Hey y’all, this is my first post, so please be gentle! I didn't see another post on this topic, so I thought this might be helpful.
I love to cook (and eat!) wild game, and the staple at my house is venison. Living in the Deep South means generous limits and lots of deer, so my freezers are always packed after the season. But while a small portion of that inventory goes to ground meat and sausage, I keep the bulk of my venison cuts whole. In this post, let’s talk about the cuts from the "front half."
From the front half of the deer, we get the neck roast, the front shoulders, and the front shanks. I keep my neck roasts whole, although on a larger buck, I’ll cut it into two roasts. Shoulders remain whole and are individually vac sealed, and shanks are usually aggregated into 2-4 front shanks per vac seal pack. I prefer to leave everything bone-in, but for you guys in CWD areas, you will have to bone that meat out before you package.
The overriding thought about preparing venison is to not overcook it. I want to push back against that logic a little bit, especially when it comes to cuts from the front half. Neck roasts and shoulders are tough, with a lot of connective tissue and silver skin. Cooked medium-rare, they are tough as boot leather, so they aren’t the greatest option for steaks (I’m not a huge fan of cutting any venison into individual steaks, but more on that in a later post…). For this reason, most people don’t know what else to do, so they grind them. Nothing wrong with that, and ground venison is excellent, but one can only consume so much ground venison!
Fortunately, there is a better way, because these cuts do great when braised. All of that connective tissue breaks down under low, slow, and wet conditions and transforms these gnarly cuts into something special. Neck roast is especially good for barbacoa recipes, and shoulders are excellent for any sort of "pot roast" braise. One of my favorites is a "smoke braise" in which you salt the meat heavily, smoke at 200° for 3-5 hours (until maybe 150° internal), then braise another couple of hours at around 250° - 300° with some combination of stock, wine, or beer along with herbs and aromatics until tender. The key phrase here is "until tender," and that changes from deer to deer, which requires some art to go along with the science (similar to when you cook pork butts or beef brisket). Don’t worry too much about trimming up these cuts—just remove anything on the outside that is glaring and let time, heat, and moisture do the rest. When done correctly, the meat will be as tender as a pot roast, and most of that silver skin and connective tissue will have melted away.
Here are a few pics of a smoke braised venison shoulder…
What about those front shanks? They don’t even seem worth the time and effort, right? Wrong! My favorite use of front shanks is to smoke them hard and use them to season beans as you might use a ham hock. In fact, it works great to accumulate multiple front shanks, cure them with something like Tender Quick, then smoke them hard. When cured, they sort of take on that hammy flavor of an actual ham hock. Homemade bean seasoning!
Here are a few front shanks about to get happy on the FEC-100:
One last cut from the front half…the tongue. Yes, it is edible, and even excellent! But in a deer, they are very small, so you must be very committed in order to bother with them. The process is to boil, peel the outer skin, then smoke braise until tender.
That’s probably enough info for one post! If I don’t get kicked out of the forum, I’ll do a follow up post on the "back half." I’m also sitting on nearly 300 venison recipes that I have either curated, modified, or adapted over the years, so hopefully I can upload some of my favorites in the coming weeks. Cheers!
I love to cook (and eat!) wild game, and the staple at my house is venison. Living in the Deep South means generous limits and lots of deer, so my freezers are always packed after the season. But while a small portion of that inventory goes to ground meat and sausage, I keep the bulk of my venison cuts whole. In this post, let’s talk about the cuts from the "front half."
From the front half of the deer, we get the neck roast, the front shoulders, and the front shanks. I keep my neck roasts whole, although on a larger buck, I’ll cut it into two roasts. Shoulders remain whole and are individually vac sealed, and shanks are usually aggregated into 2-4 front shanks per vac seal pack. I prefer to leave everything bone-in, but for you guys in CWD areas, you will have to bone that meat out before you package.
The overriding thought about preparing venison is to not overcook it. I want to push back against that logic a little bit, especially when it comes to cuts from the front half. Neck roasts and shoulders are tough, with a lot of connective tissue and silver skin. Cooked medium-rare, they are tough as boot leather, so they aren’t the greatest option for steaks (I’m not a huge fan of cutting any venison into individual steaks, but more on that in a later post…). For this reason, most people don’t know what else to do, so they grind them. Nothing wrong with that, and ground venison is excellent, but one can only consume so much ground venison!
Fortunately, there is a better way, because these cuts do great when braised. All of that connective tissue breaks down under low, slow, and wet conditions and transforms these gnarly cuts into something special. Neck roast is especially good for barbacoa recipes, and shoulders are excellent for any sort of "pot roast" braise. One of my favorites is a "smoke braise" in which you salt the meat heavily, smoke at 200° for 3-5 hours (until maybe 150° internal), then braise another couple of hours at around 250° - 300° with some combination of stock, wine, or beer along with herbs and aromatics until tender. The key phrase here is "until tender," and that changes from deer to deer, which requires some art to go along with the science (similar to when you cook pork butts or beef brisket). Don’t worry too much about trimming up these cuts—just remove anything on the outside that is glaring and let time, heat, and moisture do the rest. When done correctly, the meat will be as tender as a pot roast, and most of that silver skin and connective tissue will have melted away.
Here are a few pics of a smoke braised venison shoulder…
What about those front shanks? They don’t even seem worth the time and effort, right? Wrong! My favorite use of front shanks is to smoke them hard and use them to season beans as you might use a ham hock. In fact, it works great to accumulate multiple front shanks, cure them with something like Tender Quick, then smoke them hard. When cured, they sort of take on that hammy flavor of an actual ham hock. Homemade bean seasoning!
Here are a few front shanks about to get happy on the FEC-100:
One last cut from the front half…the tongue. Yes, it is edible, and even excellent! But in a deer, they are very small, so you must be very committed in order to bother with them. The process is to boil, peel the outer skin, then smoke braise until tender.
That’s probably enough info for one post! If I don’t get kicked out of the forum, I’ll do a follow up post on the "back half." I’m also sitting on nearly 300 venison recipes that I have either curated, modified, or adapted over the years, so hopefully I can upload some of my favorites in the coming weeks. Cheers!
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