Guide to Preparing Venison for Cooking

(Shared recipe submitted by Sue Cabral.)

Preparation time: at least 24 hours or up to 3 days.

Sue writes: "I didn't see many recipes for venison on your site. I wish more people had access to this heart healthy beef alternative. A lot of people I talk to don't know how to prepare wild meat. There seems to be a lot of misinformation and myth about what you need to do to bring a freshly harvested animal to the table. With food prices so high, it makes sense to learn about alternative food sources. I am lucky that my former husband is very involved with hunting and now my son is as well." Below are my easy, post butcher tips to prepare venison for cooking. The instructions below are for preparing meat for one meal as I prefer to freeze the packaged meat as it is cut and work with one package as a time as I use it from the freezer."

Instructions

Remove any remaining membranes and hair from the meat. Trim all visible fat. Rinse the meat well under cold running water to clean it and get it ready for aging.

To 'age' the meat, you need two clean kitchen towels, preferably white, and a dish large enough to hold all the meat. Take the cleaned meat and wrap in one of the kitchen towels, making sure to cover it fully. Take the second kitchen towel, place in the bottom of the dish and place the wrapped meat on top. Place the dish in the refrigerator, uncovered, and leave for at least 24 hours. You can go up to three days if you like. The towels will remove the moisture and blood from the meat so when you cook your meat, it won't steam. Don't worry if the outside of the meat has a dry, hardened appearance. This is exactly what you want. After that, you can proceed with your recipe.

Disclaimer: This recipe was submitted by a contributor and has not been tested by TerisKitchen.com.