You can do anything with venison that you would beef. Just remember
that it is drier- less fat, so steaks should be
marinaded/tenderized/pounded and cooked just to medium, not over-done.
It is important to realize that wild meat can vary in quality and
toughness, whereas commercial beef is a pretty uniform product.
Venison factors are:
~1- Age and sex of animal. Meat can be as tender and mild as veal in a
young doe. (And you always get steer meat in a store never bull.
Castration does make a difference.)
~2-Clean kill. If a deer is stalked while it is peacefully grazing and
dropped dead in its tracks, it will taste far better than an animal
that has been chased by hounds, then gut shot, then it runs a few
more miles before collapsing. The blood is full of adrenaline and the
acidic by-products of exercise and exertion and the flesh is tainted
by the torn up organs.
~3- Aging and butchering. When I was a kid growing up in Eastern
Ontario, we went deer hunting in the fall, when it was cool and deer
were hung to age and tenderize, then butchered at a local abattoir
that handled beef and pork professionally. We received nicely
wrapped, properly cut and trimmed frozen packages. It was generally
pretty good. Up here caribou is shot all year long and traditionally
butchered immediately [before it spoils in the summer or freezes
solid in the winter] And some hunters are more skilled at butchering
than others... I have been made "gifts" of quarters of caribou that
have been field frozen with the fur on and wrapped in green garbage
bags and stored in somebody's back yard for a month or two! I have
also received superb sausages made by a man who apprenticed as a
sausage-maker in Germany.
If you know where your meat came from, you will know whether it should
tenderized or just cooked.
If your steaks are coming from a commercial game farm, they will be
from a young animal, carefully slaughtered and aged. I would treat
them the same as any prime beef T-bone. Probably charcoal BBQ'd or
gas grilled to just medium rare and sprinkled with a little salt and
pepper AFTER it has been cooked... nothing fancy, no marinades and no
strong BBQ sauces. That way you will be able to truly taste the
venison.
For wild meat you may want to marinade first, if it's tough.
