What to tell the butcher for deer?!

[Holachicka]

DH is going deer hunting for the weekend, and hopefully coming home with a deer. This will be a first for us and we'll have a butcher do the work, I just don't know what to do with the meat besides sausage and jerky! I'd love some tips from experienced venison eaters please!! I'm hoping to find out what to tell the butcher as well as recipes for the meat if you could. Thanks in advance!!

 

[firem3]

I always tell him to give me roasts from the best parts, whole tender loin, cube the best of the left overs and grind the rest, mine will add beef fat to the ground for burgers . Happy hunting

 

[SKR8PN]

We always keep the tenderloins and the back-straps, cube the rest for venison stew. About every other year, we will make venison/pork sausage.....mostly we go for the stew and we can it.

 

[freemotion]

Anyone make bone broths? Any good? Or is it gamey?

 

[miss_thenorth]

We butcher ourselves, and we usually take it off the bone. But this year, hubby bought me a meat saw, so we'll see how it goes. Usually, we take the tenderloins and that is our celebration meal. Any chunk of meat that is big enough for a roast, is used for a roast, any chunks that are sinew free we use for marinated skewers etc. The rest is ground up. I never have enough ground meat though--that is usually the first thing that runs out. I also don't mix the ground venison with anything, but when I fry it, I use a big gob of bacon fat with it.

 

[TanksHill]

I always tell him to give me roasts from the best parts, whole tender loin, cube the best of the left overs and grind the rest, mine will add beef fat to the ground for burgers . Happy hunting

This sounds like a good rule of thumb!!

 

[SKR8PN]

Anyone make bone broths? Any good? Or is it gamey?

NO BONES!!!

 

[mandieg4]

It has to be a huge deer for us to take it in, and only because we don't have a grinder. I hope to remedy that before deer season this year. In the past we have told them to save the back strap, cube what they can, and grind the rest.

 

[SKR8PN]

Anyone make bone broths? Any good? Or is it gamey?

Every time I have tried anything with deer bones, it has been very gamey......

 

[Holachicka]

Thanks every one! It appears that a lot of people ask the butcher to make stew meat or roasts with what is available and grind the rest? My main concern is that the roasts might be gamey, but I've never cooked with venison... so I'd love some ideas and preferences if possible as well! My only experiences have been with jerky and summer sausage which I loved, I'm just really worried about finding a way to make use of the meat without being wastefull...

I'm also wondering about what freemotion mentioned about broth, has anyone tried it?