deer necks and shanks.

[Lloyd Smale]

a post on another forum got me thinking about something I used to do but haven't in a coupe years. I use to take deer necks or shanks or and other burger quality meat and toss it in the pressure cooker with some onion and lots of garlic for about a hour and a half and take it out and pick out all the fat and grizzle that was left. Then dump the juices and onions into one of those foil turkey cooking pan and put it in the smoker at about a 125 degrees with heavy smoke for about 4 hours. It tasted like melt in your mouth jerky It was good right out of the pan for a football game or party and made excellent chilli meat. I also used to mix cold with cream cheese some of the juices and raw onion and serve it as a cracker dip (that went over real well) . Any more and dad claims most of the necks we get but going to have to save a couple next year and do it again.

[kens]

deer neck is better than burger quality meat. why do you say that?
for me, the neck is of high quality table fare.

Take the whole neck, cut it into parts between each vertibrae.
Put all that into a crock pot, of course some onion, salt, pepper, let it cook until meat fall off the bone.
Sort out the meat-n-bones; and of course there is always a salt-n-pepper shaker close to where you already working in the kitchen........
let me know if you end up with enough meat to make Chile, it usually gets eaten up before the chili gets made .......!!!

[MyFlatline]

Amazing how much meat is on the head also, deer or hog. Skin it back and put it on the smoker.

[MaryB]

Shred meat, dissolve gelatin in some of the cooking stock and pour it over the shredded meat. Weight it down with a board(I have a bread pan with a board cut to fit that I vac bagged so I can wash it) and put in the fridge over night. Unmold and slice for sandwiches with butter and horseradish...

[kens]

Shred meat, dissolve gelatin in some of the cooking stock and pour it over the shredded meat. Weight it down with a board(I have a bread pan with a board cut to fit that I vac bagged so I can wash it) and put in the fridge over night. Unmold and slice for sandwiches with butter and horseradish...

OH wait !!!
I had to read that a couple times.
you say gelatin, I am thinking of souse.
is that kinda like a souse recipe?

[rondog]

Next deer I get, I'm going to try that neck trick. I figure our electric turkey roaster would be ideal for it.

But, what are "shanks"? I hate wasting good edible meat, so if there's some I can salvage I wanna know. I'm a newbie at this venison thing.....

[Lloyd Smale]

shanks are the bottom of the legs where all the tendons tie to the bone. Never said neck meat isn't good. TO me its burger meat because I get enough deer that fooling around and picking meat out of the grizzle isn't worth the bother. If I want a roast I take a chunk of hind quarter meat. Got to make burger out of something so I use shanks, necks, rib cage and even sometimes front shoulders for it. I'm not much on eating organ meat so I even occasionaly throw a heart in the burger pile. That is if everyone that wants them from me allready has enough. We shoot lots of deer and it costs us gas money to travel back and forth so I have to make that up somehow. I figure at over 3 bucks a lb if I can get 10-15bs of burger of each deer ive paid for gas and my time. I use it for summer sausage and fresh sausage too. So my routine for deer is back straps are steaks for the grill. Hind quarter meat is roasts and cube steak meat, front shoulders are cube steak or burger and everything else is burger. Yes you can slow cook a neck roast and get great meat off of it. Truth be told you can do the same for shanks or any other rough cuts. My dad even claims the best tasting meat is the neck meat but ME ill take back straps on the grill or chicken fried cube steaks or if I want a roast one that is lean and still is fall apart good. I also LIKE burger so why wouldn't I use neck meat for it. It not only saves money on the monthly food bill but is much better tasting then the nasty cheap stuff in the store. Only disadvantage to using it for burger is its time consuming to bone out. Especially if your processing 3 or 4 deer in a day which sometimes happens.

[Lloyd Smale]

Shred meat, dissolve gelatin in some of the cooking stock and pour it over the shredded meat. Weight it down with a board(I have a bread pan with a board cut to fit that I vac bagged so I can wash it) and put in the fridge over night. Unmold and slice for sandwiches with butter and horseradish...

mary I usually sit up and listen when you post recipes but venison floating in gelatin doesn't trip my trigger. I know, "if you tried it you might like it" But ive ate that gelatinized meat from the store and it triggers my gag reflex.

[Lloyd Smale]

To be fair I guess too if I only shot one or even two deer a year I probably wouldn't even fool with burger. Hardly worth dragging out a grinder for 15 lbs of burger. id probably just slow cook it all. I usually wait till ive got at least a 100lbs of scraps before I drag the grinder out for a batch of burger or batch of summer sausage or fresh. if I can get 50-100lbs of summer sausage, 50-100 lbs of fresh sausage and 200lbs of burger up it will usually last the year or close to it. problem with sausage both summer and fresh is I just get to many beggers. If it were just for me 50 does fine but I probably give away over half of what I make.

[GhostHawk]

I get where Mary went, she is essentially making venison head cheese.

The juices are full of flavor, add some gelatin and that flavor can be sliced and put on a sandwich.

Mom used to take necks, slow simmer them in a pot of water. Then spice and add in home made egg noodles. It was a wonder to behold. Leftovers were fought over. And I mean tooth and nail!

[WRideout]

But, what are "shanks"? I hate wasting good edible meat, so if there's some I can salvage I wanna know. I'm a newbie at this venison thing.....

One of my favorite venison meals it the lower part of the leg (the shanks, you get four of them) with a package of onion soup over them, braised in the oven with a cup of red wine. Served with mashed potatoes, it is really good!

Wayne

[MaryB]

Yes, my grandma called it loaf sausage... we never wasted much so every scrap got used somewhere!

OH wait !!!
I had to read that a couple times.
you say gelatin, I am thinking of souse.
is that kinda like a souse recipe?

[MaryB]

It doesn't float, you barely cover the meat then compact it. The gelatin binds it together into a sort of sausage.

mary I usually sit up and listen when you post recipes but venison floating in gelatin doesn't trip my trigger. I know, "if you tried it you might like it" But ive ate that gelatinized meat from the store and it triggers my gag reflex.

[MT Gianni]

I get where Mary went, she is essentially making venison head cheese.

The juices are full of flavor, add some gelatin and that flavor can be sliced and put on a sandwich.

Mom used to take necks, slow simmer them in a pot of water. Then spice and add in home made egg noodles. It was a wonder to behold. Leftovers were fought over. And I mean tooth and nail!

The neck is not tender or flavorful as it is any more than the rest of the deer. It is the slow cooking of the tendon filled meat that releases the collagen and makes the meat both flavorful and tender.

[Omega]

To be fair I guess too if I only shot one or even two deer a year I probably wouldn't even fool with burger. Hardly worth dragging out a grinder for 15 lbs of burger. id probably just slow cook it all. I usually wait till ive got at least a 100lbs of scraps before I drag the grinder out for a batch of burger or batch of summer sausage or fresh. if I can get 50-100lbs of summer sausage, 50-100 lbs of fresh sausage and 200lbs of burger up it will usually last the year or close to it. problem with sausage both summer and fresh is I just get to many beggers. If it were just for me 50 does fine but I probably give away over half of what I make.

I only keep one, and I grind a few pounds because I like to make summer sausage. I also make jerky with a jerky gun, so it's worth it to me to drag out all my stuff to process the one deer even if its only 15 lbs or so.

As to the OP, I'm carefully looking over this and other threads about what to do with the neck, I hate trying to debone it so it is going into a crockpot this year, it's just the recipe that hasn't been decided on yet. I'm thinking curry of some sort.

[WebMonkey]

Front shoulders are cooked whole in the oven for 7 or more hours.
Big roasting pan. Meat covered with water. Handful of spice-o-the-day.

Always dreaded trimming the front shoulders.
Now, no muss, no fuss. All used up.

[Lloyd Smale]

Front shoulders are cooked whole in the oven for 7 or more hours.
Big roasting pan. Meat covered with water. Handful of spice-o-the-day.

Always dreaded trimming the front shoulders.
Now, no muss, no fuss. All used up.

we occasionaly mistake a small doe (this years) thinking its a bigger one farther out when were doing crop damage shooting after the spots have faded. that's where most of my roasts come from. A front shoulder in the crock pot or pressure cooker makes a great meal for me and the wife with just enough left overs for a sandwich or two the next day. Small dear like that is hardly worth boning out a shoulder for scrap and even the front shoulder meat on them is tender when roasted.

[EMC45]

I like neck meat for ground, and if I can get good sized strips I use it for jerky too.