Smoked venison- words that hold the power to make you drool almost anywhere and anytime, and probably even onto your screen right now as we speak. We’re not judging!
Although this is one dish the world simply can’t have enough of, it takes quite an elaborate ritual to prepare. Especially if the meat comes from hunted game. And this is precisely where that expensive restaurant will singe a hole right through your pocket.
But, we’re sure that little did you know that this could be prepared at home as well, given you followed the steps just right!
So right now, if you’re looking to cook up a dish worth a million bucks for the taste and a smile on that face, then we’re here to save the day for you.
Because in this guide, we’re gonna be detailing 3 delectable smoke venison deer recipes for you to enjoy right away after a hunt!
So let’s get right down to it!
Smoked venison deer steaks
Cooking venison steak past medium will dry out all its juices leaving the meat all chewy, overcooked and dry. We advise you to tenderize the meat using a tenderizer and marinate it overnight.
Ingredients
- 1 bottle of Italian dressing
- 8 deer steaks
- Steak seasoning or seasoning salt
- 2 garlic cloves
- 2 tbsp basil seasoning/ fresh basil
For smoking
- 1 bag of charcoal
- 1 bottle of lighter fluid
- A bag or two of wood chips of your preference
Procedure
1. Make sure that the steaks have been marinated overnight; or if you’re in a hurry, marinate it for at least 4 hours. Mix the seasoning with the marinade ingredients and coat the steaks thoroughly with it. Place the steaks in the refrigerator until you’re ready to smoke them.
2. Soak your wood chips in water, apple juice or beer for about an hour before you put your venison steak on the smoker.
3. Get to lighting up your charcoal smoker as the meat is marinating; this will take you around 30-35 minutes.
4. Put the wood chips in a smoker box or a foil pouch to keep them from catching fire and burn out quickly. You could punch a few holes on the top of your foil pouch to let the smoke escape, flavoring the meat.
5. Place the steaks on your smoker. If you’re using a grill to smoke, position the vent to be right above the steaks so that the smoke gets drawn directly across the steaks before escaping out of the vent.
You can open and close the lid according to how you wanna regulate the smoking temperature. The ideal way of doing this is keeping it open about ¾ the way to allow enough airflow to keep the grill hot.
6. Usually, venison steak would take about 3-4 hours to smoke depending on the temperature of your grill or smoker and the size of the steaks. You could keep checking on it every 45 minutes to make sure the wood chips are flavoring it well and keep the temperature mediating between 225-275 degrees.
Smoked Deer Jerky Recipe
Although most of you would prefer using a dehydrator to dry your deer meat for making jerky, we like smoking it first and then dehydrating the meat to infuse all the flavors.
Smoking the deer meat for about 3 hours before using a dehydrator will give it the kind of smoky flavor that can’t really be achieved with liquid smoke seasoning. The critical element to getting it just right is to keep it at a temperature of about 140-160 degrees.
Ingredients
- 5 lbs of deer hamburger (makes about 2 ½ lbs jerky)
- ½ cup of soy sauce
- ¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp paprika
- 1 tbsp crushed red pepper
- 3 tbsp hot sauce
- 1 tbsp of pepper
- 1 tbsp garlic powder
- 1 tbsp onion salt
- 1 tbsp salt
Procedure
1. Mix all the seasoning together and marinate the meat in it, refrigerating it up to 12 hours, if you can.
2. If the grill grate of your smoker is removable, then put it out and line the grate with the jerky outside the smoker. Ignite the smoker and let it set around 160-180 degrees Fahrenheit before putting the meat on. The meat will smoke at around 200-225 degrees. Try using less charcoal to maintain a lower temperature.
3. Set the marinated meat as strips on the smoker. You could use a jerky gun to shoot out the meat strips; it makes the job easier. Cut the strips about ¼ th of an inch long and 1 inch wide. Lay them out on a single row and never on top of each other.
4. Add a handful of smoker chips every 3 hours till your jerky remains on the smoker.
5. Smoke the jerky for another 30 minutes (the entire process will come down to 3 hours total).
6. About 2 ½ hours after this, warm up your dehydrator well. Bring the grate into the kitchen and keep the jerky in the dehydrator for about 5-6 hours. After the meat has been cooled off, bend it in half to check if it’s correctly done. It should be soft in the center, but the edges should easily break off.
Smoked Elk Steak
Elk is a delicacy and usually cost almost a fortune to have at fancy restaurants and diners. Smoked elk steak could be pretty challenging to prepare, but the result would be worth every second of the hard work you put into making it.
And if you want to know more ways on how to hunt Elk right, check out these practical elk hunting tips.
Back on topic, the following recipe could be just the thing to decode that perfect elk steak dish for you!
Ingredients
- 2 elk steaks
- 12 oz sliced Portobello mushrooms
- 1/8th of an onion (diced)
- 4 cloves of garlic minced
- 4 tbsp red wine
- 1 cup beef broth
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- Salt and pepper
Procedure
1. Mix the spices to make the marinade. You should marinate the elk for at least 6 hours or as long as 24 hours if you can. The longer you keep it in the marinade, the softer and flavorful it will get. The ingredients for this recipe will serve as both the marinade ingredients as well as the topping.
2. Mix the sliced mushrooms, garlic, onion, red wine, beef broth, butter, olive oil, and salt and pepper. Bring this mixture to a boil over the stove on medium heat. Once it starts to boil, turn it down and let the mixture simmer for around 5-10 minutes on low heat.
3. After that, take the mixture off the heat and cool it off to room temperature. Put the steaks into it, and transfer the whole thing into a zip-lock bag or a casserole dish. Refrigerate it for at least 6 hours.
4. Once that is done with, crank up your smoker to 225 degrees and put your smoker wood chips. Smoke the elk for a couple of hours to medium rare or medium. It should reach an internal temperature of 140 degrees.
5. Once the meat is done, cover it up in foil for 15 minutes after taking it off the stove, to let the juices settle in nicely. During this time, reheat the marinade and serve it as a topping on the meat.
Conclusion
So that was our 3 top smoked venison recipes for you! We hope you liked reading them as much as you would love preparing them right away. We understand that there’s nothing like cooking deer meat that you hunted and that’s why it’s important you do it the right way like how Rangermade explains.
We’ll be back with more such lip-smacking recipes soon.
Till next time!
