What is your preferred fat to add? I hear bacon, butter, sausage, 70/30 burger, chuck roast, and on and on. I've never tried anything other than cow and pig trimmings before. It's an elk -if that makes any difference.
Thanks.
In my humble opinion, whether to add fat at all depends on how you plan to cook the ground venison. If used in chili, meatloaf, spaghetti, shepherd's pie, etc., I think it is best not to add any fat at all. If it is going to be grilled as burgers, then fat helps it stay together and not dry out. Since I use nearly all of my ground venison in the former way, I don't add any fat, so I can't answer the question about which type fat, but I do think that that the aforementioned uses benefit greatly from lean ground venison as opposed to ground beef with its inherent fat.
Nice problem to have, congrats on your elk.
I use pork fat for sausage.
Nothing for most recipes
Never add anything to elk. It’s too good to adulterate.
Afaic, venison is a term reserved for deer. Grazer vs browser.
JR
When I use anything, I prefer Boston butt. One butt per deer's worth of trimmings (after taking our roasts and cubed steaks.
Mike
My choice is lamb. The fat is digestible and really compliments venison.
My choice is lamb. The fat is digestible and really compliments venison.
Another vote for lamb. Perfect with antelope and elk as well. Works well if you happen to like things on the raw side of rare.
Im headed out here shortly for both elk and deer. My primary grind is 3 to 1 (even 2 to 1 works well) well-cleaned elk with beef chuck. The beef extends your yield and adds just enough fat to the mix (still 96% lean) to keep it together for grilling. The resulting burgers are exceptional, as is the meatloaf and whatever else we use it for. I call it my primary grind because from there we make Summer and Breakfast sausage with it too.
I buy pork fat at the local CARNICERIA .
Thanks all. I think I'll try a few different blends and do the America's Test Kitchen thing. I might have to do some searching for lamb...
I started out grinding venison burger with pork fat. It tasted like pork sausage. Imagine that!
Not being a fan of sausage burgers, I switched to using beef suet at about a 10 to 15% ratio, and the results were much tastier for burgers, tacos, meatballs, meatloaf, etc. My kids prefer venison ground with beef suet over good ground chuck, and complained if I didn't kill a deer. Beef suet is the fat that surrounds the kidneys of steers and heifers. It is a little harder to find than the regular beef fat trimmings available at any butchers shop, but well worth the effort. It can be bought from butchers who slaughter beef cattle. And since demand for it is often-times low, it is often much cheaper than less flavorful alternatives like fatty pork.
A local farm raises and sells bison meat. I'd really like to try to buy some bison suet from them to mix with venison.
A local farm raises and sells bison meat. I'd really like to try to buy some bison suet from them to mix with venison.
That's thinking outside the box. I'll bet that would be really good. I love bison.
I'm a meat lover and eschew bad carbs. Each Saturday I join some buddies for lunch at a local restaurant for burgers, shrimp or wings. They have a "beast burger" on the menu that consists of 25% (each) bison, elk, Wagyu beef and "wild" hog. It's wonderful. I always get it sans bun. It's great!
Like Keith, it is beef kidney fat. My BinL is a butcher and used to cut up to 200 deer a year for hunter. He says if your going to use it soon adding pork works but if you are going to freeze it beef kidney fat will stay flavorful in the freezer a lot longer. He makes award winning Fresh Brats, he won't give me the recipe.
I skinned for him for a couple years He would have a whole garage stacked full of frozen deer. I'd bring in enough to thaw and skin them so he and my sister could butcher after the store closed, I usually had a dozen or so in various stages of thaw hanging in the basement. I got to sell the hides or got paid by the customer if they wanted the to save the hides or I sent them off to the tannery for them.
Another vote for adding beef fat in one form or another to ground venison. Long ago we used pork & then smartened up & started using beef. Pork is OK if you consume it within couple
of months months but ground venison patties w/beef are (to me) better tasting compared to pork & as others have posted will keep much longer in the freezer than patties made w/ fatty pork.
IMHO, If used only for spaghetti sauce, meatloaf, chili, tacos & etc. well trimmed & ground venison doesn't need anything else added. For burger patties on the grill or pan fried, added beef fat really helps. We use 25% good quality ground chuck as a fat adder & to extend our venison patties.
The chef from a local BBQ joint hooked me up with local small farmer pork. I went with Der Ami's Boston butt recommendation and am very pleased with the results. It kind of seemed less than ideal to mix venison with factory farmed fat. We made a bunch of breakfast sausage and chorizo. 3 more quarters to go. Still hunting for lamb fat.