I want to say a few things about cooking deer. Deer is generally – at least as far as I know in South Carolina – very clean and organic, natural meat. It is also very dry meat and no matter what you do to it, if you cook it beyond medium rare it is going to be somewhat tough and dry.  Even braising it isn’t going to put fat and moisture where the animal didn’t have any to begin with.

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><!--[endif]-->     So – if tender is a primary requirement for wild meat, you either have to eat it cooked rare-ish or you have to add something to it after it’s cooked to give it some moisture. There are ways to do this. The braising liquid can be made into a wonderful gravy or sauce. You can douse it with olive oil when you serve it. A recent bout with a braised leg of venison led me to try sour cream as an additional gravy ingredient – sort of like Stroganoff.  Cream fraiche would do, too, but sour cream is way more available in places where one is likely to have access to true wild meat. (Farm raised venison can be tender, but this is a result of treating it like beef cattle and corn feeding)

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><!--[endif]-->    Try this sometime….

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><!--[endif]-->    Think about that leg ‘o deer as a big old pot roast. If it has been boned, stuff it with vegetables and aromatics and tie it up and season it with salt and pepper and maybe some smoked paprika – whatever herbs and spices you like with beef will go well with venison. If the bone is still there, you can push some aromatics into the space between the bone and meat.

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><!--[endif]-->    Brown it all over in some peanut oil and don’t be surprised when it soaks up the oil leaving you with a dry pan. Add more oil and sauté a couple of chopped onions along with a half a head of celery chopped like the onions, a couple of carrots julienne or chopped and some whole garlic still in the skin.

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><!--[endif]-->    Deglaze the pan with a cup of red wine and add a couple of grocery store size cans of diced tomatoes. Use fresh if you have ‘em, but tomato and deer seasons do not coincide very well. When these have cooked together for about twenty minutes, add a couple cups of beef or chicken or vegetable stock – or, in a pinch – water. Add a faggot of fresh Rosemary, Thyme, Oregano and any other herbs still in the garden. (Skip the basil, it will vaporize and add nothing at this point.) Bring it to a boil and put the meat back in, cover it tightly and slide it into a slow oven (300 degrees) for five hours or thereabouts making sure the liquid doesn’t evaporate.

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><!--[endif]-->    When it feels tender when stuck with a sharp object you have cooked it enough. Don’t be fooled, though, it isn’t tender. Take it out of the oven and let it cool for a couple of hours or overnight. This will allow the flavors to intensify in the gravy, but nothing will penetrate the dense meat.

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><!--[endif]-->    Gently reheat it when you are ready to serve it. It might slice, but more than likely it will come apart like pulled pork. Serve it with lots of the cooking gravy and pass some good olive oil and/or sour cream with it. You will swoon. You will. You’ll have to chew hard, but then you will positively swoon.

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><!--[endif]-->    With the addition of the olive oil or sour cream, this will no longer be as low fat as it would have otherwise been, but then again, it won’t be a corn fed pot roast a’la Dow Chemical with Monsanto overtones either; Somewhat chewy, but clean, tasty food straight from nature and as natural as meat gets.

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><!--[endif]-->    Just for excess, feel free to sauté a package of whole or halved mushrooms and add them into the gravy/sauce before you reheat the braise. 

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