Help!!

[flamin lib]

I've got several pounds of venison sausage. Not a venison/pork mix, venison. It's very dry and spicy. I can handle spicy but the dry makes it unpleasant and hides any flavor it has.

I've tried slow cooking in beans--three to four hours at a very slow simmer--for beans and rice and it's still dry as kitty litter and tough.

I've used it as a seasoning in gumbo but it's still to prominent because of the texture.

Any suggestions? I don't want to throw it away, after all, Bambi died for this stuff.

[supernova]

1. Pizza topping

like pepperoni?

Ordinarily I would say take it out of the casing but you said low and slow doesn't seem to affect the texture, correct?

[flamin lib]

2. Nope, at least in moist cooking like in beans or gumbo.

There's just no fat in venison. Usually my brother mixes it 50/50 with pork shoulder but things were tight this year so he went straight deer meat with a very little pork fat--obviously not enough which may be why I've go so much of it.

I've tried smoking it at 200f but it just becomes jerky.

This is a pretty deer meat specific situation, so I'm hoping somebody here is good at wild venison.

[Warpy]

3. The only thing I can offer is braising

but you'll have to remove the casing to get any penetration of liquid, at all. Alternatively, I'd use it in combination with something fatty like really cheap ground pork to make pork/venison meatballs.

Unfortunately, there's little that can be done to salvage lean meat that has been cured by itself and has become sawdust beyond eating it for the flavor and managing to forgive the texture.

I'm not really good at game meats, disliking both taste and texture, but this is how I handled some super dry Chinese sausage I was gifted with years ago.

If he bags a deer this year, offer to buy the pork if money is still tight, then gleefully accept sausage made with it in return.

[Tesha]

4. Warpy's right...

if it's still uncooked strip the casing and mix it with something high-fat - like ground pork.
Lots of uses for that, right?

If it's cooked - could you still grind it up and use it for seasoning something else?
At least you lose the texture thing.

[hippywife]

5. That was what I was going to say.

Strip it out of the casing and mix with some fat.

Or maybe fry it up in a skillet with some fat, and they use it and the fat to season/flavor whatever recipe it will be a part of.

:hi: