Secret recipe

[MeekandMild]

In a large turkey baking pan place aluminum foil suffient in size to completely wrap:

1 deer haunch/ham/leg, completely thawed out and cut to fit the pan, sufficient onion and garlic powder and ground pepper to generously cover both sides, then 1/4 cup of bacon grease dolloped on top. Add 8 ounces of water and two bottles of beer.

Fold the aluminum foil into a secure tent and then bake at 225 degrees for 12 hours.

Do NOT be tempted by the wonderful smells coming from the oven but continue for the whole 12 hours.

Serve with mayonaise and horsradish, or Heinz 57 sauce or just the juice.

This will absolutely knock your socks off.

 

[Art Eatman]

Sounds plumb edible!

, Art

 

[SADshooter]

Think this would work with a smaller roast in a crock pot?

 

[MeekandMild]

I don't know. You might have to drink one of the beers and half the water for a smaller roast.

 

[HSMITH]

Damn the bad luck eh? I hate drinking the beer that should go to a good roast

 

[Keith]

I had an interesting culinary experience not long ago. A friend smoked a deer haunch using a typical salmon recipe of half and half brown sugar and salt, with various spices. It was absolutely delicious!
It was a like a typical pork ham, but with far more flavor.

I had intended to do this myself last year if a I got a deer close enough to the road that I didn't have to debone it. It didn't happen. The next tijme I get a deer out in one piece, or in quarters I'm going to smoke the hams.

Good stuff!

Keith

 

[MeekandMild]

Well, now that we're about half finished with the roast Mrs. Meek has been cutting it up into small pieces and serving it with mushroom gravy and mashed potatos. Next week comes the chili.

I want to hear more about the specific recipe for smoking deer ham. ???

 

[Keith]

Well, any fish smoking recipe is basically the same.

Take some canning salt (not regular salt) and sugar (I much prefer brown sugar) and mix them in equal amounts. You can add whatever spices you like to this, or leave it as is. I like to throw in a lot of pickling spices, along with garlic powder and red pepper.

Wash your fish or meat thoroughly with a vinegar solution (and for gods sakes wash your hands!) then coat it heavily with the salt/sugar mixture.

At this point I'm in the dark since I haven't done a large piece of meat like a ham. So, if anyone has any experience with hams, feel free to jump right in.

Anyway, with fish fillets you just coat them with your sugar/salt mxture and lay them in a plastic tub. The salt draws the moisture out and within a few hours the fish are lying in a liquid brine. You leave them there 24 hours.

To do the same thing with a large ham, I suspect you'd need to wrap it in a plastic bag so the brine could cover it.

A ham is much thicker than a fish filet, so it will have to salt much longer, perhaps 48 or 72 hours.

When the fish/meat is removed from the brine you MUST let it hang a day or two in a cool place until the outside becomes dry and forms a sort of "skin". This skin has a name; pelicle or pelacle, something like that... A lot of people neglect to do this and their final product isn't very good.

It's now ready to smoke. Good smoked fish/meat is done at the very lowest temperatures. You don't want to cook it or dry it out!
How long you smoke it is a matter of taste and the temperature of the smoker. Smoking only dries out the outer skin a bit more and gives it a smokey flavor. It isn't meant to cook the product or preserve it - that is what the salt brines does. Most of these commercial smokers ruin the product by cooking it.
What wood you choose is a matter of taste as well. Most people start with hickory, but it's really too strong a flavor if are going to smoke it for more than a few hours.
Alder is my favorite. Mesquite is real good too. Apple, cherry or any fruit wood is a good choice.

Experiment - you can't screw this up! Even the worst smoked fish or meat is pretty good and you'll get better as you do it.

Keith

 

[MeekandMild]

Thank you, Keith. I'm going to try it the next time a nice 70 pound wild shoat happens to interfere with my lane of fire.

 

[SADshooter]

M&M:

Cooked 2 venison hams in crock pot using basic technique plus some add-ons. Very flavorful, but I overcooked the meat. Violated that cardinal rule: "Know thy temperature".

Worth trying again under better-controlled conditions.

 

[Quartus]

Some folks will tell you that cooking 'low and slow' like that is a good way to get food poisoning.

'Tain't so. That's how my wife does the best Thanksgiving turkey I ever et. And it's approved by some university or other. UCLA? One o' them southern California universities, anyway. Beelieve me, I know. Had a major go around about it with my know-it-all blissninny sister one Thanksgiving.

Wanna try something diffferent for a roast in a crockpot, though, blob some mustard on top of the meat, then Lipton's Onion Soup mix. Toss in some of your favorite adult beverage (a good red wine for darker meats) add some veggies ('taters, onions, carrots, etc.) and let it go for a day.

Good stuff, Maynard!

 

[MeekandMild]

SADshooter, sorry to hear about the overcooking. The way I see it, my cooking at 225 degrees is enough to make the beer simmer and barely boil, which will cook the meat but won't boil off the juice so there is plenty left to soak into it. As for my time, that just happens to be the average time I take between putting it on in the evening and taking it off in the morning.

I suppose that if a person liked meat that was less over done they could assemble the tent and stick in a meat thermometer. Mrs. M&M prefers her roasts well done plus a little bit extra so none is wasted, even the most done parts.

BTW, we are now down to barbecue sauce flavored sandwiches and leftover chili. This old doe, I'd estimate at least 4 or 5 years by the shape its teeth were in, tastes more like beef than deer.

Quartus, I think the secret is to preheat the oven and to cook in liquid which will then reach 212 degrees after just a little while. That way the germs are boiled to death. One can even cook wild pork that way and the boiling will kill the trichinosis once all reaches simmering temp for sufficient time. Crock pots though have to be started on high then turned on low after they start to simmer.

Another thing, is that frozen meat has to be thawed out in the refirigerator until all the ice is gone before it is set to cook. Otherwise you end up with a little raw area in the middle.

 

[nygunguy]

Thanks MeekandMild

At 8:00 this morning I threw some year and a half old whitetail backstrap into the crock pot with two can of Labbats Blue a package of Onion Soup mix and other seasonings. The wife cut up some veggies dumped them in at Noon. It came out great ! There is just a hint of the beer taste and the venison melts in your mouth. Awsome!

Thanks Again for the idea!

 

[Sisco]

My roast came out pretty good. Discovered a 8lb roast yeilds a lot of leftovers with three people!

 

[Schuey2002]

Yum!

When do we eat??