Time for the long-awaited followup to Pig-Ology I and Pig-Ology II. In case you missed the first two episodes -

Pig-ology

Pig-ology II

Figured it might help some folks figure out different ways to cook their game animals. Please feel free to jump in with your own recipes / techniques

I am pretty sure that the "parts" from this thread came from the pig in Pigology-II, after reviewing the dates on the packages. Small world huh?

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MikeG

We're going to cook some ribs on the smoker. Ribs are fairly simple, but game animals take a slightly different approach in my opinion. Even with all the fat a wild pig can have, it's still leaner than a domestic animal. And, one of these racks of ribs is from a deer.

By the way, sometimes you run out of reclosable bags or have a piece that just won't fit in them. I don't recall why we did this, but the deer ribs were wrapped up in a plastic grocery sack, then aluminum foil. They kept fine after a year in the freezer. If in doubt use multiple layers.

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MikeG

The ribs, by the way, were still completely frozen. This wasn't really planned, more of an oversight, but it worked out OK. In order to make the spices stick, first rub them with a little oil (if needed), then dust with the seasoning of your choice. This was labeled "jerk seasoning" and was an item packaged by our local grocery store chain. Use whatever dry rub or seasoning you prefer.

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MikeG

Game meat can dry out. To help deal with that, put each piece in a 'boat' of heavy-duty foil. The less fat on the meat, the more you want to cover the meat up to shield it from the heat.

An old cookie sheet is handy to convey items to the grill. Hint, don't use your wife's best baking dishes for this....

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MikeG

Into the smoker they go! A couple of things to note. My favorite smoking wood is mesquite. It's pretty strong, so I don't use much. The scraps in the bottom of the smoker are leftovers from my woodworking projects. Since the meat is thin I won't add any more during the cooking.

Also note the expanded metal shelves. For some reason my smoker came with brackets for 6 shelves, but only 3 were shipped. Off to the hardware store for a piece of expanded metal.... there's no engineering like southern engineering!

This is a propane smoker and it's easy to regulate the temperature. Around 200 degrees works well.

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MikeG

About 6 hours later they are done! Note the pink "smoke line" on the outside of the meat. By the way, because there is foil under the meat, the smoke line is mostly on the top. Something to consider if you want more or less smoke flavor to the meat.

Rest the meat 5-10 minutes after it comes out of the smoker, and it will be easier to slice up.

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MikeG

Here's one of the small slabs cut up. The white 'dot' on the left side is some of the cartilage holding the ends of the ribs together. You get to learn a lot about anatomy when you butcher your own critters.....

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MikeG

My mouth is watering already!

Ken

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"Firearms only have two enemies - rust and politicans" author unknown

It wouldn't be New Year's Day dinner without greens and black-eyed peas. Here's some baby spinach cooked down with garlic and butter, and black-eyed peas that have been in the crock-pot all day with onions, celery, tomato, ham, and I don't know what all else.

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MikeG

Enjoy!!!!!! I hope this helps take some of the mystery out of cooking game meat. There's nothing complicated about the end result and it sure was good (where is the avatar for 'drooling?').

Please feel free to add your own pictures / game recipes to this thread.

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MikeG

Dang, Ken managed to get into the thread before I got it all posted

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MikeG

Oh good grief, that all looks delicious! Thx Mike!

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Last Saturday I went out bowhunting and put an arrow through a little button buck. If you like liver at all, and maybe even if you don't, you might want to try some from a small young deer. It really can be quite good. I don't know how many deer livers I've left for the coyotes over the years, but hopefully they enjoyed them.

A few years ago we finally got up the ambition to try some deer liver. It's very different than beef liver and has about none of the odor you'd associate with liver. And tender..... I don't think you could make this stuff tough if you breaded it with asphalt.

The deer hung overnight, then the liver and heart went into a bowl of salt water for several days. You can see a LOT of blood came out. The dark looking part of the liver was where it stuck up out of the water and is about the ordinary color coming out of the deer.

We haven't eaten the heart yet and it will remain to be seen what sort of "tenderizing" effect the slice across the top of it from the broadhead will have

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MikeG

The liver is cut into thin slices and breaded in flour and some spices and I don't know what all. My wife is a heck of a cook and I think she could make a sandwich out of shingles good enough that you'd ask for another

We concluded that the key to making this easy to cook was to slice it fairly thin, less than half an inch.

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MikeG

What's liver without onions? And is there anything better to brown onions than a well-seasoned cast iron skillet? I didn't think so!

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MikeG

Here it is on the plate ready to go. We ate nearly the entire thing between us, and if my son had been here there wouldn't be any left at all.

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MikeG

Oh here's an amusing boo-boo. When we were cutting up the deer I got the bright idea to put the rib and belly meat (about 3.5 pounds total on this little deer) on a cookie sheet and put it in the freezer for a bit to make it easier to cut up into stew meat. As it turns out, when you forget and leave it in the freezer for 3 days you can pretty well forget about cutting it with a knife!

Had to leave it out for about an hour to thaw before I could cut it. We'll see what it tastes like in a stew, usually we just grind it. But hey you don't learn anything if you don't try.

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MikeG

Those grilled ribs look great. Did you put them in frozen and then smoke for six hours?

Yup. More by accident (forgot to thaw them out the day before) but it didn't seem to hurt them much.

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MikeG

I have people that want deer liver and hearts. First deer I shot this year these were divided between two friends with one getting the heart and the other, my neighbor, the liver. My neighbor got both of these from the second deer since the first guy admitted voting for Obama. He is now officially off my list. I would feed the critters of the woods rather than feed a supporter of the current resident of the white house.

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