Making wild game a bit more palatable

[pj150]

To those who hate the gamey taste or if you want a newbie having a good experience on dining on wild game for the first time, do this-

Soak the meat in a mix of baking soda and water for a bit. Not only does it tenderizes the meat, it draws out much of the blood and gamey taste. That livery taste is no more as the baking soda draws alot of the blood and the iron content is lessened.

I did this on some duck breast meat that I sliced thin to stir fry. Usually the meat still have that livery taste but after soaking for about 2 mins and rinsing it out thoroughly, my duck meat stir fry tasted much more like pork. The meat took on the flavors of the onions and mushrooms.

My wife who will absolutely not eat any game, tried it and agreed. It was delicioso. I'll be doing this to any wild game from this pojnt on.

I used about a teaspoon of baking soda to about a cup of lukewarm water. Poured it into the bowl containing the meat and sloshed it around for a minute or two followed by a few rinses of cold water. Lots of blood came out in the rinse water. Seasoned with salt and pepper then stir fried it with onions, mushrooms and some veg.

I know it may sound strange and possible offend some of the purists here but it completely changed the characteristics of the meat/taste.

 

[DarrenL]

You cook your game meat? I eat it raw, and then gain the animals powers.

But I will try that, I have had some tough and gamey deer.

 

[Mike-Mike]

Good tip. I always used the salt water brine but I will try it.

 

[45collector]

I've let goose breasts sit in Orange Juice for a few days before making taco meat or stroganof. The acidity seems to break it up a bit and lessen the gamey taste.

 

[BattleSnail]

that's how animals are supposed to taste.

 

[mg42doc]

I apply copious amounts of bacon.

 

[hv55maxx]

My buddy told me to soak the inside straps of deer in milk to get rid of the gamey taste if you don't cut em out when you guy it. Can't see why it wouldn't help any other parts

 

[Madball13]

Bollocks, duck is delicious as is. breast and release and add some salt, pepper, Worcestershire and some garlic and grill to your liking.

 

[dvajda]

That gamey taste is the reason to go hunting. Otherwise I just go to the store and buy chicken, which tastes like... chicken. Duck is delicious because it tastes like duck. I see no reason to sit around in the woods for hours on end and get Lyme disease unless I get to eat meat that tastes gamey...

Anyone know how to make my chicken taste like gamey duck? Or Venison? Now *that* would be useful!

 

[gscott]

I generally try to numb my taste buds with some bourbon before eating. Thanks for the tip, l'll have to try it out with some Squirrel.

 

[SpaceCritter]

That gamey taste is the reason to go hunting. Otherwise I just go to the store and buy chicken, which tastes like... nothing.

FIFY.

 

[Bt74]

Bollocks, duck is delicious as is. breast and release and add some salt, pepper, Worcestershire and some garlic and grill to your liking.

Do they fly away? I do catch and release with fish.

 

[W.E.C]

duck baked on a plank.

take a cleaned and plucked black duck

put on a nice oak plank.

heat the oven to 375

put the duck in the oven and baste every 15 min. for 90 mins.

pull it out of the ovn and throw the duck as far as you can out the back door, and eat the plank.

 

[Finalygotabeltfed]

My buddy told me to soak the inside straps of deer in milk to get rid of the gamey taste if you don't cut em out when you guy it. Can't see why it wouldn't help any other parts

I've had grilled bear meat soaked 8 hrs in milk. It was the best tasting, most tender piece of meat I've ever eaten. I don't know what cut it was, but it was heavenly.

I've never had real gamey deer tenderloins, they usually taste pretty clean even being removed a day or so later.

 

[Cartoons]

I think I heard about a Sausage Fest hereabouts, link your game!

Tony P.

 

[goodlife30]

I find the deer that eat a lot of acorns are very gamely compared to grass feed deer. I think it's the acid in the acorns. I always try to hunt in areas with lots of fields versus hardwood forests for this reason. I can notice the difference. You are what you eat apparently.

 

[NHAtHeart]

If you can let the deer hang a few days before butchering it helps a ton. If the weather is good, 40's in the day, 20's-30's at night and the deer hangs in a garage for 4ish days the meat comes out excellent.

Otherwise there are tons of ways to get rid of or lessen the gamey flavor if you don't like it, marinating in Italian dressing is a good one.

 

[arlow]

I have never had a gamey tasting deer and I have shot enough to loose count.

 

[Cerfur]

I find that most anything you kill makes awseome tacos

 

[trophygrl]

I can honestly say that I've never really issue with the way venison, duck, pheasant, squirrel, or anything else we've brought back home from the woods tastes... except for goose, but that may have been how I cooked it or the fact that it was picking corn out of cow poop when we shot it.. I'm going to give it another try this year.

It's all in how it was handled from the time you shoot it to the time it reaches the table. I've had terrible venison at other people's houses, but knowing them, they chopped up the deer right after they shot it like Teaxs Chainsaw Massacre in their backyard. It needs time to cure, either whole or quartered. It doesn't need a long time like beef, but it still needs a day or two.

I also don't like when wild game is overcooked or over flavored...like adding juniper berries to venison ...if you need to mask the flavor of the meat, it was either mishandled or you don't like it (in my experience at least)

 

[bill o]

The baking soda trick is also great for tenderizing chicken or pork to be stir fried. To reiterate what the OP said, be sure to rinse it thoroughly otherwise it will have a soapy taste.

 

[Spanz]

you can just brine the meat....stick it a pot of water with a handful of kosher salt in it. Makes the meat jucier too.

Just bagged an elk...that meat needs nothing! It is like fine grass fed beef....little gamey taste at all.

Too bad all we have around here are deer!

 

[md2020]

Freezing process tenderizes the meat - don't age it !! Yup, you read it right .....

For you deer hunters who dislike strong taste this is what I have learned: aging the meat makes it taste "stronger"/bad. I have just 8 deer under my belt and haven't been out much at all these days. I would skin and cut up pieces and get them into the refrigerator ASAP. I can't tell you how many days it hit almost 70 in November on opening day in CT. I would butcher it up myself and slice it up using SHARP knives (please don't use a bandsaw on meat unless you like eating bone fragments). One layer of saran wrap then two layers of butchers paper. Heck, the meat kept for several months with NO freezer burn - usually it was gone before then of course.

So what I will say next will get many guys upset: DO NOT AGE THE MEAT !!! The freezing process tenderizes the meat. (I read up on some articles online and this was obviously NOT the traditional way to go). My ex use to dislike gamey tasted and once she started eating venison this way she LOVED it. She had eaten plenty of aged meat from my other friend's homes and she always commented on how much she liked mine better. So when I hear of guys hanging the deer and cutting parts off that have green stuff off the meat before they package it, I just makes me sick.

Take the extra time to treat your game with care and it will taste better. Quick kills insure better taste. Does over bucks. Remove the hide/skin ASAP - cools much faster that way! Animals are what they eat (recall controlled hunt on Bluff Pt in CT - deer tasted like juniper berries no matter what I did to it, LOL ..... some extra wine made that go away for my ex ). Younger is more tender. Worse eating deer was the last one I shot - 11 pt: man, I swear my sneaker leather would have been better!!! Beautiful deer, but worse eating deer EVER!!! Give me that 70 lb dressed doe, heck I would have taken a "skipper" if I saw one!

Everyone has different tastes. I love strong tasting fish like mackerel & bluefish (smoked is awesome!). I love hot sauce that burns on both ends! My father was a professional chef for over 30+ years. I LOVE to eat just ask any one that knows me.

Don't take my word on it - try it with a section of your deer. Nothing better than taste test, right?! My buddy from TX use to send me "hot stixs" - spicy venison sticks but way better than Slim Jim (daughter use to gobble it up like candy!! Had to hide it or else she would eat it all, LOL). So when I hear people say they don't like wild game: you just never had it processed right. Dad use to do dogfish chips in a stir fry that changed my view on trash fish (gotta soak the meat in saltwater though!!!). Lots of stuff is great eating. We just have to get past how it "looks": skate wings are awesome, monkfish aka "poor man's lobster", list goes on!

YMMV.

 

[Chistech]

"For you deer hunters who dislike strong taste this is what I have learned: aging the meat makes it taste "stronger"/bad. I have just 8 deer under my belt and haven't been out much at all these days. I would skin and cut up pieces and get them into the refrigerator ASAP. I can't tell you how many days it hit almost 70 in November on opening day in CT. I would butcher it up myself and slice it up using SHARP knives (please don't use a bandsaw on meat unless you like eating bone fragments). One layer of saran wrap then two layers of butchers paper. Heck, the meat kept for several months with NO freezer burn - usually it was gone before then of course.

So what I will say next will get many guys upset: DO NOT AGE THE MEAT !!! The freezing process tenderizes the meat. "
Take the extra time to treat your game with care and it will taste better. Quick kills insure better taste. Does over bucks. Remove the hide/skin ASAP - cools much faster that way!"

This is pretty much the same technique I described in another thread in this forum. I personally gut at home when I can, skin right away, wash, and hang for about 1/2 day to allow carcass to come to ambient air temp, whatever it is. I then quarter and freeze. The one thing I don't agree with is the part about a band saw. The reason there is any bone chips or dust is that the cut pieces are not scraped of the bone dust/chips. There is a simple tool designed to do this which is available from any good meat packers/butcher supply house. The tool is a simple series of plastic blades that works like a scraper and it is just quickly pulled over the side of the cuts that have been cut on the saw. How about any bone in cuts you buy at the market? They don't have bone chips or dust on them. That is because they use that simple tool.
I take the frozen quarters and cut them on my meat saw. They cut easy and nice and uniform. The bone dust is easy to remove because the meat is frozen and it is also easy to wrap in butcher paper. One thing not mentioned is the meat retains most it's moisture unlike when it is hung for a longer time. Venison does not need aging (the enzyme process which breaks down the meat fibers) like beef. The taste in venison that people don't like is mostly in the fat, not the meat, even though there is little fat. The longer you age it, the longer the enzymes melt the fat into the meat mixing the flavors. I agree, try the technique, like it was said, you'll be surprised with no additional work.

 

[ThePreBanMan]

I like the taste... I chomp that shit...

 

[The Anchor]

I have aged every deer I shot 5-7 days as long as the weather is cold enough, never ever had a games deer no matter what they were feeding i
On. There is a reason they dry age beef at the fancy restaurants, cause it works!

 

[Cmaro21]

For you deer hunters who dislike strong taste this is what I have learned: aging the meat makes it taste "stronger"/bad.

+1
From my limited testing based on what I've read, its the blood that sits in the meat that makes it taste "gamey". Some people swear by aging the meat, but this is not corn fed beef or pork your dealing with, this is wild game and they eat whatever they can. The sooner that you get the deer butchered, the less gamey it will taste. This past one was less than 24 hours and it was in my fridge. If you don't butcher yourself and want someone that will turn around quick see the post I just resurrected in this sub forum - http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/84884-Looing-for-a-butcher-in-the-Middleboro-area , Andy called me about 6 hours after dropping it off asking if I wanted to come and pick it up.

 

[Bt74]

Hanging the animal allows the meat to "clear", blood and serum drain out of the meat. I shot a 193 pound 11 pointer a few years ago, and hung it for a week, the butcher hung it for another week. Some ahole at the shop made the comment that it was a "grinder, start at the nose and end at the tail". Was no remotely "gamey" flavor, had chops the size of pork chops, and you could cut it with a fork! 70 pound doe? Tasteless, IMOFO. I also like the "experts that say you shouldn't use a bandsaw to cut steaks and chops, that the marrow will "taint" the meat. I wonder if they order their Porterhouse steaks boneless?????

 

[Fixxah]

There's a guy on the board who grew up butchering animals. When he chimes in you may be surprised at the correct way to do it.

-Proud to be dad every day, a licensed plumber most days, and wish I was a shoemaker on others.

 

[Spanz]

You cook your game meat? I eat it raw, and then gain the animals powers.

But I will try that, I have had some tough and gamey deer.

no need to do that, just eat the heart raw...that is where all the juju is