I’ve been cooking a lot of deer meat over the last month and some have been doing some unique recipes which prompted me to think about writing a series of articles on how to cook your big game animals.
I’m sure that other topics will pop up so I probably can’t do a series of 4-5 cooking article in a row but I’ll try run some as often as I can.
A lot of the younger yuppie type of individuals are getting interested in hunting since it guarantees that you will be eating Organic, all-Natural meat.
I love wild game but you do need to learn how to properly care for it in the field and how to cook it.
The finished product. The best chopped BBQ sandwich in the world.
Since wild game doesn’t marble (Doesn’t have intermuscular fat) like beef does you don’t want to cook it as fast or as well done as you are able to do with a fat steer.
Well let’s get started on the first recipe-one of my all-time favorites.
I titled this Smoking Deer Shoulders but really this method works well on deer, antelope, hogs, elk and moose. It’s just that on elk and moose you may have to cut the shoulder in half or thirds
This first recipe is my all-time favorite (Although I’ll probably say that every week).
It is so simple that you will not believe me, so I’d implore you to try it once. I promise you that you’ll be hung forever more!
If you bone out the front shoulder, you will only end up with a small handful of meat due to all of the tendons, ligaments and gristle.
Is this not the picture-perfect smoked shoulder.
But unbelievably, if you cook it in the method I’m going to describe, all of the ligaments, tendons and collagen will dissolve and you’ll devour every ounce of it. I know you can’t believe me so just try it once.
To begin, remove the shoulder from the carcass.
This is simple. Cut between the shoulder and the main body. It is an easy cut. After removing it, remove the front shank. There is a muscle in the shoulder that is the third most tender muscle in the carcass if cooked slow.
Next, throw the shoulder on your smoker at about 160-180 degrees for 3-hours.
I used to use an old Brinkman smoker and throw on a few chunks of mesquite every 15 minutes but it is 100 times easier if you use a Camp Chef pellet smoker.
I guess it’d be better to leave it on the smoker for 6-hours but to save pellets I only leave it on for 3-hours. That’s enough to give it a good smoke flavor.
Then I pull it off and put it in an old black turkey roasting pan with two cups of water. Put it in the oven at 200 degrees.
It works well to smoke it on a Friday night if you’re not working Saturday so you can baby it.
You can see how the shoulder is so tender that it falls off and the bone is spotless.
Put it on the smoker at 6 and then throw it in the oven at 9.
If you wake up in the middle of the night check on it. If it is out of water, throw in 2-cups. If it dries out, it’s toast! The next morning if it falls apart with a fork, it is done.
If not, turn up the heat to 300 and check it every 30 minutes thereafter. It is done if you stick a fork in it and it falls apart. If not, let it keep cooking. You should be able to pick it up by the bone and the meat falls off in a heap or at least be able to easily peel it off with a fork.
When I first learned about this method, I laid bacon strips on it when smoking/cooking.
I haven’t done this in over 30 years but for the heck of it I slapped some bacon on my shoulder (Well, actually on the deer shoulder, not on my shoulder) this week.
I can’t really say that it enhanced it any.
Chop the meat in half-inch chunks. I sprinkle on some Lowry’s seasoning salt or Cajun spices. Toast some hamburger buns covered with butter in a cast iron skillet. Heap on a pile of chopped meat.
Slather on BBQ sauce and sprinkle on a few drops of Tabasco sauce. I never use Tabasco sauce for anything but BBQ but I do like it on BBQ.
These will be better than any Texas smoked brisket sandwiches that you’ve ever had. I can easily eat 2-3 at one setting. Happy eating!
Tom Claycomb is a hunting enthusiast and writes a bi-monthly column for Great Basin Sun.