Oh Deer…

Venison.  To some, an exotic delicacy.  To others… simply “ewww”.  To those under my roof, its the other red meat.  You know you want to try it….
*Disclaimer- we did not eat the deer in this photograph.

I used 2lb of backstrap chops from the doe and buck ManSteak and I harvested last November.  Backstrap is my favorite part of a deer to work with, second only to the heart.  You can do it, its easy!  If you can’t get backstraps use tenderloins.

I heated about 1/4 c vegetable oil over “6” heat on my 1-10 burner.  Don’t crowd the pieces, you dont want them to stew each other.

Sear for about 3 minutes on each side.  You want them to be really rare in the middle.  Don’t worry, it’ll be ok, it wont be red forever.

Chop a small onion, or most of a medium onion.  I use white onions, we dont like sweet onion flavor.  Add to the oil and sautee till transparent.

Put the meat in a baking dish and add canned tomatoes to the onions.  At this point add your seasonings.  Typically I would have dosed it heavilly with cumin and chili powder, but I was going more traditional last night so I added one cube of garlic and a heaping teaspoon of sea salt.

Oh and then I found like 5 mushrooms in the fridge that needed to be used to I tossed those in to simmer for a few minutes on med-low heat.  I let the tomato mixture simmer for about 5 minutes, just long enough to disolve the salt, then poured it over the meat in my pan.

Bake at 425 for 20-30 minutes.  Its sizzles and sputters a lot, but thats ok.  You just want the meat to finish cooking and the sauce to reduce a bit.

Finish off with a helping of hashbrowns baked with cream of mushroom soup and diced onion.

The kids had seconds.