Venison sausage

Discussion in 'Health & Fitness' started by sculptor, Nov 14, 2018.

  1. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    8,466
    OK
    I thought that this year, I'd make my own venison sausage, then hang and smoke it.
    So
    Have any of you done this?
    And
    Do you have a favorite recipe?

    ratios of venison to beef or pork and/or lard or fat?
    etc
     
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  3. sweetpea Valued Senior Member

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    Why the mix with beef or pork? why not just venison? I have not eaten much venison, and so to me venison is kind of a treat, so mixing it with other meats seems funny. Is it a question of bulking out the little venison you may have?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 14, 2018
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  5. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    It's too lean: the sausages would be hard and dry.
    I'd probably cut up and pre-soak the venison in pickle brine or 3% vinegar solution in the cold for a few days before grinding, then use about 1/3 coarsely ground fatty pork. (not beef or mutton - too similar; chicken or turkey might work, if you wanted it lighter, plus maybe some bacon. ) Parsley, sage, marjoram and/or thyme (not rosemary), salt and pepper, paprika and/or chili if you like some heat.
     
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  7. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    No one really eats deer fat. It's different from the fat of other animals.
     
  8. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The people around me say if you use lead bullets, be very conservative about the damaged meat ground for sausage - anything anywhere near bullet damage should be tossed. Apparently lead residue spreads much farther than most suspect.
     
  9. sweetpea Valued Senior Member

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    I'm really sweetpea. lost my password and so came back as fiscake23 until JamesR sorted it out.
    I never knew that. That's probably what Spider is taking about in post#4 by not using deer fat.
    After adding all those herbs and spices are you really tasting the deer? You make me seem like a boring eater. Oh deer
     
  10. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Sausage is a whole 'nother medium. It's usually spiced.
    And, yes, all food can be prepared in a variety of ways; if you prefer a plain slab'o'meat, fine; someone else might like to gussy it up.
    BTW, it looks like there's some flecks of flavouring in those fishcakes and parsley on your boiled spuds.
     
  11. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    I've always wondered about this. I haven't eaten meat in ~35 years, and, consequently, do not recall the taste of any of it. I recall the scents, of course, and, to a lesser degree, the textures. But even when I did eat meat as a young'n, the range was quite limited.

    Anyways, some time ago I saw an episode of one of those reality tv cooking competition shows--I think it was Gordon Ramsey's "Hell's Kitchen"--and the dude (Ramsey?) had the competitors taste from five or six dishes and determine precisely what was off about them. Turned out, they were all made with meat approximations, but everything elsewas done correctly; yet, not a single competitor was able to determine this.

    Does that seem weird? They may well all have been idjits, but they had a passion for cooking and for food, none the less.
     
  12. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    They also tend to have quite discerning palates, those competitors.
    But there are a great variety of meats and ways of preparing each, including a lot of different seasoning, and everybody is more or less constrained by their own imagination. It probably wouldn't even occur to them that Ramsey would leave the meat out.
    Actually, I've noticed his occasional nod to vegetarians (one of us won the Masterchef contest recently) which I suppose is a sign of the times.
    Plus, the meat "approximations" are getting better. Of course, pretty soon, they won't be needed at all, because real, cruelty-free meat will be produced in economically viable quantity.

    PS - You're the first other poster who uses the word 'idjit'. Cheers!
     
  13. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Venison varies a lot depending on where it's from.
    There's a local guy hunts does and yearlings from oak savannah borders only, mixes the fat in with pounded blueberries for his sausage, smokes it from there. Acquired taste, apparently - but some like it.
     
  14. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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  15. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    There is at least one place in NY <<< and one in SF <<< serving lab grown meats. I believe they are both rather pricey, at present. As for facsimiles, I've eaten at a number of Chinese establishments (NY, Boston, Vancouver, and elsewhere) that served pretty impressive "fake meat" dishes--and they're convincing, or so I've been told.

    I suspect in some instances that texture presents a far bigger challenge than does flavor. Somehow, I still recall the experience of eating some kind of jerky as child, but all of the vegan/vegetarian jerkies I've tried seem quite removed; honestly, dehydrated mangos come closer. As I remember it, eating jerky was somewhat like chewing on an old leather shoe. Not sure why that "toughness" poses such a challenge.



    (The entire film is on Les Blank's website--here <<<.)
     
  16. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    Addendum to above:

    The New York establishment is not, in fact, in New York, but rather, the Netherlands. Sorry. It serves "meat" grown from animal cells; whereas the SF establishment uses a product grown from plant cells--produced by Beyond Meat <<<. Their products are already available in markets, though I've somehow managed to overlook them.
     
  17. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    5,089
    $40/lb, last I heard. But then, our first home computer, a 250 TI, cost $2500 in 1983. Innovations are always pricey, but cost comes down pretty fast, once the production infrastructure and market are in place.
    Don't think so - at least, not in burgers. One of the Canadian supermarket chains now has a house brand of soyburger better and cheaper than Yves, the original, and there are two other quite decent brands. There was an excellent fake chicken that's not available anymore, but the unmeatballs are pretty convincing. The trouble with all of them is overprocessing and way too much salt.
    I used to make a very good seitan, but it's work-intensive and time-consuming and not really worth the effort. We've found, over the course of vegetarian living, that meat substitutes are less and less significant. Still find a decent veggie-burger very handy to defrost when pressed for time, but there are plenty of other foods to satisfy our craving for variety, contrast, texture and protein.

    Why, in the name of all that's dentine, would anyone want to eat jerky? Great for rat traps... but... to eat?

    Dehydrating fruit is easy. Making a grain or vegetable product fibrous is just about impossible.
     
  18. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    3,266
    I've noticed this. Was never quite sure whether it was an inevitable consequence of the processing, or if it's simply what most consumers favor.

    For me, it's more novelty and curiosity. Even as a child, I ate so little meat and so few varieties--mostly cheap battered fish sticks, that sort of thing. The history, the nostalgia... simply isn't there.

    Gary Snyder used to go out into the wilderness for weeks on end with a pouch full of dried beans. He would soak them for a full day or two, eat very small quantities, and thoroughly masticate.

    I'm always seeking ways to lighten my load when I go on lengthy trips into the wilderness--especially the desert, where one can never be sure that a reported water sources will, in fact, have... water. Still looking for that magical substance with loads of calories, fat, and protein.

    I don't think jerky is quite all that, but it's, perhaps, underway towards such.

    (I vaguely recall this Omni magazine article from my childhood about the quest for a super-potato: it was to have all essential vitamins and minerals, but would, obviously, have been lacking with respect to fats and proteins.)
     
  19. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Hiking food. Very good starting the second or third day out.
    Since the wife went off gluten I've found myself eating more meat - it seems to replace the texture and some quality of the flavor of really good bread, which is no longer around the house.
    Up until living with a woman I ate very little meat - didn't have the money, did have the ethical objections to the meat I could afford. And my mother made very good bread - oriented me, as a child. But women in general - meat seems significant, for health, even mood.
     
    Last edited: Nov 16, 2018
  20. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    Menstruation. I have a few friends who become quite anemic, and iron supplements--especially the ones that actually work, i.e., the prescription ones, are extremely hard on the gut.
     
  21. sculptor Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,466
    I love venison
    I think it a healthy meat to eat
    My approach is a tad laborious
    shoot the deer
    drag it to the shop and hang it up
    skin the deer
    gut the deer(saving some of the goodies inside---heart, kidneys, liver, etc...
    cut into pieces
    soak in brine overnight (brine is something I play with---always salt, sometimes sugar,
    then butcher, being careful to remove all the tallow and fat------Every few years, I render some of that down and make a hand cream of it...(also laborious)
    package and freeze most of it
    while butchering, there are always small pieces left over(I eat some raw)

    pemmican

    I tried making some a few years ago.
    If memory serves: The dog ate most of it.
    (perhaps, I should have made it when berries were in season?)
     
  22. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    5,089
    fish sticks... Omni magazine... ahhh, youth...
    Not that I've noticed. Rather the other way around, among teens at least: it's the girls who go off bloody food, while the boys slaver on bacon and steak. Two of the three strict vegans I know are women, aged 72 and 36.
    More nostalgia. For me, nothing can replace a good bread. My brother and I both learned to make a pretty decent loaf to go with any-old-soup (cheap, hot and filling). When we still lived at home, he used to shoot the pig at about this time of year - quick and neat - and I had the sweet job of grinding the scraps for sausage. Plucked chickens and geese, too, gutted and scaled fish. I hated every second of it, especially the smells. One more reason to go vegetarian.
     
  23. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    7,057
    When I was a kid, my mother used to bake all of our bread. Of course, as kids, we didn't appreciate it.
    My mother used to love butchering chickens with her sisters, though it might have been the companionship that she enjoyed more than the butchering.
    I eat vegetarians.
     

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