refrigerator for more than 2 days (it seems to get gamey after this amount of time)
4.) DO NOT CUT YOUR MEAT INTO SMALL PORTIONS GUYS! Larger portions keep from freezer burn and overall gaminess.

I am going to be a bit bold, and say... I PROMISE I COULD fool anyone reading and have you do a taste test with:
1.) a deer that I did not let bleed out (from the field to freezer without hanging),
2.) with a 5 year old buck in rut and straight from field to freezer
3.) and with a doe that was 1.5 years old, hung for 4 days in a cooler,

-----and you WOULD NOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE between the 3!!

99.9999% is in how it is cut, prepped, and cooked!

Anyone want me to do this challenge? It would require the deer meat to have been shot relatively at the same time (no meat from last year guys), and stored in large chunks (at least 1 lb chunks if not 2).

FYI: this is a friendly challenge, not to be cocky; cockiness is just for show:)

should have also stated, that a sure fire way to fool some people and make them venison lovers- is when you do slice (ready to cook) the venison, be sure to do paperthin slices. You will want to flash cook, and not overcook.

There is a cooking theory that states when you quickly cook/brown meat (high heat, in quick timing), it releases natural sugars and almost caramelizes the surface of the meat. Therefore, when you thin slice, it allows for the maximum amount of surface area to be affected in this fashion.

I agree with the blood thing,If a deer has been taken down with a clean kill, and the deer is hung up by the back legs,and decapped to allow
the blood to drain, this will make the best possible flavor from the venison. A young deer being the best, a doe of most any age is good too. If it's a narly old buck that is in rut, then perhaps your expectations should be lowered considerably. Summer sausage may be the answer.
(Try my recipe for pizza loaf on the recipe page)
Merry Christmas Yall !

Not the adrenaline really. This explains what I was trying to say more clearly. This is from Purdue University.

--Effects of Stress on Final Meat Quality--
To understand the effects of stress on final meat quality, it is important to understand the relationship of glycogen and lactic acid to pH decline in meat after slaughter. An animal which has not been stressed will have normal levels of glycogen in its body. When the animal is slaughtered and exsanguinated, the metabolic process continues, however there is no longer circulating oxygen. Without the presents of oxygen, the breakdown of glycogen/glucose results in a buildup of latic acid which then causes a drop in pH of the meat.

The final quality of meat is greatly affected by the rate of pH decline in the meat after slaughter. If there was a great lactic acid buildup before slaughter, the pH of the meat declines too quickly after slaughter and a Pale, Soft, Exudative (PSE) condition may develop. As suggested by the name, the affected meat is pale, soft, and fluid may drip from the surface.

At the other extreme, if the animal is glycogen depleted before slaughter the pH may not drop quickly enough after slaughter because there is not enough lactic acid produced. In this case the meat will be very dry and dark in color. This condition is known as Dark Firm Dry (DFD) meat. An additional problem with this type of meat is that it is more susceptible to spoiling since it lacks the lactic acid which normally helps retard growth of microorganisms after slaughter. Note that glycogen deficiency may also be the result of too much physical activity or inadequate diet before slaughter.