Post by SPIKER on Apr 11, 2010 18:17:57 GMT -5
Just some useful info:
Venison does not naturally have a gamey flavor, at least not in my experience. Venison has its own flavor, but it is not strong. Any strong flavor in venison is there by mistake. The mistake comes from miss handling in the field, at the processor, or in the freezer.
In the field, it does make a difference how the animal is killed. A frightened, running deer is going to taste different due to changes in the chemistry of the meat pre and post mortem. The meat industry has known this for 140 years. It is called dark cutting, the meat ends up gummy and sticky due to lack of lactic acid in the meat at death, it does not have anything to do with adrenaline, but rather pre-mortem muscle activity, and post-mortem changes, as the cells are still functioning for some time after the animals heart ceases to beat.
After the kill, the meat needs to be cooled quickly, and the cavity washed out... especially if it was gut shot and the intestine or bladder contents spilled on the meat. If so, the meat was inoculated with bacteria and will start to spoil. If not cooled thoroughly, it will begin to sour. All these will add "flavor"... as you can imagine.
Once at the processor, your meat is introduced to the bacteria on the floor more than once, plus all the other crud in the place. Next, the ground meat might be mixed with old white beef fat... what they call suet. "Suet" correctly is the soft belly fat, not the dry hard white fat trimmed from all over.
If you had this fat added to the ground portion of the animal, it will probably stink to high heaven when cooked, as the fat, if not already rancid at the time of mixing, (they save it up for weeks and months in preparation for the venison processing season) will turn rancid in your freezer. Saturated fat turns rancid easily and give meat that funky skunky smell of spending too long a time in the freezer.
This is why as much fat as possible should be trimmed from venison before freezing. !!!!!!!!
Another point, if you did not kill this venison, and got if from a friend, a lot of times, "friends" give other "friends" last years meat in order to free up freezer space for this years fresh meat. The funk in the old meat is blamed on the venison. Too many people think venison really tastes like that and it gives venison a bad rap.
Back to soaking. All soaking is going to do is start a membrane reaction where the solution and the meat trade fluid in an attempt to equalize the concentration inside and outside the cells or muscle tissue. If the meat is funky, you can lessen the funk, but not completely get rid of it unless you soak, change the liquid and soak many times.
Venison is lean and tends to cook dry unless eaten on the rare side. So do not have illusions of cooking it medium. It will be tough and dry. Rare to medium rare is best, or stew it.
Hope this helps some people.
Venison does not naturally have a gamey flavor, at least not in my experience. Venison has its own flavor, but it is not strong. Any strong flavor in venison is there by mistake. The mistake comes from miss handling in the field, at the processor, or in the freezer.
In the field, it does make a difference how the animal is killed. A frightened, running deer is going to taste different due to changes in the chemistry of the meat pre and post mortem. The meat industry has known this for 140 years. It is called dark cutting, the meat ends up gummy and sticky due to lack of lactic acid in the meat at death, it does not have anything to do with adrenaline, but rather pre-mortem muscle activity, and post-mortem changes, as the cells are still functioning for some time after the animals heart ceases to beat.
After the kill, the meat needs to be cooled quickly, and the cavity washed out... especially if it was gut shot and the intestine or bladder contents spilled on the meat. If so, the meat was inoculated with bacteria and will start to spoil. If not cooled thoroughly, it will begin to sour. All these will add "flavor"... as you can imagine.
Once at the processor, your meat is introduced to the bacteria on the floor more than once, plus all the other crud in the place. Next, the ground meat might be mixed with old white beef fat... what they call suet. "Suet" correctly is the soft belly fat, not the dry hard white fat trimmed from all over.
If you had this fat added to the ground portion of the animal, it will probably stink to high heaven when cooked, as the fat, if not already rancid at the time of mixing, (they save it up for weeks and months in preparation for the venison processing season) will turn rancid in your freezer. Saturated fat turns rancid easily and give meat that funky skunky smell of spending too long a time in the freezer.
This is why as much fat as possible should be trimmed from venison before freezing. !!!!!!!!
Another point, if you did not kill this venison, and got if from a friend, a lot of times, "friends" give other "friends" last years meat in order to free up freezer space for this years fresh meat. The funk in the old meat is blamed on the venison. Too many people think venison really tastes like that and it gives venison a bad rap.
Back to soaking. All soaking is going to do is start a membrane reaction where the solution and the meat trade fluid in an attempt to equalize the concentration inside and outside the cells or muscle tissue. If the meat is funky, you can lessen the funk, but not completely get rid of it unless you soak, change the liquid and soak many times.
Venison is lean and tends to cook dry unless eaten on the rare side. So do not have illusions of cooking it medium. It will be tough and dry. Rare to medium rare is best, or stew it.
Hope this helps some people.
