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.

More Pre-eating - Cookies, this time

Cookies for the hunt.

Use the "vanishing oatmeal raisin cookie" recipe under the lid on the Quakers" Old Fashioned Oatmeal"lid, but add a cup of walnuts and a cup of dark chocolate chips. Use half whole wheat flour and replace sugar w/ honey and tablespoon or so of molasses to taste( it is ok to taste the cookie dough) if you want them really healthy and good tasting.

These cookies are like a meal in the woods/stand, as well as a real sweet treat. Stash enough for yourself so the other hunters don't short you. Of the many things I have learned while cooking on fishing and hunting trips is that your chums will not think of you while piling their plates full. Ya gotta keep enough for yourself. Some of those partners are bottomless when it comes to food and appetite.

The cookies will qualify as pre-eating too, because you will want to practise on a batch and then you will eat them. Start soon.

Pre- Eating for Deer Season

You know how "pre-fishing" before a fishing tournament makes sense and that scouting the woods and fields and fixing your deer stand before season and sighting in your rifle and stuff(pre-hunting) also makes sense, well then wouldn't it also make sense to pre-eat some deer season food before season?

Like scrambled eggs with chili and cheese on top and toast. Just had it and thought what a great breakfast or brunch on deer openers. Many of us plan on chili at camp anyways. This makes it a two-fer - another great chili meal that ain't just chili.

Pre-eat the last of your venison from last season too, and you'll be tuned up for this one.

Pre-fishing. Pre-hunting. Pre-eating. They all make sense.

On The Sunny Side of The Street

Wild Alaskan Kings have intruded in a good way like an unexpected yesterday( sunny, 60 degrees). Slow roasted in a cast iron pan, seasoned w/ dill and parsley and sage and butter and cooked to medium, this salmon ( a gift from School Principal Dennis of Onamia, caught by his own hand) was clean tasting, deep red, luscious with therapeutic oils that have apparently healed a recently aching hip joint, redolent of swift water, fresh, and the salty sea.

Overnight, no less. Will I walk as the King swims? Perhaps. What I do know is that I will eat more. Dennis?

If you are lucky enough to have leftover salmon, stir some maple syrup into mustard, douse your salmon, and eat it on rye krisp for breakfast, along w/ cottage cheese and a glass of apple juice. There is a little curry flavor in yellow mustard due to the turmeric, which is what gives it the yellow color. I used Plochman's mustard. $ 1.09 at the store.

I will be doing some deer tenderloin recipes for Outdoor News, which is traditionally the first eaten meat of the deer at deer camp. Onions, mushrooms, and the valuable medallions simply sauteed w/ salt, pepper and garlic and finished off w/ a splash of brandy. Done medium rare and served on toast. Or a stroganoff( medium rare, also) served over noodles. Others, too, I'll let you know.

And remember. You gotta get a deer to eat a deer.

Stir Fly

I taught an Asian Cooking class last night at Onamia High School on the behest of Onamia Community Education.

For starters I did a "mother sauce" for stir fry with chicken broth and plenty of garlic and ginger - thickened w/ cornstarch and water. It works for chow mein, too. It is called a mother sauce because it is adaptable to many different dishes - add crushed red pepper( and catsup!), and or Thai chili sauce to get a spicy Thai stir fry, more garlic to do garlic chicken and broccoli, fish or oyster sauce for others and so on.

We did a curry, too, w/ heavy cream and carmelized onions and chicken( and curry powder, of course), lime juice and cilantro that was excellent. A guest at the class said she made a similar curry utilizing grouse and coconut milk and it was great. Good idea. Pheasant would be exceptional.

In the past as an appetizer I have sautee'd bite sized pheasant portions and glazed/finished them off w/ a sweet hot Thai chili sauce. It is like eating candy it is so good.