Venison Chops Explained and a Simple Recipe

I made the many bean soup w/o meat, but when I eat it I garnish a bowl of it w/ a quarter inch dicing of liverwurst. Excellent.

Stay w/ the venison roast recipe( a couple of posts back) - it is great. When you make the marinade, shake it up in a jar or food processor it so it is all in one - an emulsion.I think the normally dry venison benefits greatly from the amount of oil in the recipe. Remember that you must keep the pan covered during roasting. Check it a couple of times to make sure that the liquid( marinade) is still liquid - add more marinade or water as necessary. Remember that you start the roast w/ a cup of the marinade. There should be liquid( au jus) in the pan to serve w/ the roast.

Venison chops - steaks from along and either side of the back bone correspond to ribeye( prime rib), t-bones, porterhouses, New York strips- and you should cook them accordingly. That means medium rare for me - venison steaks will definitely be dry if you over cook them. You can compensate somewhat for that by frying them in a pan( I use black cast iron) in vegetable oil and butter on medium heat - a little less heat than you would for beef steaks.

Definitely saute onions first till clear and soft( med low heat so they don't burn) and mushrooms( your choice, but recommended) half done and move the onions and mushrooms to the perimeter of your pan. Chops should be an inch to an inch and a half thick, seasoned w/ salt pepper and garlic. Turn heat up to medium. Add a little more oil and butter to the middle of the pan and place the chops in the middle of the pan, fry 3 or 4 minutes, turn over for about 3 more minutes - you can test for degree of doneness by cutting a small slit in the top of the steak - remember that they will keep cooking after you remove them from the heat to the serving platter so get them off the heat a little early.

A rule of thumb in professional kitchens is to remove steaks from heat when they are cooked a half step under how the steak was ordered. You can always cook a steak a little more if a guest requests it, but you can't cook it less.

Now for the good part. When you remove the steaks from the pan, turn up the heat to medium high, add( your choice here) a quarter cup of either cognac( brandy), red wine, or even water, and when it boils and reduces a little( 1 minute), add a couple pats of butter( cold preferably), swirl and stir and pour the sauce along w/ the onions and mushrooms over the steaks on the serving platter.

Have some good bread for dunking - you will all fight over the sauce on the platter.


Any decent red wine works - Cabernet( Bordeaux), Burgundy( Pinot Noir), Merlot, Shiraz, etc -you don't have to pay more than 10 bucks a bottle - drink the same wine that you cook with - Sutter Home or Mondavi are widely available even in stores up North and are about 7 or 8 bucks a bottle. Wine is cheap these days.

If you cook chops like this it's like a rekindled or new love affair w/ venison. Good luck.

Bread, soup, cookies on a cold day

When the wind is blowing cold from the NW and the snow is horizontal and the temperature is dropping it is a good day to bake bread and cook soup.

The bread is a hearty peasant style w/ white and whole wheat and rye flour and it is a many bean soup.

A venison roast is thawing and will rest in a marinade to be roasted tomorrow.

Cookies too. It is a good day to bake cookies. Chocolate chip w/ half whole wheat flour and hazelnuts.

Deer Tenderloins

If I would've thrown my steel thermos at the early buck 20 yds from my stand on opening morning and stunned him and then shot him, I would have gotten my buck. But I didn't, of course, and I didn't get him.

Others did, tho', and got does, and I just ate the best deer tenderloins I have ever eaten.

Onions cooked till translucent, mushrooms till soft, spread to the perimeter of the pan, and the 1/ 4 inch sliced tenderloins seasoned w/ salt, pepper, and garlic and sauteed to med rare, splashed w/ cognac, tossed, and finished w/ butter and served w/ a baguette and a cheap Pinot Noir( Mondavi or Sutter Home @ $6 or $7 a bottle ) can't be beat.

I will talk more of deer tenderloins tomorrow.