Help: Need info on how to cook venison ham

[msgt/ret]

A friend gave my roommate a venison ham and having never prepared one I need some tips and recipes for cooking one. I’ve cooked rabbits, squirrels, dove and quail but this is a bit larger critter than I am used to.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[UnklFungus]

I can give you advice based on cooking hams and lots of venison. In my experience with Venison, it is easy to overcook and dry it out. I have never cooked venison ham, but I would take a small portion of it and cook it with and without salt. This will give you a starting base for any additional seasoning you may wish to add.

If you like a bit of spice you can glaze it with Mae Ploy sauce. If you don't, you can take an Orange marmalade and add a bit of ginger to it, then mix in Soy Vey Very Very Teriyaki sauce/marinade, to a ratio of 2/3 marmalade/ginger to 1/3 Soy Vey.

Brush this over the top and then every 15-30 mins baste it with the sauce in the pan. You can reserve some to add to it as it cooks. The sauce above will bake to a candy shell on the ham. It is really good. I cook duck this way and it gets a crunchy candied shell on it. You can also add whole cloves poked into the ham before you put it into the oven. Google says 250 for 4-5 hours. Slow cooking is good, as you have less chance of over cooking it. Use a meat thermometer. An instant read is the most convenient.

I hope this helps. Mae Ploy is a sweet chili sauce found in the ethnic section of your grocery store or maybe a gourmet store, depends on where you live. You can also get it at restaurant supply stores. Great stuff!

Let me know how it turns out. I would recommend a drier red wine with it to balance the sweetness of the glaze. Some oven roasted red potatoes or Yukon Gold if you can find them. Start with a salad with walnuts and mandarin oranges diced into it and the veggie of your choice. I like green beans that have been sautéed with fresh garlic and salt/pepper and almond slices until just a bit soft. Maybe a splash of Soy sauce. Maybe a good whole grain small loaf with some fresh garlic butter spread into the slices on top and put in the oven just before ham is done, or maybe just toast it whole and have some nice soft whole butter to brush on the bread.

Top it off with some strawberries and mixed berries with a bit of fresh whipped cream with a touch of vanilla!

Enjoy!!!

Edit to Add:

If you can get the ham on a rack in the pan, this will get it out of the juices and it will candy the glaze over more of it and prevent it from only getting partway glazed. You may want to drape some foil over it for the majority of the cooking to help prevent the top from getting too dark. You can hold it off off the ham just a bit with toothpicks.

[Machina]

Just keep in mind venison is very lean and therefore easy to dry out. Either cook it very slow, or cook it on the rare side.

[SIGP250]

A friend gave my roommate a venison ham and having never prepared one I need some tips and recipes for cooking one. I’ve cooked rabbits, squirrels, dove and quail but this is a bit larger critter than I am used to.

I am not a chef. Venison is not for everyone.The ham portion is very lean like elk and can be delicious if cooked properly. I think the first thing I would question is "is the meat fresh" if not, pass.

[dukalmighty]

Okay who introduced the deer to the pig,and what's the offspring called

[jca1]

Here's what I do.

I never cook a whole ham because you cannot get the wild out of a whole ham and most people do not like the wild taste of venison.

I cut the ham into strips about 1/2 inch thick or so (as long as you want) then put these pieces on a soak of 1 part vinegar to 4 parts water. Soak this overnight in the fridge or on ice either one.

Drain the soak off and rinse the meat. As you rinse the meat squeeze it like a dish rag, twist it, ball it up, etc...but try to get as much blood out as possible.

Now soak it again overnight in salt water this time. Next day repeat the rinse/squeezing.

Now soak one last time in just water this time, overnight again. Repeat the rinse/squeeze process and you should be done.

Now that the blood is out, the wild is gone. You can do pretty much anything you want to with it.

I like to:
soak it in Italian dressing(30 min.), wrap it with bacon and grill it.

Batter and lightly fry it like county fried steak, make gravy with the drippin's, then basically simmer the meat in the gravy for an hour.

Grind it up into hamburger and make spaghetti, sloppy joe's, hamburger helper, etc.

[Chiller2]

get a cast iron pot (although any roasting pot will work)fry some fatback in the bottom add roast (ham)salt and pepper and a little bit of water just enough to keep it from scorching cover and put it in the oven on low heat (I usually use 300-350 ) cook at least 7-8 hrs checking periodically to make sure the that it has enough water if needed add some but not to much, you are roasting not boiling you want the liquid to be mostly juices from the meat I usually add carrots and potatoes near the end.

[ZRT600]

My boss has venison ham made every year. When he gets them they have already been smoked and ready to eat. He brings one into the office and it doesn't last long. Delicious.

[Free American]

Ok the part I think that is missing from this discussion is the fact that a "ham" is actually several cuts of meat. A "ham" refers to the upper portion of a whole rear leg.

The ham should be deboned first by laying the leg down on the cutting surface with the inside up, you should be able to see either the hip ball joint or half of the rear portion of the spine. Cut directly down the femur from the top portion of the bone to the knee with a sharp boning knife then carefully cut to remove the rest of the bone. The portion by the knee can be tough as there is lots of cartilage.

Once deboned slap the ham on the cutting board inside up and you will notice the meat tends to seperate into four distict muscle groups with a whitish connective tissue between them. Seperate the meat into these groups by cutting the connective tissue and not the meat. Remove any fat you come across as vension fat is a nasty chalky tasting substance completely unlike beef fat when cooked.

Once seperated in to the four major muscle groups, you can either trim them up by removing the silver skin (a tough tendon like material) or removing the fat and veins and throwing it into the crock pot. For raosting I strongly recommend removing the silver skin. For this 3 of the large mucscle groups will be seperated further into a few smaller pieces. Generally I take the larger pieces and use them for various roast recipes and cut the smaller pieces into chunks for stew meat.

From a decent sized deer you will get 2 possibly 3 roast size pieces and about 1-2 pounds of stew meat...easily 4-5 meals.

I should mention that soaking the whole ham in ice water with 1 potato chunked up in it for about 3 days will draw the blood and gamey taste out of the meat, don't forget to add ice daily and change the water when its bloody. Additionally this ages the meat, completely safe if under 42 degrees. If the meat has ever been frozen however, the process by which the enzymes in the meat break it down and tenerize it stops.

[Chiller2]

There must be some really bad deer in other areas of the the country because around here we don't need all these elaborate measures to remove the "gamey" taste. A properly cleaned and cooked animal taste just fine no soaking, no marinade, nothing but the flavor of the meat. If you don't like the taste eat beef.

[IronMike]

Hash...taters,onions,done.

[Stevew]

Indirect heat using pecan wood.

[Stevew]

Or slice it up and cube it like round steak and cook like chicken fried steak with gravy. Or make some sausage.

[Stevew]

Debone and cook in crock pot with favorite bbq sauce. Sorry about all the post but the wife has me on a diet.

[atctimmy]

I like to cook deer roasts like pulled pork. Put the roast in the crock pot and pour in a 20oz can of Fosters beer (any will do but you need about 20 to 22 ounces). Cook it over night and in the morning pull it apart and sauce it to taste.

ETA: Dang Steve you beat me to it.