Have a confession...

I have always ground every ounce of every deer I've ever harvested, except for the tenderloins. Yes...even the backstrap.

My son and I helped a friend thin the herd of hungry mouths over the weekend and I brought home a doe and spike. I skinned and quartered both of them on Sunday and deboned the doe last night. I packaged most of the "roasts" and backstrap. We ate the tenderloins last night and they were awesome.

I kept the "football roast" to cook in the slow cooker today with potatoes and carrots. It was small; around 2 pounds.

In short...it completely sucked! Like tire rubber!

I cooked it for approximately 4 hours on low, as instructed by the recipe, and it was already 155F, well beyond the 135F I was shooting for. And the potatoes and carrots were still hard!

So, what gives? Wrong recipe for that cut? Didn't let the meat age properly? Just bad luck?

Hoping this thread can also be a place to learn what to do with the rest of it. Recipes to try... Better cooking methods... Maybe others can learn too.

Help me OB!

For backstrap, I dry brine it and grill it by itself like a steak or grill it bacon wrapped, or I pound it out to tenderize it and chicken fry it on high heat so it's crispy on the outside and medium rare inside. Top with fattening cream gravy.

Tonight.

1 lb of ground venison 10% beef fat from Slovacheks in Snook. Ended up with 10 or 12 bags of ground after they made the sausage.

1 can of Hunts past sauce garlic & herb flavored.
Some garlic salt and oregano added.

1 pound of Great Value white spaghetti noodles.

1 loaf of garlic bread from Brookshire Bros.

Plenty of parmesan cheese, cayenne and red peppers

Outside of the costs around the deer which are not too bad since I don't pay for a lease, thats about a six dollar dinner. Cooked every week. I will eat the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

Simple and delicious- Marinate BS in Italian dressing. Wrap in bacon. Grill to med rare. Profit.

The "football roast" is one of my favorite cuts. I believe it's actually called the center round.

If you treat it like beef and try to stew it, it turns out very dry. The secret is to cut to size, season it, then flash fry all sides, then remove from pan. Cook the rest of your meal in the pan. Let your veggies cook down and sauce develop, then right at the end add the venison back in to get hot. Keeps it from getting tough

"Beef" and broccoli, stews, curries are some of my favorite uses for that

The cuts of a deer are always a bit tricky. Too many names for things that folks have tried to adapt from beef to venison where deer just don't have the same layout as a 1000lb beef.

The football roast you're talking about probably comes off the front of the leg. I don't believe it's a center round, or top or bottom round as those generally come off the rear part of the hind quarter. The center round usually looks similar to a tenderloin.

Anyway. For your sirloin I agree. Too many muscle groups and hard to make a good tasting and tender piece of meat out of it. It can be done but often easier to grind it.

Ya really depends on what that "football" roast was. Part of the hind leg, maybe the top? To me that's the top of round.

I'll let other folks put their 2 cents in, But I typically cut up the hams into individual muscle groups and then the bigger muscles (large chunks without sinew or silver slim) I slice for jerky, the rest goes for grinding. I do keep the back straps and tenderloins for grilling/cooking.

"Football Roast" I assume you mean rectus femoris. The large round muscle on the front of the femur? Yeah, just grind that. Otherwise, cook it just like you do kidney.....cook the piss out of it. It's tough with a lot of tough connective tissue in it. Going to need a looooong time in a slow cooker. A cast iron pot in the oven will do you much better.

The rest of the muscles on the ham are much better. But I rarely cook them as roast. Much better to clean all the white off the outside, slice across the grain, brown it hot in the bottom of your cast iron pot with some oil, add onions, tomatoes, seasoning, beef bouillon, and water to cover and slap it in the oven for about 45 minutes on 425*, pull it out, add your carrots for about 15 minutes, pull again and add potatoes, some more water to cover, put it back in for about 15 minutes. Take it out again and give the meat and taters a poke to see if they are good to go. Its not going to be roast beef but it's pretty dang good.

You can also do the same with the meat but grill it, batter and fry, reverse sear, etc. Or slice in strips for fajitas, dice small for carne guisada, chili, etc.

So I'm thinking I didn't cook it long enough. It had the texture and chewiness of a brisket that hadn't cooked long enough.

Based on this, the cut of meat I'm talking about was the "top sirloin".

Any of the rounds make good sliced jerky

Look up "hunt to eat" easy venison in gravy

https://www.outdoorlife.com/best-ways-cook-every-cut-venison/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

I've got a handful of crockpot recipes with the top sirloin/other sinewy hindquarter cuts that are stupid easy and delicious. Ours never dry out as mentioned above. Actually have some venison barbacoa in the crockpot as we speak!

That graphic is junk. What you cooked is the toughest muscle on there. What they list as eye of round and tough is more tender than backstrap. The bottom and top are both good muscles too.

A buddy of mine was having the same issue deciding what to do with the sirloin. He cut strips of it about 5/8 inch and pounded them out to 1/4 inch. Then he made a bacon explosion "blanket" and laid the pounded strips on the blanket. Roll the blanket up and smoke or grill. Said it was had ass.

So we're saying what's called the top sirloin on that picture is junk? It is always difficult for me to translate videos or pictures to the physical when I'm butchering.

I will say I've sous vide'ed every muscle on the back ham with good results. (salt and pepper meat, add some butter and herb de provence to bag, cook at 120-125 for ~2-3 hrs, sear all sides, serve with balsamic reduction.)

Too late with the deer you have now, but my favorite is to bring the deer to the processor whole and have them cut chops. 1 inch third whitetail tbones.

K_P said:

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So we're saying what's called the top sirloin on that picture is junk? It is always difficult for me to translate videos or pictures to the physical when I'm butchering.

I will say I've sous vide'ed every muscle on the back ham with good results. (salt and pepper meat, add some butter and herb de provence to bag, cook at 120-125 for ~2-3 hrs, sear all sides, serve with balsamic reduction.)

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I don't personally think it's junk. I think I didn't cook it correctly.

After sleeping on it, I recalled the first brisket I ever smoked. Back before the turn of the century, I had a buddy that planned to throw a party and invite a bunch of sorority girls. He asked me to smoke a couple briskets. My bosses had a real nice offset smoker on a trailer. So I brought it to the house, went and bought some cheap packer trims (miss those days!), and got it started.

When you're 18 and you've never smoked a brisket by yourself before...and you're trying to get lucky...well, we'll just say it didn't go well.

The girls were getting hungry and irritable, so I pulled the first brisket too early. When I sliced into it, a stream of red juices ran out. The meat was chewy, like rubber, and had zero flavor. One girl told me "You don't serve girls chewy, bloody meat!"

Visions of that failure came back to me as I pondered what went wrong with the venison last night.

Out of fear of overcooking it, I think I simply didn't cook it long enough.

In a day or two, I'll try it again. And maybe cook it a little (a lot) longer.

AggieArcher17 said:

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I've got a handful of crockpot recipes with the top sirloin/other sinewy hindquarter cuts that are stupid easy and delicious. Ours never dry out as mentioned above. Actually have some venison barbacoa in the crockpot as we speak!

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Well...post 'em up!

You needed more cooking time. If simmered long enough in the crockpot with enough liquid (braised), it will eventually break down and become tender. You are not shooting for any internal temperature. Even when it does break down and become tender and shredded, it will still have a certain kind of dryness to it that is different from beef. It is still great eating though.

I've always referred to the football roast as the sirloin tip. The other 2 larger roasts on the hindquarter are the top and bottom round. All 3 will make great roasts when done correctly. You can also make a good roast out of the central portion of the front shoulder, especially with the bone in.

I always make tenderized steaks out of that particular chunk.

Not junk but definitely the toughest muscle on the ham. Better to just grind it and focus on the others.

1) Remember, deer is extremely lean compared to beef. You will get almost no moisture from marbled fat, as there is none.

2) For tender cuts, cook to rare, or just past rare. The only moisture you are going to get is water that is in the meat. If you cook to medium, a lot of that moisture is already gone, and it will be dry.

3) For cuts with a lot of connective tissue (silverside), low and slow is fine, but it will turn out dry. Adding in some acidity will also help break those tissues down. For deer, I prefer a dry red wine, like a malbec or rojo. The wine is pretty acidic, and will help with the connective tissue a bit. I recommend serving it with a demiglace or a brown gravy if you braise it though.

4) I also do a lot of thin sliced steaks that are flash fried on the skillet. You can keep the center moist, get lots of flavor from the browning, and, most importantly, you can cut around the silverside to avoid chewy bites.

Best of luck!! If you take this to the food board, you will get some advice from some semi-pro chefs. Just go there with some thick skin, they can be really snooty.

Lots of good stuff found here.

https://honest-food.net/wild-game/venison-recipes/

https://www.themeateater.com/cook

https://www.deerrecipes.online/mississippi-venison-pot-roast/

That football roast is the top round. It is very tough, and is best for ground venison or making jerky.

The cuts with the most connective tissue like the neck roast, shanks and bone in shoulders are the best for low and slow braise cooking. Like 4-5 hours at 250 with some type of cooking liquid. I generally do these whole. Get a really good browning on it first though with an oil (lard for me). After a few hours half submerged at 250 in a Dutch oven the connective tissue breaks down into collagen and gets soft and gooey. They go from the toughest cuts to the most moist with the best texture. Cook till they fall apart. For a shank you should be able to cut the tendon with a fork when you are done. Collagen is what makes a really good stock or bone broth so the cuts with the most of it make the best liquid portion of the dish as that all cooks out.

For the back hams I separate out the muscle groups. When I cook them it's usually cubed up as part of a stew or chili, again relatively slow cooked though. You can do that football roast medium rare in the center by using a sous vide and reversing searing or a smoker or oven. Get the outside good and seared with high heat before or after depending on your cooking method. Slice it and serve with a nice sauce. These back leg muscle groups don't have much sinew, tendon, collagen etc so they will dry out if cooked whole slowly like you would for those "tougher cuts" ironically. These cuts are also perfect for trimming up, slicing and chicken frying. Save the back straps for a higher purpose.

Back straps and tenderloins I grill quick and hot and serve rare or medium rare. Better yet get a cast iron screaming hot coat me meat in oil, and salt the meat. Sear it brown on all sides until you I get your preferred level of internal doneness. You could get there in the oven after the sear if you like it past rare. Use a digital thermometer. Make an nice sauce with the drippings, slice and serve.

All my recipes are variations of these principles. Pot roasts, chili, stew, German, Mexican, French, Indian, Chinese, middle eastern recipes can all be adapted. That's how I divide up the types of cuts though.

Then you can then get into organ meats (the wobbly bits) and making sausage, pastrami, jerky and other charcuterie. I'm just starting to work on that game though. 20 pounds of deer and pig Italian sausage tomorrow is my plan. I plan to make a corned football roast this year too. Made duck pastrami last year.

Look up Hank Shaw's website or buy his book. He is the guru where I picked up most everything. https://honest-food.net/

Todd 02 said:

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So I'm thinking I didn't cook it long enough. It had the texture and chewiness of a brisket that hadn't cooked long enough.

Based on this, the cut of meat I'm talking about was the "top sirloin".

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In fact there are no real set standards for Venison cuts. It varies according to who you talk to. Some call it the Leg like veal and other attribute a combination of beef and veal terms to the Leg cuts.

The cut you are referring to is the same as the Knuckle or Sirloin Tip in beef, but you can not treat it like you would a beef Top Sirloin, which most consumers are familiar with when they hear the term Sirloin. The center muscle is the Rectus femoris and can be steaked and cooked to Medium Rare using high heat, but the other muscles (the Vastus group) are tough and more suitable for braising, so you either have to break the cut down into the Rectus femoris and Vastus group (for stewing) or your best choice for the whole cut is to braise it.

I cut up a neck last weekend and did venison tips and rice. I cube the meat in smaller pieces. Start by rendering a little bacon and onion and then add in your venison. I will then add a package or two Lipton Onion Soup depending on how much venison and cover with water. Let that simmer 2-3 hours and then thicken your liquid with a corn starch slurry. Pour that over rice and you are talking fine eats!

I always have my processor get me as many ham steaks as he can the back straps and bacon wrap the tenderloins then package the neck roast bone in and the rest is grind. The neck is probably the best meat on the deer or elk when cooked right