The venison gives off a lot of liquid: that is one of the points of curing meats. This was after 48 hours. The meat is ready to be drained and go into the freezer.
After being frozen overnight, it came out and I ended up using the mandoline to slice the carpaccio into paper thin partial slices; I could not get very many whole slices. But it tasted just fine.
The meat counterpart to lox.
The Food and Cooking of Sweden by Anna Mosesson has provided me with the recipes and ideas for curing salmon into gravlax, and now in process, curing venison. It is a wonderful book to look at, and I have realized we eat sort of “Scandinavianish” this time of year. Meat, potatoes, greens.
So this is how to cure a hind leg muscle from a deer:
Prepare your cure: equal parts salt and sugar, some freshly ground pepper, fresh thyme (the deer are stealing it from the garden now anyway).
Prepare the muscle by removing the fell, connective tissue, etc. There is always somebody around here who wants to help with this job.
On aluminum foil, put down a layer of cure and spice, the meat, and then use the rest of the cure to cover the meat. Enclose meat in the foil and place in a nonreactive container in the fridge or cold porch. Mine went into a glass casserole dish. Quite a bit of liquid will be pulled from the meat over the next two days.
Turn it over every 12 hours if you remember.
Any portion of venison can be made into good jerky if it has all fat and connective tissue removed from it. The lean meat should be cut into strips one inch wide and 1/4 inch thick.
Weigh the amount of prepared meat and calculate the appropriate amount of spices. Add the spice mix while moving and kneading the meat so the spices are evenly distributed thoughout.
Refrigerate the mixture in an airtight container for 2-4 days. When ready to dry the meat place the pieces one layer thick on cookie racks or another type of grill.
The venison can be dried in an oven, over a wood stove, or in a smoker. If an oven is used, the door must be left open ½ inch to allow moisture to escape. The desired drying temperature is 150 degrees F. The jerky will dry in 6-8 hours at this temperature. Higher temperatures will cause the meat to cook and burn rather than dry. Flip the pieces once after the first 1 ½ hours. Remove when dry but not dessicated.
• Remember- the effort you put into preparation will generally determine the quality of product you produce.
Spices for 2 ½ pounds meat
1 tsp. White pepper 1 tsp. Onion powder
2/3 tsp. Black pepper 1 T. Garlic powder
2 ½ tsp. Salt 1/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp Season-all
Smoked salt or liquid smoke is good, if available. Substitute more smoked salt for regular salt.
It is in the teens and low twenties here, with snow falling and at least five inches on the ground.
Yesterday I smoked four trout and we ate one for supper. The others will be for Thanksgiving. We had venison tenderloin (the muscle fillet mignon comes from) from the doe Jay shot cooked in butter. Beet salad: shredded cooked beets with raw onion, seasoned rice vinegar and a bit of salt. Potatoes. We also had boiled deer heart with ketchup. I put a couple bay leaves, salt and allspice berries in the cooking water which will be saved to make rice.
Also yesterday poached some chicken thighs and made mole hoping friends will come to lunch Sunday. They will! Those will be served with rice. Hope to make pineapple upsidedown cake for dessert, which is started in a cast iron skillet and finished in the same pan in the oven.
Lunch was homemade pizza, one with cheese and pepperoni and the other with finely sliced onion and sliced green olives.
Tonight we will have gravlax–cured salmon–that I started a couple days ago. There will be enough for tomorrw also. And maybe some salad from the cold frame.
A few hours later:
Across the road from thie girl’s violin instructor’s home is a row of shrubs covered with knobby ovoid fruit. Flowering quince fruit. Ornamental species, but Palmer’s indicates the fruit is edible. We had a couple in a venison stew while our friends were here. I brought the ones I harvested afterwards inside last night since they were not ripening on the porch and put a few of the ripest into last night’s venison stew.
When unripe there is not much more pucker inducing than a quince. But when ripe quince smell like citrusy juicyfruit gum. And are marvelous cooked with meat. They contain loads of pectin so if you make jam none is added.
My folks had a quince tree for years. That tree produced quince several time the size of the ornamental species. Lots more flesh. They were wonderful.
or,
Virginia Batterbread
Think cornmeal souffle.
Wonderful with supper on a cold evening.
serves 4
In a saucepan scald 2 cups milk over moderately high heat. Add in a thin stream 3/4 cup cornmeal and whisk continually and vigorously for about 3 minutes or until thick. Remove from heat and whisk in two large eggs, a teaspoon salt and whatever herbs you wish.
Pour into buttered a 1 qt. casserole or pan and bake at 325-350 degrees for 30 minutes or until puffed and lightly browned. Serve hot.
Spoonbread cooks more quickly if poured into a cake pan rather than a casserole.
We made some chocolate cookies today.
Here are a couple to be baked tomorrow. This owl looks much more impressive in person.
And here is the only turkey that we have ‘caught’ so far this fall.
