How A 3 Year Old Buck Tastes Fantastic

I am a meat hunter.  No apologies about that.  Deer are food.  Regulations require me to not shoot a buck deer unless it has 4 or more points on one side.  Last year that meant that I took a really big buck who was in full rut, but quite large.

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So, understand, this is not some piece of beef castrated when a few months old, and slaughtered before it hit a year old.  This is a fully mature wild animal, and not the most tender cuts.  This is round steak.  I cut slices of it about a third of an inch thick, and includes multiple muscle groups and connective tissues. Using a meat hammer I pound it out to damn near the size of a dinner plate.

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I make a mixture of flour, pepper, and salt.  The meat is dredged in that, then dipped in egg wash ( 3 to 2 eggs to whole milk ) and then dredged into the spiced flour again.  After that it is fried in olive oil, over medium heat, until blood starts to show on the uncooked side.

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Flip it over and fry it for the same amount of time that you gave the first side, then put it into a pre heated oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes to finish.

Understand, for a family my size, that I am doing a lot of these.  I have two pans going, my kids and wife love this stuff, and they are going to eat a lot, so the first ones that go in get a lot more baking time than the last ones.

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To go with this dinner we had a bunch of freshly picked beans from the garden, which were sauteed in a separate pan with olive oil, a few crushed garlic cloves, and salt.  On the side was Yukon Gold potatoes.

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I deglazed the two pans I sauteed the meat in with potato water, from cooking the potatoes.  I made a mix of the left over flour mixture, along with cold water, which was added to the deglazing mixture for a gravy, which went over smashed potatoes (just a fork, nothing mixed in) and the meat, with the beans on the side.  Apparently one round will feed 12 people this way, of a deer this size, and I used up half of it on this meal.

 

 

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