British BBQ Society Forums

Just a quick question about venison. I have just been given some huge pieces of the stuff (haunch and shoulder I think), and I was wondering what peoples experience is with it?

Any tips for cooking it?

Cheers,

Lewis

It takes smoke very well apparantly (from reading NOT experience) even a shoulder of venison is extremely lean in comparison to other meats. I've only ever used it hot and fast en brochette (posh kebebs ) wrapped in smoked streaky. Over to someone with more (or even some ) experience with venison low-n-slow.

Oh I forgot to say you lucky lucky person

Sounds good!

And we do a lot of work in the New Forest, so we can get loads of the stuff. I might buy some if this turns out well.

I'd go very, very careful with this.

Shoulder of venison roasted slowly needs to be larded as it is so lean - usually it's better to pot roast such a cut. If you're not larding, the best way to roast venison like haunch is hot and fast - frankly, it's better hot and fast instead of slow and larded, anyway.

But a haunch of venison is large, so you'll need to cook it long enough that it'll take on a fair bit of smoke anyway.

So, shoulder is best pot roasted, haunch best fast roasted.

Bottom line, if you look up every recipe you can for roast venison, it's either a hot fast roast, or if it's slow it's very tightly wrapped in foil, or in a tight-lidded casserole with liquid to keep it moist, because anything else just dries it out.

The good news if you want the flavour of smoked venison is that it cold smokes well, and you can buy that product on line.

Final tip, if you were hoping to low & slow barbecue the venison and are disapponited that you can't, you can always give it to me.

Steve W

Pecker is spot on, wouldnt put the shoulder anywhere near the bbq. One alternative with the haunch is to cut it into steaks and cook hot, depends on the age of the beast as to how tender this is.

Still I echo the sentiments of others you sir are a lucky man, enjoy!
Cheers
Tiny

Cheers for the advice!

I've cooked venison haunch on the BBQ at it comes out great, smoked with cherry wood rubbed with salt & pepper and some bacon saddled over it to help keep it moist and it's fantastic.

Just make sure you use a thermometer in the meat so you know what the internal temp is at all times as you don't want to over cook it.

Here is a link to the post i did about cooking it http://bbbqs.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=1761

Swindon_Ed wrote:Here is a link to the post i did about cooking it http://bbbqs.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=1761

Cheers for that.

It looks quite pink in the end - do youhave approximate times for how long you did it unwrapped, then foiled?

Steve W

Sadly i over shot my target temp a little with this one hence i recomend cooking it with a thermometer.

I treated this like a rib of beef, so didn't foil it, but adding bacon or some pork fat on top is definatly needed.

I think in total it took a couple of hours, but it's been quite a while since i last cooked one so canot say for certain.