Best way to cook a tenderloin steak
The cuts are, from bottom left to right: Bottom round, eye of round, top round, and the sirloin. Top left to right: Shank, femur, and scraps for grinding. One of the most frequent questions hunters ask me is how to cook best way to cook a tenderloin steak, cut by cut.
The answer to that question depends not only on the cut, but also your cooking abilities and dish preferences. Which means this cut-by-cut guide is going to be tailored to my culinary tastes, and how I break down my deer. This is by no means the only way to butcher and cook your cuts, but this is how I get the best results when using the whole deer. There are also some useful guidelines below on how to cook venison—regardless of individual preferences—that will hopefully keep folks from attempting to grill shanks or stew backstrap. We’ll start with the neck and then work our way down the deer. Cook a Venison Neck Roast A venison neck roast and wild rice. The neck is a giant pain in the ass.
It is possible, with a lot of practice to de-bone the neck and make a beautiful neck roast. You could also make a bone-in neck roast. Or you could do what most people do, and cut as much away from the bone as possible and grind it all up. Deboning a neck takes skill and time. Ideally, everyone should give it a try on each deer they shoot, if only to practice and hone their knife skills. Even if you mess it up the first few times, you can still grind all the meat so none of it goes to waste. If and when you do master the art of de-boning a neck roast, you’re in for a treat.
Debone the front shoulders and grind them up for killer venison sausage. The front shoulders are the source for most of my ground venison. On really big deer you can get some nice blade steaks off the front shoulders, but I usually just grind everything on the front legs. I like to make all my own sausages, and my wife really likes plenty of ground venison to cook with instead of ground beef.
Pretty much anything you could cook with ground beef, pork, or lamb will accommodate a venison substitute, including an endless amount of fresh and smoked sausages. I’ve used it in all varieties of dishes, from lasagna to pot stickers. Just remember that venison doesn’t have the fat content that domestic animals have. If you are going to make burgers, you need to add fat to the meat you grind, mix in some ground beef to the venison patties, or cook your burger medium-rare. Venison shanks are one of the most underrated cuts. Deer shanks have become my favorite part of the animal.
