Hi Trad Gangers,
I was lucky to bring home some venison the other evening. I ground up some of the venison into chop meat. The question I have is should I mix the venison with chopped beef or pork? What should the venison to pork or beef ratio be? I need to get this done pretty fast so I can get the meat packaged and into the freezer.
Thank you,
Larry
Easy answer, cook up some of what you already have and see if it needs anything. Some guys add bacon ends, pork fat etc. For burger I usually just grind the meat and throw it in the vacuum sealer.
I like to use pork---the fat level seems to be just right to compliment the venison, I generally do about a 20/60 mix---depending on how fatty the pork is you can use more if needed. Tastes great, too. Also works good if ground with some sausage.
I bring my hamburger meat to a butcher and ask him to add beef suet and he does for about 50 cents a pound and it tastes great
beef suet is the fat from the inside of the cow and is very healthy for you
for salami and hot sticks i use pork fat beacuse it tastes better smoked!!!
I used bacon this year. @ 1# bacon to 10# venison. The smoked bacon gives the burger a nice flavor, too.
pork steak works also, usally on sale some where. Get some seasonings from a butcher supply and make your own breakfast sausage.
I grind mine without any thing added. I add whatever I want when it is time to use it. For chily, spaghetti and things like that I like without anything else. For meat loaf and burgers I like a little beef or pork added.
Venison is cholesterol free so why add cholesterol to it unless necessary. Pat
10 lbs deer meat , 2 lbs beef fat , 1 lb bacon ............. grind together ....... mix well ........... package ......... freeze ............... grill ............ enjoy ............... better'n the best ground chuck !!!!!
The quickest and easiest way that I have found is to use the cheapest ground beef (usually the highest in fat) and mix it with my venison. 1 to 3 beef to venison. All the variations above sound delicious. I'll have to give them a try.
use it plain. Why take good healthy deer meat and add junk to it.You can add a little water if you cook burgers in a fry pan with a lid..I use it plain for my summer sausage also.. JMO
I 2nd the 1/10 bacon/venison. Try it with taco seasoning in a burrito. Venison was made for this!
I add 1-2 fresh pork breakfast sausages to a pound of ground venison. Very light seasoning and just enough fat...Doc
Tastes great as is in chili. Mmmmmm chili.
I agree with the 1lb beef suet or 1lb bacon to 10lbs venison. Yeild 90% lean ground venison if you don't add something you will have to add oil or something else to cook it and to make burgers stick together.
I'm with Pat and Geno. I don't add anything to it.
i package my own meat...and what i do that works very well is just add a sliver of cheap hamburger with a pound package of venison burger... the sliver adds a little extra moisture to the meat when cooking and flavor...not enough extra fat to bother worrying about..
I add the cheap ground beef, then it doesn't matter what I use it for, patties or just brown, never have to drain the skillet either. I a going to try adding pork to my bologna this year, as I understand it keeps it moist better than the beef fat.
MMMMMMMMMM venison burgers......plenty of good answers here Bud!
All these mixtures sound great! You can get bacon ends and pieces for a good price at your local grocery store.
I don't add a thing to mine.
my family prefers straight venison but as a child my mom mixed 50/50 with beef so sis wouldnt know what she was eating :)
Thanks for all the great advise. I just printed it up to use as a future referance.
I wound up mixing one pound of venison with 1/2 pound of ground pork. I mixed well and the meat seems to stick together well. Now I can make burgers, meat balls, chili and home made meat sauce for my pasta!
Going to head back out tomorrow to try to get some more meat.
Thanks again folks,
Larry
I don't add anything to my ground venison.
I add ground pork loin, about 1 to 4 ratio pork loin to veni. If you look around you can get pork loin 2 bucks a pound.
I've found lots of uses for ground venison that don't require(to my taste) any added fat. In chili and pasta sauce I put it in straight and can't tell the difference from beef. Jerky using a Jerky Shooter taste great just following the directions. LEM hickory is my favorite flavor so far. Another easy thing is to make breakfast sausage. Just have to cook it with a little oil.
I call the butcher and get about 10# of 60/40 fat to lean beef trim. That way I know its fresh not pulled meat. The cheap burger you get in stores contains a lot of "pulled meat", that is meat that starts to darken up under the florescent lights in the display case. That is sometimes frozen and then rethawed to mix with other meat to make the cheap burger. That's a fact as I was trained to butcher in a grocery store with a meat shop. Also in the freezer, beef has a longer life than pork. JMHO
I also ground my own venison and enjoy it as venison. I don't understand why you would mix other meats with it? Would you mix pork with your beef burgers? You take a healthy piece of meat and add meat not so good for you in it. Go figure.I guess if you enjoy like that but I would recommend that you try it straight-up. You might like it.
Nothing added here either :campfire:
Tracy
Quotebeef suet is the fat from the inside of the cow and is very healthy for you
I didn't know cows had fat on the outside. LOL
Hey mparks,
Try a little water one time with a lid on it, it work.
Is suet the(inside) fat that you render or somthing else?
We grind it w/o adding anything. In burgers we add a raw egg or two and/or water to get the dry grind to stick together.
In sauces we just put it in plain.
In tacos, which is exactly what 95% of all my grind goes to, we just use the taco seasoning.
I plan to try adding bacon ends and pieces soon. It just kills me though to go buy meat from the store after knowing what the deer meat cost to get.
I know, I know, I know you don't figure the cost. But still.....
I shoot deer because I like the taste of deer. I add nothing to the meat and when I want pork or beef I buy pork or beef. God made some of the best tating, healthy meat there is when He created deer so I don't mess with what He made.
I have been very happy with a mix of 2 parts ground lean venison to 1 part ground 30% lean beef trimmings. It stays together well, has good flavor and leaves virtually no grease drippings. Make sure you specify 30% lean beef trimmings, and not suet or tallow.
For burger, I grind it straight. If I'm making sausage, I mix with pork. Depensing on the price, country style ribs work well. trim off the boane and they are ready to fit most grinder hoppers.
And Bjoirn? If you use a 20/60 mix....what the other 20% you add in there? :D
How about you try freezing as is? Then depending on the use you could mix it with something or leave it as is.
You might find that you want to try something different later on, say bacon as apposed to beef fat. Also you might want to make jerky, chili, stew or some other recepie where plain ground deer is best.
Actually, I never mix anything in it unless I am making sausage. It doesn't need anything else to be good, but if you want some variety, prefer a fattier burger or need to strech out your deer meat mixing something else into it might make sense.
Juniper Bow
100% venison, I don't add any other kind of meat to it.