Venison Shanks

[SeniorCoot]

Watched Drive ins,Diners, and Dives this week and liked what a guy did with lamb shanks so tonite i did samo with venu\ison shanks from wife's buck.
roll shanks in seasoned flour-brown well in veg lio-then chop a med onion-one carrot- and a stalk of celery and 1/2 gr pepper- saute in oil from shanks- when tender add a cup ea of beef base and red wine(dry) and I added 1/2 sm can of tomato puree-- deglaze pan and pour over shanks in Dutch Oven-- cooked mine 2 hrs @ 325F but another 30 min would not have hurt.
very good with sauteed zucchini and Penne.

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

Ralph, you are certainly more well versed in the culinary arts than I, but I have never found deer (or venison) Shanks to be very appetizing at all, and they don't really go through the grinder very easily either. Most often I dispense with them by giving the dog something to do besides lurking around the cleaning area. I have always thought they were too full of tendons and sinew to really use as food. Perhaps I've been missing out!?

Alan

[Bushman]

What Alan said SC. "When tender" seems to be a contradiction when referring to shanks I'd think. I've had lamb shanks and they were very good, but my bone saw goes above those shanks when I'm butchering a deer. By the time I've cut out all the tendons, there isn't enough meat left to justify all the time I've spent. This is the first time that I've ever seen deer shanks on the menu. Interesting.

[Greybeard]

Coot, all was good until you brought in the hated zuchinni :eek:. Greybeard/

[Twanger]

Lamb shanks cooked low and slow and smothered in gravy is one of my favorite meals.

Never done it with venison, but the key thing must be to cook it at a low enough temperature and long enough to make them tender.

[Bushman]

It wasn't until I shot an old sheep when I discovered that there was a tremendous difference between leg of lamb and leg of ram. Those deer shanks could have lots of miles on them. Even cooked tender, where do all those tendons go? If a grinder chokes on them, wouldn't your teeth too?

[SeniorCoot]

Well at least my post woke everybody up! I use the upper portion of shank-- perhaps one might call it lower leg-- the first meat of shank goes into grinder with trim--I'd say shanks i use are about 6-8" in diameter and weigh near 1/2lb each-- yes they have some connective tissue in them BUT almost all of it turns gelatinous with slow cooking.
On other note i have shot Dall's as old as 11 and meat was wonderful.

[Bushman]

SC yes, but you know how to cook. Sweetness did all of that around here and since she is no longer here, maintaining my weight has not been any kind of a problem.

I've heard that those Dall sheep are good eating. The one that I shot was one of those Barbarossa sheep. The taxidermist said that he was 13 years old because he said he could tell because they grow growth rings on their horns every year. One of the guys that I shoot trap with just tried to eat one too and he said it was chewy as bubble gum and tasted bad to boot.

Interesting that tendons turn gelatinous with cooking. Your cooking probably, not mine with three minutes in the microwave.

[SeniorCoot]

Bushman--Did you get the recipes??

[Bushman]

Ralph, I did and thank you. I've been meaning to drop you a note. I especially like the part about substituting beer or red wine in place of just water for additional flavor. Between mom and Sweetness they have like five crock pots around here. I'll look for a size appropriate one to fire up for that stew recipe. I got a kick out of that second paragraph:

"For 25 yrs in Alaska, moose was our beef and was supplemented with caribou, sheep, bear and deer and accounted for about all of our red meat consumption and supplemented with ducks, grouse, ptarmigan the occasional goose or crane, with salmon, halibut, rock fish, and some years crab and shrimp..."

Wisconsin must seem like the other end of the world to you now. I was out looking for some jumping meat myself yesterday. -11 degrees F. at dawn changed my mind about posting for very long so with the snow I quietly walked all over. Not a single sighting until I got back to the cabin and there were three deer in the yard. Better weather for watching Packer people today. Thanks again.

[SeniorCoot]

It was a slow season here also-since my 70th BD fell day before Thanksgiving and my son from AK sneaked down with younger son from Mpls we had a good weekend( Vikes game etc) but i only got 4 days of deer hunting-wife got a nice 8pt but I was doing most pushing for her and buddy from VT.with Mt supplements we won't go to Foos Bank this winter-I miss AK but not the dark and long winters as my Mushing/Trapping days are about over-we go back once or twice a year now-Me in march to race/Rally Vontage snomachines and in summer to fish/crab etc.