venison: what to do with it?

Pink.

Hi Fozz,

I do enjoy a venison steak as a treat and just cook it in the way I would cook ordinary steak. But how you've described it, it doesn't sound terribly appetising and I'm not sure that I'd fancy it. With roadkill you need to be careful that the animal wasn't diseased before it died also it may have been lying at the side of the road for some time before your friend found it.

These older threads might help with cooking it:

Venison

Venison

venison: what to do with it?

How to roast leg of venison

Pink

Fozz

Thanks for links, some good tips. Like you I am a bit worried as to how long the deer was lying there before picked up. I did look in my 1950s cookbook, and it advised venison to be 'hung' for two to three weeks before eating, so perhaps it doesn't matter as long as it's reasonably fresh.
The smell was similar to game birds, but just a hundred times stronger! Have just had a sniff of the cooked piece in the fridge, and have to say that I definitely won't be eating it!

floyd

My OH's grandad has a penchant for road-kill (pheasant and rabbit mainly) and he has 2 rules; if its been knocked out not run over then its ok and if its still warm its ok. Anything that is remotely squashed or stone cold he won't take.
Unless your friend can tell you what state it was in when he got to it I wouldn't touch it and would only eat it completely cooked through rather than rare as pink-winged mentioned you don't know what state of health it was in before it was struck.
OH's Grandad has done this all his life and is a very sprightly 80-something!

sallya_3

Fozz wrote: »

Thanks for links, some good tips. Like you I am a bit worried as to how long the deer was lying there before picked up. I did look in my 1950s cookbook, and it advised venison to be 'hung' for two to three weeks before eating, so perhaps it doesn't matter as long as it's reasonably fresh.
The smell was similar to game birds, but just a hundred times stronger! Have just had a sniff of the cooked piece in the fridge, and have to say that I definitely won't be eating it!

If it had been hung in proper conditions then that's fine, but if it had been left to lie at the side of the road getting wet in the rain etc, I wouldn't be eating it. I think they also remove the blood/innards from the carcass before hanging as well.

I'd give it a miss!

Sal
x

borderlakland

sallya wrote: »

If it had been hung in proper conditions then that's fine, but if it had been left to lie at the side of the road getting wet in the rain etc, I wouldn't be eating it. I think they also remove the blood/innards from the carcass before hanging as well.

I'd give it a miss!

Sal
x

when you leave it to hang it is gutted and left to bleed. my friend who keeps us supplied with rabbits regulary fills her freezer with roadkilled venison, but they must be fresh, and she then hangs it(i have helped with this and it does smell v strong) i personally wouldn't eat it if i wasn't sure about the length of time it had been on side of road

Gingernutmeg

I used to work in a country house that had a deer park and I dreaded the annual cull as we'd come into work in the morning and find dead deer all over the place lol! When you butcher it, it does smell very strong (it's almost like a kind of ammonia type smell, not very pleasant at all) but we used to send ours out to a local butcher to get it hung in the 'proper' conditions. Personally I'd be very wary of eating roadkill, especially if you don't know how long it's been dead for (I wouldn't touch the meat if it was swarming with flies, you don't know if they've laid eggs ...).

floss2

I've always worked on the principle that if you are behind the killer vehicle, then you know how fresh it is & it's OK to take home.

I've had roadkill venison in Inverness - the friends we were staying with had knocked down & stunned a stag one Sunday on the way to early service at church. The vet was behind them & killed it humanely, then they had the butcher hang & joint it & they shared it!

THIRZAH

I read a novel-one of Tony Hillermans I think-which mentions a woman who used to drive to town each week. On the way she'd stop and move all the road kill onto the side of the road so that she knew that any roadkill on the road on the way back was fresh.

Somebody once gave my mother a duck that he'd hit by a car-it had an enormous bruise on one side and we children all refused to touch it.

tifnstav

that deer could have been stumbling around in the road with some sort of brain illness or lergy when it got hit!
don't eat it!

vickyj

OK here we go....
Q1) is hubby insured ?
Q2)is he replacable?
if there are more yes's than no's then go ahed and give him the road kill and you know what, give him seconds! if however you are fairly attatched to the old stick and the kids aren't that worried about disneyland just yet then i would throw out the fly fodder get him a ribeye and hope that vwith a good bit of seasoning he wouldent know the difference

hth
vicky
ps if yoiu do go ahed with plan A, then please give me a moment to delete this post