It is no secret with in our family that we will hunt and raise our own sources of food. We are not out for the sport it has become but merely a source of food for our very large family. We do take this seriously and with the up-most respect to the animal. With that being said, I have been blogging.. slowly.. now starting my third year. Since I have been blogging I have taken left turns, right turns, shared sweets and main dish ideas as well. I started this blog because I had fell in love with a familiar social media website, Pinterest. When my husband and I made the decision to move from the sub city of a major BIG southern city to a very quiet, beautiful, small city in NORTHERN Minnesota! Talk about a major change. I went from working a full time medical job with one of the most amazing cardiologist EVER. I needed something to occupy my "go, go, go" learned behavior from being in a major city. Soooooo.. I blogged here and there (and now I am trying to do it daily!) for fun sharing things I had tried that I found on Pinterest and even just blogging my own off the top of my head recipes. Including the most popular recipe I have
Slow Roasted Venison Sirloin Tip Roast. Well, for all of my followers that enjoy the wild game recipes.. here is another of the top of my head recipes for the back strap.
First off... fair warning to all of you home cooks out there. This cut drys out and fast! My husband did warn me of this. It is a cut of venison that you do want to try and cook rare.. medium rare tops.. other wise it just dries up in the center. Because of this factor I wanted to try to be proactive and marinate the meat in a acidic base, like wine.
For those of you who don't know us, we do really try and be as hands on with what we consume as much a possible. Being as we have a large family at times it can be hard.. but then there are times with extended family we are able to enjoy even more hands on experiences! Like wine! After my husbands wonderful Aunt Jo and Uncle S started 2 different batches of wine (White Merlot and Amarone) we were invited to help bottle both batches! OH that was a fun afternoon!! This recipe I do use the Amarone red wine we bottled. My suggestion to you is: Use a good deep red wine that you don't mind drinking or the smell of! YES! the smell! I do fine it such a helpful asset to have in the kitchen I good nose with the taste buds!
Enough background on the the main dish:
Amarone Venison Back Strap
First, the back strap used in this recipe was a deer my husband was lucky enough to find in a very difficult year. I thawed the meat then made sure to rinse the meat. NO.. usually you don't
want to rinse meat that dries out.. but I had too... I had to removed the outside (dirt) from the meat.
This is 1 of the back strap I used. I simply rinsed the meat off and placed it in a container (with a lid for later).
I finished cleaning off a total of 5 pieces, which is a lot... but I am serving 8 people nightly. 6 of which can eat adult size portions..lol KIDS! For a family of 4 maybe just 2 nice sized back strap would be more then enough. Once I finished all of the cleaning I then sprinkled over the top of the meat about 1 1/2 TBS table salt, 1 1/2 TBS garlic powder, 2 tsp Oregano, 1 tsp Thyme.
Next I poured about a cup of Amarone wine over the top of the meat..
Then placed the cover on my container and shook it all up to combine..
Yes, its wine it will foam and bubble a bit..lol then I took a fork and made sure to press the meat down into the liquid for coverage..
I let this sit for about 6 1/2 hours in my refrigerator
. After some laundry (the never ending mounds of it), blogging, plant watering, kids wrestling, store going rest of the day.. it was time to make dinner!!
I started by heat up my dutch oven ( I am very much obsessed with my dutch oven right now!) with some extra virgin olive oil in the bottom...
While the oil heated up I chopped up some garlic, chunks for garlic...
I tossed the garlic in to the oil (at a low temp.. about simmer) while that is doing its thing I cut up half of a yellow onion..
Then added the onion to the garlic..
Now, Yes... I absolutely over cooked the garlic.. but its was ok for us in the end. its gave the dish a deeper flavor.. not burnt at all! I brought the heat back up to a medium temp...
Now I can feel professional cooks cringing at this.. cause I, myself, cringed a bit when I realized I did that totally backwards.. but guess what?! OH WELL!! I am human. Future going to try this home cook.. sear your meat first then put your garlic and onions in then deglaze with wine... I totally goofed on this but hey this is what I did anyways... so once the onions sizzled for a bit I added 3 out of the 5 back straps to the pan. Searing the best I could (with the extra liquid it through out into my pan! another reason to sear first at a high temp, sears IN the juices), turning the meat only 1 time and removing from the pan and adding in the last few back strap pieces til they were all seared.
Huddling all the pieces, now all seared, together in the center of the dutch oven I carefully poured the marinate over the top. making sure all pieces were covered...
Kept the heat at a medium temp. Once the liquid began to boil, I put my cover on it for the first 5-10 minutes. (Knowing I took too long to sear the meat and I had already lost the juices and brought it past a medium rare. Plan C: slow bubbly bath in yummy sauce!)
After, let say, about 7 ish minutes.. I took the lid off and flipped the meat. This time leaving the cover off while it cooked.
Now, during all of this goodness going on right here.. I also had a pizza sheet going in the oven with some prepackaged frozen sweet potato fries and cauliflower. Both sprinkled with some seasoned salt and put in a 375 degree oven.
Even one of my best helpers was there to catch anything that might fall!!
Macy!! She's a keeper!!
I would say I cooked the meat for another 10-15 minutes.. honestly not much more then 12 minutes..
Now for most families out there that have like 4-5 members.. 2 Back strap I said would be enough.. and I would cut it into chunks and serve with their own knife to cut it.. or for kid cut up in bite size pieces :).. BUT with my family being so large and some many of them boy and HUNGRY all the time.. sometimes its all in the cut to make them satisfied.. so I slice mine like so...
Trust me when I say, yes it was still dry. sadly I choose the wrong path.. BUT it was so incredibly flavorful and tender! With a little of the sauce the meat was cooked in drizzled over the top, it was so good...
FUN FACT:
I have met people in my life that think a child will just simply not eat or like venison (deer), rabbit, duck and other wild game. This is so not true for our family at all!! Keep in mind our kids.. ALL 7-8 of them grew up in the city on processed foods. so moving where we did we change our eating life style completely! And our kids prefer the food here at the house then any where else, including the fast food giants! Our kids ate every bit of their meat, corn and cauliflower.. but left the frozen sweet potato fires for the dogs. I thought they were good.. but I am mom.. what do I know?!?! hahaha
I tell my kids all the time they are spoiled! All the good food they have all the time! how healthy they are! Bonus!! they get to do some way cool fun activities that we would NOT have had the opportunity to do living in the cities!
Lovin' this life!
Recipe time:
Amarone Venison Back Strap:
2-5 Back straps (depending on how many you are feeding)
1 1/2 tbs Salt
1 1/2 tbs Garlic Powder
2 tsp Oregano
1 tsp Thyme
1 cup Amarone (or your choice of red wine)
1/2 cup Water
1/2 Medium Onion, chopped
3-4 Cloves of Garlic, coarsely chopped
Start by cleaning your meat with water. Sprinkle dry ingredients over the op pf the meat. Then pour in the wine and water. Place lid on container and shake. Set on flat surface and remove the lid. Press the meat down into the liquid with a fork. Replace the lid back on top and set in the refrigerator for 45 minutes to 24 hours. Heat pan (i used my dutch oven) up on stove with some olive oil (or oil of your choice) Sear each peace of meat over medium high heat, on each side. Set aside. Once meat has been seared, throw your chopped garlic and onion into your pan. Cook until translucent. Then pour your marinate into the pan to deglaze all the meat bits and garlic and onion goodness from the bottom of the pan. Once the pan is deglazed (nice bubbly sauce with all the yummy bits released) add the meat back in to the pan. Cook with lid on pan for about 5-10 minutes. Remove the lid and flip the meat over to the other side and simmer with the lid off, for another 10-15 minutes. slice and serve!
Hope you enjoy this venison recipe as much as we did! I will most definitely make this treat again!
My other Venison recipes:
Venison Backstrap in Mushroom-Onion Gravy
Venison Jerky
Venison and Bacon Meatballs
Beer Battered Venison Steak Nuggets
Slow Roasted Venison Sirloin Tip Roast
What are you making for dinner tonight?!
<3 T
Simply Always
