SC - Venison Medallions- OOP

[Alderton, Philippa]

Went to a friend's place a couple weeks ago, and was presented with a couple
of packages of frozen meat, simply labelled "Deer Chops", which he wanted me
to cook up for him. Now I don't know about the rest of you, but when I don't
know the hunter and the butcher, I tend to be a bit cautious, since there's
no telling what some people will label chops, and in this case, all I could
see was a frozen solid chunk of meat, no bones. For all I knew, it could
have been what I'd normally cut into stew meat or burger, so I started by
thawing it in red wine- thawing and marinating, all in one.

To the red wine to cover, I added a variety of herbs and spices- can't
really tell you exactly what they were, since I was raiding a non-cook's
spice cupboard, but they did include dill weed, garlic powder, black pepper,
poultry seasoning, and a dash of cinnamon. Once they thawed, I realized that
these chops were deer loin, butterflied, 1/2 inch thick, and they smelled
delightful, so I knew I'd lucked out. From the size, I'd guess a young (two
years old) buck or doe, which, in my opinion, is the best eating, for both
flavor and tenderness.

I sliced the butterfly chops into medallions, and sauteed them in goose fat,
saved from my last venture over at his place, until they were rare to medium
rare, then removed them from the pan and gently sauteed some whole cloves of
garlic in the pan juices until they were tender, then added the marinade and
brought it to a full boil for a couple of minutes (gotta do that, if you've
got raw meat juices in the marinade), thickened it with flour, and let it
simmer for a bit (that's how you get the raw flour taste out of it, as we
were discussing on the sausage gravy thing the other day, Adamantius)
stirring regularly, but not violently, then added the medallions into the
gravy, heated through, and served with rice and spinach salad w/hot bacon
dressing, and home made biscuits.

Not only was it excellent hot, but the cold leftovers the next day were
great ! I will note that while it may seem as if there was an awful lot of
garlic in there, if you leave the cloves whole, they don't flavor the food
as strongly as if they were cut, and you can pick them out easily if you
don't like them, or you can do as I do, and have them as a burst of garlic
flavor between bites of meat- sauteed like that, they're not as sharp and
harsh, but very mellow.

Hope you'd like to try it, and if you do, enjoy ;-)


Phlip

Nolo disputare, volo somniare et contendere, et iterum somniare.

phlip at morganco.net

Philippa Farrour
Caer Frig
Southeastern Ohio

"All things are poisons.  It is simply the dose that distinguishes between a
poison and a remedy." -Paracelsus

"Oats -- a grain which in England sustains the horses, and in
Scotland, the men." -- Johnson

"It was pleasant to me to find that 'oats,' the 'food of horses,' were
so much used as the food of the people in Johnson's own town." --
Boswell

"And where will you find such horses, and such men?" -- Anonymous