Just throwing this in to spur a bit of interest in this thread. Our game meat is great. I like it plain and simple. For example, this evening I took some Coues deer liver, cut in slices, some wild hog steak, cut in slices, sauteed in a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper,
a dash of red pepper and garlic. Excellent. Even better with a nice vino tinto from Argentina, Spain or Italy. What say you?

I say I don't eat liver. Comes from a job I had as a college student working in a slaughter house. If the rest of you want to eat it, you can have my share.

I like either hog or venison tenderloin cooked in an oriental stir-fry style. Venison backstrap, floured and pan-fried for 3 minutes max. Yum.

As the saying goes, "There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots."

Yes, even a good beef steak really needs nothing more than a pinch of black pepper when frying or BBQing.

A friend of ours on a nearby property had one of his house cows slaughtered recently and I was offered half of the butchered carcass for free (he didn't have the space to store all of it).

No worries I thought, if it cooks up like shoe leather I'll just slowly feed it all to the dog over the next 6 months.

Wow, how wrong I was.
A young, fully grass fed cow is just simply THE best eating beef you can get.
It bears no resemblance to the packaged supermarket stuff at all.

The fat is yellow and abundant and fully marbelled thru the meat and it actually smells like beef should, almost a bit gamey really. Remember what those old butcher shops used to smell like when you were a kid? Well that's it.

I just fry up those t-bones nice and rare in butter with just a pinch of salt and pepper and enjoy it with a fresh salad and a glass of red wine or icy cold beer with maybe just a dash of tabasco for spice.

It is really somethin else.

Yes ! Venison is perhaps best when the loin is thinly sliced ,quickly sauted in butter ,and put on homemade bread !

I agree!!! Too many people over marinate, over smother, over sauce--over everything. The chef I apprenticed under used to say added flavours should be so subtle that you have to "search for the taste" in other words it shouldn't over power the food. Also people use too many falvour combinations these days. I like complex flavours but there's a limit to what anyone can handle. Also it's so very common with the "fusion cuisine" to pair flavours that have no business being together-just for the idea of having a new and unheard of item.

If you cook something it should come out tasting like the meat you started with.

cheers!

Don't care if it's a beef steak or some venison on the Q, it should be mildly seasoned with any of your favorite spices... Meat is simply excellent on it's own merit and doesn't need to much interference from seasonings... But let's face it, we all pretty much like salt, pepper and garlic ...

Ken....

Hear! Hear! I teach a wild game cooking class for your DNR and the first thing I hear is that tired old, "well what does venison taste like?" I want to shout, "It tastes like venison, Dumbass." Mutton doesn't take like beef any more than beef tastes like chicken. They all have their distinctive flavors and to really enjoy them for what they are, what's the sense in soaking it for 3 weeks in some godawful marinade? Then the next worst thing I hear is, "Well, I'm not eating it until it's well done." Well, if it's well done, it's overdone and you may as well chew on your shoe sole.

Here's something I've saved for years:

SUBJECT: Results: Venison - Beef Blind Taste Test

Controversy has long raged about the relative quality of venison and beef as gourmet food. Some people say that venison is tough, with a strong wild taste. Others insist that venison is tender and its flavor
is delicate.

The U of W Foods Research Department recently conducted a taste test to determine the truth of these conflicting assertions. First, a high-choice Holstein steer was led into a swamp a mile and a half from the nearest road, then shot several times. After only some of the entrails were removed, the carcass was dragged over rocks and logs, through mud and dust, thrown into a pickup truck box and transported through rain and snow 100 miles before being hung out in the sun for 9 days. After that it was lugged into a garage, where it was skinned and rolled around on the floor for a while.

Strict sanitary precautions were observed throughout this test, within the limitations of the butchering environment. For instance, dogs and cats were allowed to sniff at the carcass, but were chased out of the garage if they attempted to lick or take a bite out of the carcass.

Next, the steer was dragged into the house and down the basement steps. Half a dozen inexperienced, but enthusiastic men worked on the carcass with meat saws, cleavers, and dull knives while ingesting massive amounts of warm beer. The result of which was 350 pounds of soup bones, four bushel baskets of meat scraps, and a couple of steaks that were an eighth of an inch thick on one edge and 2 inches thick on the other.

The steaks were fried in a skillet of rancid bacon grease, along with three pounds of onions. After two hours of frying, the contents of the skillet were served to a panel of three blindfolded volunteers. Every one of the members of the panel thought it was venison. One of the members said it tasted exactly like the venison he had eaten at hunting camp for the last 25 years.

The results of this trial indicate conclusively that there is no difference between the taste of high-quality beef and the taste of venison.

George , the problem is that it's so hard to explain that to people. More than once I've heard people state firmly that ALL venison has a strong gamey taste.But when they eat mine they are totally confused !!

I find that the common red wine marinade makes venison taste MORE gamey. I won't use it.

Having said that, you do catch more flies with sugar than vinegar. I recently did a wild game dinner for friends, and my wife, who usually won't eat any, agreed to "taste" some, just to be sociable.

I did bear tenderloin in a mushroom/wine sauce. She "tasted" it, and loved it. In fact, she's asked me to make it several times since. Everyone at the party loved it.

Now, had I simply offered her grilled bear steak, I can pretty much guarantee she wouldn't have liked it.

Now, that I've broken the ice, I can get her to try other things.

She's also promised that on our upcoming trip to Africa, she will try anything that is put in front of her.

Ninety percent of the red meat I eat is venison. Round steak, tenderloin, & t-bone's get the "cut into small pieces, flour and salt/pepper, then fry in olive oil" treatment. I'm hopin' that's not hard on the arteries. The rest gets ground into burger for chili.

Many years ago when my dad remarried, my step mom told me she could make venison taste just like beef. I told her no thanks, I actually like some of the wild taste in game meat. Seems plum crazy to spend all this money, freeze your butt off, price of license and then make it taste just like something you could go to town and buy. No thanks, not my meat!