Oh Deer

WARNING: This blog contains a few pictures that may be viewed as graphic. I mean, they don't bother me or anything, but I don't usually post pictures of severed heads so I figure I'd warn y'all.

I mentioned last time that I was making some jerky for New Year's and today I thought I'd elaborate more on that story. See a few months ago, around Thanksgiving, my father shot a deer. My parents live on a farm in West Virginia and so hunters in our family (and friends of family) like to come to our property and hunt in our woods. For my whole life growing up I was accustomed to seeing strange vehicles being parked along our lane for days and donning an orange vest for when I went on my walks (the orange was to prevent getting accidentally shot).

Dad with his deer.

Now this isn't going to turn into a pro-hunting/anti-hunting post. I personally have never gone hunting or have had any interest in doing so. I'm sure my dad might've asked at one point, but I think after a while he realized I'd get bored and start chatting nonstop so I wasn't a good asset to have along. Hunting seems to contain a lot of waiting, keeping quiet, and staying focused and for a hyperactive kid with ADD that probably wouldn't have worked out well. Also I can't see myself killing something that large and walking away unscathed. I'm not saying killing animals will lead to becoming a serial killer, but I'm worried in my case that would happen.

So hunting is what it is. I'm used to not seeing deer as sympathetic creatures, so I don't feel too bad for them. When you think about it, compared to chickens or livestock that are bred and kept in tiny habitats for meat, deers sort of get the better end of the bargain. And that's really why I'm writing this: it's about the meat.

I was proud of Dad for getting his deer, but also excited when I knew we'd be getting deer meat. See December is a slower month for me work-wise, so I have more time to cook things. So I agreed when my mom (probably joking) offered to send me some deer meat. I had to wait a while because the deer in question has to be skinned and gutted and all that pretty stuff. So my dad gave the deer to my uncle for all that happiness.

We got to keep the head of course.

For a while there I thought I wasn't getting any meat, and I got cranky. Apparently the people that clean the deer keep the meat. "You shot it!" I told my dad, "why don't we get to eat it?" He told me that the point of hunting was more about the rack (it had an 8-point rack, fyi) and he lost me there. You can't eat the rack, it would hurt going in and coming out.

But when Christmas rolled around my uncle brought me some gifts: 2 lbs of deer roast and 1 lb of deer hamburger. Hooray!

The deer roast, nice and bloody.

My first order of business was that I wanted to make deer jerky. So I looked up two recipes on allrecipes.com and got to work collecting all the ingredients. I had two recipes; one was more of a "basic" thing while another called itself "sweet and spicy". I thawed out the roast and cut it into strips. My cutting skills are not great, especially with meat, so instead of strips of jerky I was making chunks of jerky (but really, who cares?). Holding the roast I felt like I had a heart in my hands, and the blood of it left gross red juice on my cutting board. Also it stinks.

I marinated the chunks in each marinade overnight. Then, New Year's Eve, I stayed home to cook them. Now here's where things got shitty. We don't have a food dehydrator, which is the essential jerky-making thing. But the internet told me to keep the oven low and let it cook for hours, namely six. So I did. And after three, I had tiny black pieces of jerky sitting in my oven. "Shit." I said and took them out.

The raw drippy jerky going in...

...And the super well-done jerky that came out.

So, despite the overcooking and the misshapen pieces I was pretty proud of myself. First-time jerky all by myself with few necessary appliances? That ain't bad. This ain't a cooking blog anyway, bite me. We all ate the jerky and passed some around at the New Year's Eve party we attended. We all agreed it was too dry but the marinades made for some good flavor so everyone was happy enough.

But what to do with that hamburger? I thought about it for a while. Meat pie? Stew maybe? I couldn't decide. So I browsed some recipes and then found something awesome: Venison Meatloaf. And I already had the ingredients in the house. Score!

So I made that. It was a fun recipe, I got to put bacon on it which is always great. I forgot that bacon shrinks though so the effect wasn't totally great but I got to make a topping for it that was mostly barbeque sauce so, again, who cares?

Meatloaf pre-cooking.

Out of the oven, covered in sauce.

 I'll admit it's not the most visually impressive sight, but it tasted delicious. I ate it with mashed potatoes (store bought, I usually make my own, but I was busy that night) and was in heaven.

These pictures look better in my mind.

So that was that: my first foray into cooking venison. Fun fact, though, "venison" used to refer to mostly any game meat (like boar or rabbit) but now we just associate with deer. It's kind of a snobby word though, I think. I told someone I made deer meatloaf and they said "Oh, venison?". As if "deer" was incorrect. Like "venison" means something that's dead and "deer" means I shoved a live animal into a meatloaf pan. But then jerky is always called "deer jerky",  hardly anyone says "venison jerky" so what's up?

Anyway not sure how interesting this was, but I figured I'd share. Next time my father kills something and I get to cook it I'll probably share again.