Give it a Jerk…and some Strawberry’s!

 

In Deer Season 2018 – Part 2 I brought you up to the point where I shot a doe with my Barnett crossbow.  It was a clean, humane kill that portends good things for this season.

The next step was the cleaning and butchering.  Oh, and eating!

Yeah, the eating; that’s my favorite part.

Well, one of them at least.

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Annie, the boys, and I have always field-dressed and butchered most of our own game and livestock ourselves but it was a hot evening when I harvested the doe, so I knew it would be tough to cool her down and that needed to be done as quickly as possible to prevent spoilage.

Of course, I didn’t want the meat to spoil but I also didn’t really feel like staying up half the night to butcher her by myself.

Yes, by myself.  The boys have all moved out and Annie isn’t interested in helping me butcher anymore, so it was all up to me.  I needed to get the doe’s insides outside as soon as possible, wash out the body cavity, and fill her with ice to start the cooling down.

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Once we got the deer to the house I went inside to get out of my hunting gear and realized it was getting late so I’d better call my butcher to set up my drop-off.  They had a number on their answering machine for an off-hour contact so that customers don’t have to keep the deer in unfavorable conditions any longer than necessary.  So I called to set things up for the next day.  I left a message with my callback number and went back out of the house to field dress my harvest.

As I climbed up onto the back of the pickup, my butcher called and said I could go ahead and bring the doe up if I could do it as soon as possible…like right now.

I agreed and jumped in the cab.

Thus, this became the first deer my sons and I have taken that we haven’t field dressed or butchered ourselves.

I have to admit, it was kind of nice.

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Since I was paying someone to do the butchering, I wanted to keep the cost down so didn’t ask for anything too special, just loins, tenderloins, and the rest ground.  In less than a week I got a call that the job was completed.  The whole thing ended up costing me just under $1 per pound. No bone, no fat, no gristle, just pure meat.  Good, healthy food at a great price.

You just can’t beat that.

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Another reason I got most of the deer ground is that many of my favorite venison dishes are made with ground meat.

A lot of people have beef fat or pork suet mixed into their ground deer meat because venison is so lean.  Of course, one of the reasons deer is so healthy is also because it’s lean, so adding fat, whether from a cow or a pig actually makes a healthy food less so.  I don’t bother adding fat to my ground venison because two of my favorite venison foods are chili and jerky.  Neither of those tastes worse without the added fat and I find they digest better with less fat.

There are few things that smell better than a pot of chili simmering on a wood stove all day.  We don’t currently heat our house with wood but cooking it on our gas stove is almost as good.  I haven’t tried it in a crock pot but I’ll bet that will be as good as over a wood stove.

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As I said, another of my favorite foods made with venison is jerky.  I’ve come up with a few different mixes of jerky seasonings but this year I wanted to try something different, and also easier.

Anybody who has lived around Southeast Missouri for very long has heard of Strawberry’s Barbecue Restaurant.  It’s a great place in Holcomb, Missouri that started out selling ribs, then added another building – Strawberry’s Backyard Steakhouse.  The two places make some of the best ribs and steaks anywhere.

Anywhere.

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Besides proper cooking, one of the reasons Strawberry’s food is so good is their seasoning, which is available at their restaurants and in stores around here as, appropriately enough, Strawberry’s Shake-On Bar-B-Que Seasoning.  Fantastic stuff.

The last of the meat from Patrick’s six-pointer last year was the loin, which was butterflied.  Now, they are a little smaller than many of the steaks we buy at normal steak houses, but there is NO fat or bone to cut off and discard so, all-in-all, you get very near the same amount of actual meat.

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Now, up until this year I have pretty much left all the steak cooking to Annie because she is so much better at cooking than I am and, well, I’m lazy.  This year I decided to give Annie a break and try it myself.  So, I left the butterfly steaks in the fridge to thaw.

When I was ready to cook, I started the grill.  I prefer barbecuing with charcoal so I gave it a few minutes to get going.  With the steaks on a plate, I sprinkled them liberally with Strawberry’s, then turned them over and applied the seasoning to the other side too.

Simple enough…even for me.

After the grill reached the desired temperature I put the steaks on, left them long enough that the first side looked good, then flipped them and liberally melted butter on top.  The whole process didn’t take long at all and the result was fantastic!

Simple cooking for a simple man, and delicious too!  You can’t beat that!

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I wanted to try making jerky with Strawberry’s too so I thawed a couple packages (one pound each) of my doe’s ground meat, and measured out a cup of seasoning, then smooshed the burger and Strawberry’s together until it was well mixed.

I have a Jerky Works kit (by American Harvest, which seems to be affiliated with Nesco now).  If you’re not familiar with it, just imagine a caulking gun and you pretty much have it.  I rolled the jerky mix into balls about the inside diameter of the Jerky Works to make loading it easier, then did.  Squeezing the mix out on the trays of my dehydrator took just a few minutes.

I like my jerky very dry so it will last longer in storage so I let it dry in the dehydrator (also by American Harvest) for about a day and a half, then tasted it.  De-licious!  Pretty salty and a tad spicy so I’m afraid, at that mixture, I’d wake up with a dry mouth if I ate too much, which I probably would.

So for the second batch I used four packages of ground meat and only ½ cup of Strawberry’s Seasoning.  Again, well mixed and dehydrated.  It turned out really good.

I’m sold!

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Next step?  I wanted to try burgers.

About a week after the second batch of jerky, I took four thawed packages of ground venison out of the fridge.  Yes, I know that’s four pounds of meat but I planned to invite Patrick and his lady friend, Krista, out for dinner so that should make enough burgers for all four of us and some extra for me to rewarm and eat later.

The problem was that I found out fairly recently that Annie doesn’t like venison.  At least she thought she didn’t.  She had cooked and eaten it during the lean years but more recently she had passed on it in favor of other, more standard fare.  Despite my exhortations that the butterfly deer steaks I made a few weeks ago were fantastic, she had declined to eat any and left them entirely to me.

This time, since I’d had great luck experimenting with Strawberry’s Seasoning, I thought I would continue the tack, so I mixed the four pounds of ground meat thoroughly with a full cup of Strawberry’s Seasoning.  No, I didn’t mix in any ground beef or pork either.  Most people recommend doing that because of how lean venison is.  With the absence of fat, it can cook up dry, at least for modern man’s spoiled pallet.

But my goal was, if I wanted to show Annie that she actually can enjoy good venison, I wanted it to be pure venison and nothing else.  So, as I said, I mixed up the meat with the seasoning and formed it into patties.  It was raining that day so I used my George Foreman Grill in the kitchen.  Now, I have a tendency to overcook food, so this year I’ve been watching my venison closely and ignoring my fear of undercooking.

As with the loins and tenderloins, the burgers turned out wonderfully.  Krista was feeling under the weather so she and Patrick declined my offer.  That left Annie and me with more finished burgers than I had planned on but, no worries; I’ll eat them all if it comes to that.  They were delicious!

When Annie got home I was able to entice her to try a burger and she pronounced it imminently edible.  She really seemed to enjoy it.

Win for me!  But, now that I think about it, maybe she just wants me to take over the cooking responsibility.

Oh, well.

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Now, I’ve really been bragging on Strawberry’s Seasoning but, I assure you, I don’t own stock in the company and they are not paying me to advertise for them.  I just really like their seasoning.  Despite the fact that I highly recommend it, if I were you, I wouldn’t be afraid to try a different brand of steak seasoning if you can’t get Strawberry’s in your area.

At some point I’m going to try to make chili with my ground venison.  I may continue the way I’ve been doing and use some Strawberry’s, but I guess I have to add some chili powder too.  After all, my taste testers might not understand if I tell them the food in the bowl isn’t chili, it’s Strawberry’s!

 

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(below) A short video to give you an idea how to make jerky using the Jerky Works and ground meat.  Note that this guy uses ground beef so he has to soak up the grease afterwards with paper towels.  My venison with no added fat doesn’t have any grease.  Also, I dry mine very dry in the dehydrator so it lasts a very long time, unrefrigerated, in a ziplock-type bag or plastic container with a crumpled paper towel to absorbe any moisture in the air.  I’ve eaten it after more than a year and, although the flavor did change a little, it was still delicious.  By the way, it also makes a great snack for pets, although ours never get any of it.  Just sayin’.