How Do You Like Your Venison? Rare, Med Rare, Well?

[Sea Buck]

After reading an article about the baddies in venison and the authors recommendation to cook it well, and then only after freezing, I wonder how others like to cook their venison. I have always preferred med rare. Grilled or pan fried.

[hooligan1]

For me I like it pink in the middle, overcooked deer meat has turned more people away that favors it.
I cook my burgers and steaks fast on a hot grill, and they always are a rowd pleaser in my neighborhood...

[FrankenMauser]

I've had it rare, and even raw, and it sure is tasty.
But my family doesn't really do "steaks" with venison. Most preparations in our houses involve small cuts that cook through fairly quickly, or larger cuts that are cooked for hours. As such... well done is the norm.

[Panfisher]

Anything past medium rare is over cooked to me. Depends somewhat on the cut and how I am fixing it though.

[Kreyzhorse]

I prefer my beef rare, damn near raw, but I cook deer steaks medium.

[HiBC]

I'm not sure what "baddies" you are talking about.Can you be more specific?

The two worst I am aware of are liver fluke (elk) and wasting disease.

The prijon pathogen of wasting disease will not be killed by cooking anything edible.It will be ashes.
There are lung diseases that infect Bighorns (A worm?)
I honestly do not know what temp it takes to kill fluke. I won't eat Rocky Mountain Trout "sushi" and I strongly advise against the raw elk liver initiation.

If someone has some safe cooking temps based on USDA or similar info,I'm happy to learn.

Given the food handling/home butchering /bullet trauma can make ecoli a problem...it's a reasonable question that IMO,begs for a definite temp.

[Whistlebritches]

Steaks med rare at most.......anymore dries the meat in my opinion.I mix enough pork fat with my grindings that well done burgers are still juicy and delicious.Chicken fried is the tricky one....and my wife has it down to perfection.Done but still moist and delicious.

[rodwhaincamo]

I've always cooked my ham steaks medium to medium rare and just medium rare for back straps/tenderloins unless someone wants it done a bit more. Rare is ok as well, but just not what I typically eat anymore.

I'd also like to hear about these "badies."

[shortwave]

Most of mine is cooked medium.
Wife likes hers well done.

Yep,I too want to hear about the baddies. Can't imagine anything in deer would be nearly as bad as eating the hormone laced beef,pork and chicken we eat.

[Pathfinder45]

Medium-well with garlic

[NHSHOOTER]

I go with medium rare to medium, cooked to well it dries out and get tough..I too would like to know what the baddies are?

[jersurf101]

My kids and I have eaten 10x our body weight in medium rare to medium venison. It is recommended you freeze it first before eating it that way. Forgive me I forget the pathogen but it is some sort of protozoan that can make you sick.

We eat it as steaks, fajitas, stir fry, stroganoff, pot roast, stew and anything you can do with burger. I am going to roast a hind leg I boned out like a leg of lamb for christmas. That will go in the big green egg until it's medium. (138F)

Knowing what cuts are good for each dish is key. Clearly shanks get ground or cooked to death. Neck and shoulders are good stew and pot roast meat. The tops of the shoulders like blade steaks are good kabob or fajita meat. Most of the sirloin and round are used for steak or stir fry meat. Venison ribs have been a hit as of late.

Someone once told me you either need to cook venison 2 minutes or 2 hours. Not strictly true but the sentiment is correct.

[Sea Buck]

Thanks for the response. The "Baddies": Toxoplasmosis protozoon. Now if that's not a mouthful try its real name: Toxoplasma Gondi. All this means is that it comes from the feces of house cats, tame and feral. It will make you very sick and it stays in your system. From an article on the QDMA web site. Read the article and you may never eat venison again!! While I don't buy everything in the article, eating venison med rare to well done, after freezing to kill the protozoon makes sense. After all the unfrozen back strap, liver and heart over the last 50 + years of deer hunting makes me wonder how I missed it.

[Targa]

Elk and moose steaks rare to medium rare with sauteed mushrooms, salt and pepper. My preference for deer is limited to ground, sausage and jerky.

[Hawg]

Fried and well done. I will eat one burger if it's grilled and I'm hungry enough but I won't eat two. I won't eat sausage period. My first wife can cook a roast I'll eat. I don't know how she does it. I wouldn't even eat my moms deer roast.

[spacemanspiff]

What??? No pics of these venison feasts???

[sixgunnin]

Medium.

Here's my favorite loin recipe.
Half an onion
half a stick of butter
garlic powder
salt
pepper
half a doe loin sliced into 1'' steaks

fry onion with butter in medium size skillet, add mushrooms (optional) add meat and season to taste. cook about 10 min over medium-low heat or until it is done to your preference

[HiBC]

All this means is that it comes from the feces of house cats, tame and feral.

OK. I prefer not to have a cat. It is not unusual for a cat to get up on food prep surfaces . They do use cat boxes. I'm not sure how much cross contact deer have with feral cats.

I'm not sure what preferences and biases the author of your article may have.
A link would be good. A vegan anti-hunter with six cats might write a slanted article.
I'm interested in solid information.

There are two very separate issues here. One is food safety. That's legit. Show me a university study or FDA or USDA info that says "We recommend for this reason venison be cooked to a minimum of 155 deg f" I have a thermometer.I can work with that.

I think modern practices have greatly reduced trichina in pork,but trichinosis was a valid reason to not serve pork rare.Too much pink in pork,I get squeamish.

The other issue that we seem to be more concerned with is personal preference on degree of "done".

Enjoy it your way!! I'm not going to tell you how to eat. Agreed,some cuts require "low and slow".

I don't make burger. I've found I enjoy round best as jerky. Backstraps are chops . My favorite use for near everything else is stew meat size chunks.
My typical prep is season,flour,brown. Serve. IMO.it should still be pink.

If you are telling me I have to cook all cuts to well done....I might just take pictures and eat beef.

Update: Found and read the article. I'm far less concerned about venison than I am about house cats!!
And what kid with a sand box in the back yard has not encountered "nuggets"?

If your cats use the cat box,then walk on your countertops....hmmm...Where do you spread out and process a deer?
I am now more skeptical of house cats than ever!

But I did find this.They recommended,if you do not freeze the meat first,cook to 145 f then rest 3 minutes.

[Sea Buck]

For a link try: www.qdma.com, Go to Deer Hunting 101. Go to the Hunt tab. Scroll down to the Grilled Venison Backstrap article. Enjoy!

[ms6852]

I love my venison in a stew, as jerky, or chili. When I make burgers with it I like to ground bacon or sausage with the venison. I like mine medium.

[FITASC]

In the crockpot with root veggies

[Troy800]

Medium rare.

I carefully dress out the deer and ensure it is thourougly washed befor processing. I freeze it for a week prior to use.

[Scorch]

Well-done venison gets tough and strong tasting. On the other hand, medium or medium rare venison is delicious.

The two worst I am aware of are liver fluke (elk) and wasting disease.

Out here in the West, flukes are a fact of life. Liver flukes are in the liver and bile ducts. If you don't like worms, don't eat guts. As far as wasting disease "prions" go, cooking won't help.

[Sure Shot Mc Gee]

Raised in the woods. My mother would cook our game & fish whenever we brothers brought some fresh meat home. Policy was to please her husbands pallet before her kids. Thus all red game meat was cooked well done due to nearly all being ground into pure hamburger. To this day I can still see my Father de-skinning the tough leather like surface of a huge deer liver with his fillet knife and cutting slices of liver from around fluke cavity's while seated at the well lit kitchen table. (twin _very old sterling sliver based kerosene lamps that were a prized possession of my parents.)

[Colorado Redneck]

Just freeze your venison. Then all is well. Here is a link and the info is from a wildlife biologist that hunts.
https://www.qdma.com/well-done-froze...sis-infection/