Cooking "gamey" deer or other game?

[TXGunNut]

I don't have a place to hang deer to age it, I hunt in S TX and the meat is generally in the cooler a few hours after it hits the ground. Some folks swear by Italian salad dressing but I generally marinate steaks, tenderloins and such in a good Teriyaki marinade. My sausage recipes would probably cover a gamey taste but quite honestly a young doe or a nice 100 lb pig tastes and smells better to me than farm raised pork. I don't digest beef very well but enjoy it now and then, venison tenderloins I had tonight were better than any beef I've ever had, bar none.

[OnHoPr]

I agree with the gut job post and with waksupi's finer trimming point. I also like the quick kills for better tasting meat. In MI I have had cedar swamp deer, popple swamp deer, alfalfa deer, I have had corn fed deer from the Pinkerton's that you would of thought it was corn fed beef its whole life even the fat, but my favorite venison is from the hardwood ridges. The less palatable venison is the bad hit, bad field dressing, not aged, general saw bones processor.If it is stable cold in the shed or garage enough I have let my venison hang for a month. Older squirrels I soak in salt water for a few days, young ones hit the frying pan, but that has to do with toughness and not gameyness. All upland birds are gooooood. Now, there are a few duck species that still get cut up for jerky, not teal though. I just might have to experiment with the milk.

[MaryB]

I have had coot... once... never again... NASTY!

[44man]

Nothing! I hate the taste of old bucks. I tried everything and shoot mostly doe now or a button buck. I will not eat sheep or goat either but lamb chops are good. When you need to hold your nose and need a chainsaw to cut meat from a pressure cooker, give it up.
Food they eat is important too. I shot a doe in the PA forest that was great, go back and get another the same size and it was horrid.
Trophy hunters waste the most meat. Deer must be the worst, never had bad elk or moose.
Get a big, old deer and wonder why, I have shot the doe with a big buck many times.
Same with a cow. Friend had an old milk cow butchered and I went to eat with him. I almost puked. Same with a friends Lebanese wife that made stew. I had a tough time.
I will never forget the stench in our neighborhood when someone cooked mutton. Or the stench when a black guy put goat meat in the micro wave at work. No wonder Islam is nuts!
Aging is OK but you need a walk in cooler or constant temps and humidity. Some guy near here hung deer in a tree for two weeks. Got over 80° during the day. That is ROT with blow flies. Skin still on too.
I am picky as hell and don't need anything to soak meat in. I HATE gamy taste. Tell me it is how you gut and you might be wrong. Touching the hide of a buck with hands or a knife, never touched meat. Glands stripped off too. Doesn't work!

[44man]

I have had coot... once... never again... NASTY!

Coot was good in Ohio. Diet is duckweed on the lakes and they were very good.
The worst were mallards or other that ate fish.
We have resident geese here that I refuse to eat. I shot many that came from Canada in Ohio that were super, ate wild rice up there. Of course the resident geese are much older too.
We had chickens for many years and once one is so old it doesn't lay, it will not go in a pot.

[44man]

I bone deer and remove all silver skin and fat. But old bucks can not be saved.

[pertnear]

I must admit, I've never had much trouble ever getting "gamey" venison. I process my own & the suggestions in this thread about keeping things clean & paying attention to detail I think are the answer.

BUT trying to take the "WILD" out of some boar hogs, now that's another issue altogether! I've heard some strange gyrations on this subject, but bad is bad & now I don't bother!

[Boaz]

Old Boar hogs are hopeless , drag em off on the creek and let the coyotes have em unless your in a survival situation . Man them old boars stink inside and out , no help for it , lol ultimate 'gamey". I agree .

[pertnear]

Old Boar hogs are hopeless , drag em off on the creek and let the coyotes have em unless your in a survival situation . Man them old boars stink inside and out , no help for it , lol ultimate 'gamey". I agree .

Here are the two latest methods I've heard for fixing a nasty pi$$-hog (I haven't tried these):

1) The skinned, washed carcass is soaked over night in a tube of water with several cap fulls of clorox added . This is suppose to be an old Mexico method used to make Javalenas edible. (Hmmmmm sounds toxic to me!)

2) Cut the skinned, cleaned hog into pieces. In a large ice-chest layer ice, hog, ice, hog, etc. & lastly a layer of ice. Pour a full liter of coke on top & leave over night. Next day, open spout & drain all liquid off, add more ice & leave over night again. Repeat once more & your done. (Sounds like a waste of coke).

I think Boaz suggestion about dragging them off is the most plausible!...LOL

[Boaz]

You can't even render lard off old boars , looks like the process of rendering would lessen the 'stink' but it's hopeless . Been there , done that .

[Lloyd Smale]

Ive killed butchered and ate so many deer that if I posted a guess at the number I doubt youd believe it. Out of all those deer ive had exactly one that tasted what I would call gamey and that was a 250 lb buck that was so old that he had very little teeth left and I doubt he was eating well. The meat stunk before it was even cut up and stunk like pee when you cooked it. We ended up thowing it all out. If you think normal venison tasted gamey then you just don't like the flavor of venison. It just tastes a bit different as does buffalo, or elk or any other variation in red meat. Me, personaly I like the tasted of venison just the way it is and don't feel a need to try to hide the flavor. If I didn't like it I would save the money it costs to hunt them and just buy beef. I think for 90 percent of the hunters it would be cheaper that way anyway.

[Lloyd Smale]

had an old boar that smelled just like pee too and it still stunk when I tried to make some into breakfast sausage and tossed that too.

You can't even render lard off old boars , looks like the process of rendering would lessen the 'stink' but it's hopeless . Been there , done that .

[Walkingwolf]

One can of tomato juice, two cans of concentrate, a lot of garlic, peppers, cilantro, onion. Brown game meat, brown onions and garlic in olive oil, bring all ingredients to a boil, reduce heat, simmer until meat falls apart.

Growing up almost every game meat was cooked this way. And we looked forward to it every dinner. Works great for free range roosters also.

[jonp]

soak the meat in milk over night before cooking

[Blackwater]

Lots of great tips and insights here. The clorox trick is one I don't recall hearing of. Thands! Hope I never need to try it. I too have only had one deer that was really what I'd call "gamey," and it was pretty darned bad. I think the deer had taken to eating pine needles and bay leaves, and I can't even imagine what all else. It was the strongest and "gamiest" smelling deer I've ever tried to clean. I doubt even milk or anything else could have helped it, but I'll never really know because after hanging it for 5 days in an old fridge, it STILL smelled to high heaven. At that point, I reluctantly and very sadly let my wife carry it off. I just couldn't waste "good" meat, even if it DID smell to high heaven. The tomato juice and coke ideas I've heard of and some guys I trust greatly use them. They're more of the "hurry up" types than I am, though, and I've stuck with the milk when I want very mild tasting venison, like for the grandboys, who've yet to develop their taste buds to appreciate really good "wild" flavors. If they know it's venison, the little one won't eat it at all, and the older one seems to be mostly neutral toward it. To me, good venison has a MUCH "cleaner" type of taste than commercial beef. I once shot enough venison that we ate mostly that rather than hamburger, etc. when I was still in college. After several months of eating mainly venison and fish I'd caught, we went out and splurged on a nice steak. It was delicious, of course, but some 20 min. after eating it, I got a very distinct taste of tallow in my mouth that I found rather less than pleasant. That was all the fat in the steak I'd eaten, of course, and not once, in all the venison I've eaten, have I EVER tasted that kind of taste. Not once.

If I had my druthers, all I'd eat would be wild meat, save maybe for a turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas (just doesn't seem the same without them and dressing) and a couple of steaks in the whole year. That way, I'd avoid all the antibiotics they're shot up with, the growth hormones, etc. that they treat our commercial meats with today. I just don't think that stuff is really good for us, but that's just my take on it.

Coon is also a good meal, as is rabbit & squirrel. I refuse to even think about eating armadillo! I learned to hate possums way back when I was still in high school, and can't abide the thought of eating one of the things - almost like thinking of eating a vulture with a prehensile tail! At least to me. Good goat is a fine meal, also, very similar to venison, depending on what it's been eating, of course.

And that's the big source of "gamey" meat, plus old age, rutting hormones, etc. The milk, if soaked overnight, seems to get most or even all of it out. If it smells strongly, try soaking 2 days. I need to give the tomato and coke stuff a try just to see.

And all the comments about the gutting & processing are spot on, too. I've come to the point where I LIKE taking my time with the carcass in cutting it up. Lets me gloat just a little, and smell that wonderful, promising smell as I cut it up. After all, anticipation and those aromas the commercial restaurants spend bucks on to get outside so folks will want to come in, really ARE effective! Usually can't resist throwing a few slices of loin in the pan to eat while I get the carcas iced down good for a little aging. Here, I usually use the bath tub after cleaning it well. Wife makes me clorox it after the againg, but has come to love the meat as much as I do. It took a while for her to get over her aversion to the "thought," but good taste can and will do that.

Thanks for all the tips. I learned a few things, and relearned some old stuff I'd forgotten about.

[OnHoPr]

Coon is also a good meal, as is rabbit & squirrel.

That reminded me of 35 years ago a couple of friends and I went to our cottage for small game. A local trapper and outdoorsman gave me a kit coon that hit one of his 220 connibears. It was probably a 5 to 7 lb carcass and he told us to put it on a rack in a baking pan covered with foil and bake it real slower for about 3 hrs then put BBQ sauce on it and bake it another hour. Let me tell you between the 3 of us there wasn't any pickins left for later 2nds or tomorrow's lunch.

I butcher my deer basically by dissecting muscle groups. When I get a bunch of some of the tougher leg steaks piled up I put them in plastic zip locks and put italian dressing in the bag and cover all the steaks with it then put it in the fridge for a day then the freezer. They sure make for a different tasting quick tender sizzle steak fry.

[Blackwater]

Sounds like you and I butcher deer very much alike. I like to take the muscle groups, clean them of all the silvery sinew, and cut them across the grain so it's all, even the "tough" cuts, very tender when cooked. I've come to like it best when I take these, soak them in milk long enough to soak in good, and then just pop them in a hot frying pan with just enough oil to keep them from sticking, and as the milk and juices cook out, pour them off. Flip and do the other side same way. When they're done, they'll be a little dry, but that's a real asset, because THEN I put in some butter, Worcestershire, soy, onions, garlic, and whatever else I think might taste good that night, like paprika, taragon, chilli or red pepper, or whatever else strikes me as desirable with whatever else I'm cooking, like veggies, etc. Mmmmm! I can taste it now! King Solomon never ate THAT well!

[Lloyd Smale]

never ran into that problem. The bucks we shoot up here are rarely older then 3 years anyway and are usually corn fed for the 2 months previous to season buy people who bait. A 3 year old 8-10 pointer doesn't taste much different then a 150 lb doe. sure the 80 lb does taste better but even a little 80 lb buck can be just as good. When we do crop damage shooting were shooting about 99 percent does but once in a while they allow bucks and ive shot real big 10pointers that ate potatoes and alfalfa that tasted just fine and were tender as anything. Advantage there is were shooting them before the rut. By the time mid deer season comes and the rut is on a big one might get chewy. Nice thing is (if you call it good) that there sure isn't much chance of getting a big one.

Nothing! I hate the taste of old bucks. I tried everything and shoot mostly doe now or a button buck. I will not eat sheep or goat either but lamb chops are good. When you need to hold your nose and need a chainsaw to cut meat from a pressure cooker, give it up.
Food they eat is important too. I shot a doe in the PA forest that was great, go back and get another the same size and it was horrid.
Trophy hunters waste the most meat. Deer must be the worst, never had bad elk or moose.
Get a big, old deer and wonder why, I have shot the doe with a big buck many times.
Same with a cow. Friend had an old milk cow butchered and I went to eat with him. I almost puked. Same with a friends Lebanese wife that made stew. I had a tough time.
I will never forget the stench in our neighborhood when someone cooked mutton. Or the stench when a black guy put goat meat in the micro wave at work. No wonder Islam is nuts!
Aging is OK but you need a walk in cooler or constant temps and humidity. Some guy near here hung deer in a tree for two weeks. Got over 80° during the day. That is ROT with blow flies. Skin still on too.
I am picky as hell and don't need anything to soak meat in. I HATE gamy taste. Tell me it is how you gut and you might be wrong. Touching the hide of a buck with hands or a knife, never touched meat. Glands stripped off too. Doesn't work!

[smokeywolf]

My family would rather eat duck or goose than chicken or turkey. Smoked both a duck and a goose last week. Nothing went to waste and nothing left to freeze for a later quick meal. Got a fresh batch of goose grease, which Mrs. smokeywolf prefers to use when frying just about any type of vegetable or meat.

[abunaitoo]

Just wondering.
Has anyone tried soaking in milk over night, then wrapping in bacon, and bake in the oven on a rack.