HI all. Hopefully those who ventured out into the woods for the MN deer opener were rewarded with natures original "fast food".

This is not really a camp recipe, well I guess deer camp would qualify.

A buddy of mine turned me onto this last week after his son arrowed his deer.

In many deer camps/kitchens, deer liver is a tradition. Fried up with some onions makes a great and memorable meal after a day of hunting.

Some also cook up the heart, which may turn some off, but it is after all, a muscle just like and other cut. If you've never tried it, it is really very very good.

Both of these are traditionally cooked up after being dredged in flour, salt, pepper, what have you. However, breaking from tradition, cooking these with the addition of Tender Quick, a meat cure mfg. by Morton Salt Co., puts a completely different taste to each of these.

Tender Quick is a meat cure, often used when making sausage for smoking and contains Salt and .5% of Sodium Nitrite as well as Nitrate and can be found at store like Walmart. If you have any concerns over either of these, know that many root vegetable as well as leafy greens contain both, largely due to commercial farming practices but also occur naturally. Celery on it's own contains enough nitrites that is can be used to cure meat products. In fact, many organically produced so called nitrite free meat products are cured with celery, which is, nitrite. But that's a whole other discussion lol.

Heart.

Slice heart into 1/4" strips. To every pound, add 1/2 Tbl of Tenderquick and 1 Tbl of brown sugar. Put in plastic ziploc and set in fridge over night.
Prior to frying up, rinse briefly and pat dry the cut up heart pieces.
Lightly season with equal amounts of black pepper, granulated garlic and granulated onion. (powdered of both will work fine).

Preferably in a heavy cast iron skillet, melt enough butter to get the job done. Get butter poppin and add heart pieces and cook till done. Enjoy.

Liver.

Slice as you would beef liver. Again, for every 1 pound of liver, add 1/2 Tbl of Tenderquick and 1/2 Tbl minced garlic. Place in ziploc and in fridge overnight. Prior to cooking, rinse with cool water briefly. You just want to rinse and residue off. No need to pat dry the liver.
Set liver aside and cut up a nice large yellow onion. Fry in butter till soft. Add liver and cook till done. If you have them, add some morels to the mix. Served along side some garden fresh potatoes makes for a great meat. Enjoy.

Note. Adding cure to this only serves to change the flavor profile which it does by reacting with the proteins in the meat. Since we are cooking this and not smoking it at a lower temp, the cure amount is cut by half. If your not sure you want to change your normal cooking methods of heart/liver, set aside a small amount and give it a try. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Yum. I love me some liver.

Don't forget to pickle the deer tongue. The heart is very good this way too...

It's offal

quote Dennisal: "Don't forget to pickle the deer tongue. The heart is very good this way too...
"

Ya know, when I was processing him, I said to myslef, "self" do something with that tongue. Yeah, I didn't. Pickling it didn't even dawn on me but definitely something I would try. I made some kielbasa and pickled a small amount of that, wish I would have harvested the tongue to try it.

You have a recipe/method you use for it? Pass it along if ya would. Daughter may go 2nd season so if she's successful in harvesting a deer, will give it a go.

quote MeatHunter: "

quote Dennisal: "Don't forget to pickle the deer tongue. The heart is very good this way too...
"

Ya know, when I was processing him, I said to myslef, "self" do something with that tongue. Yeah, I didn't. Pickling it didn't even dawn on me but definitely something I would try. I made some kielbasa and pickled a small amount of that, wish I would have harvested the tongue to try it.


You have a recipe/method you use for it? Pass it along if ya would. Daughter may go 2nd season so if she's successful in harvesting a deer, will give it a go. "

I basically follow this recipe.

It's simple parboil the tongue, in lightly salted water, do not fully cook put enough filtered or distilled water in a pot to cover the tongue ,add 1 cup of pickling salt,2 T of roughly cracked pepper corns, 1 T of juniper berries, 1/2 cup diced onion, 1/4 cup each diced celery and carrots, a packet of pickling spice. bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until carrots are just tender the remove from heat strain but reserve liquid. place tongue, vegetables and spice to jar. Reduce cooking liquid by half and add 1 cup cider or red wine vinegar and 1/2 cup brown sugar(if you want a sweet and sour pickling) bring to a boil and simmer until all the sugar disolves. You can add whole peeled cloves of garlic and peeled slices of ginger to the jar now and/or a cinamon stick for some exotic flare if you'd like. Place them in the jar raw. Pour the still simmering hot brine and vinegar mixture into the jar leaving at least 1/2 inch of air space. Then pressure cooker can. or place in fridge and eat within a week after allowing at least 2 days.