Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Elk backstrap recipes

I am in receipt of several packages of elk backstrap

would welcome some of you elk-experienced experts to share your fav recipes.

The meat is very thinly sliced. TIA!

Thinly sliced?! Blasphemy!

Elk backstrap is so good, you don't generally have to do much prep with it to turn out a delicious piece of meat. All you need is a 1-1.5" thick piece, sprinkle some dry rub on it and let it sit 20 minutes, and then toss it on the grill. Don't cook beyond rare to medium-rare at the most.

Love a big thick grilled fillet extra rare. Thin sliced I might try making Fajitas or a Wiener Schnitzel. Either way don't over cook or you will regret it. If it is too thin to grill there is always chicken frying it.

+1Tough to mess it up if you grill it.

Bingo!

Sometimes, we also marinate for an hour or so in lite Soy sauce, then grill to rare-medium rare, and serve with a dash of Worcestershire once on the table. It's really hard to screw up backstrap, unless you overcook it.

There is always confusion as to what "blackstrap" really is. Is it the tenderloin or the chops from the top of back. You would never slice up a tenderloin...

Elk tenderloins done right...

One of my kids fav's- bacon-wrapped elk Mac'n'Cheese

Light salt and pepper, ground sage, greek seasoning, spritz with olive oil .Cook on a grill on low.I like mind with just a tinge of pink

My friend from South Texas. You are , in my opinion, in possession of some of the finest wild game know to man. About the only way you can screw this up is over cooking. Keep it simple and serve with a bottle of dry red if that's your style.
Enjoy!

John

Fire up the grill, season the steak about any way you like but go easy on the salt. Salt will make meat toughen up. Show the fire to the steak. DON'T put the steak on the fire.
It's done!
Enjoy!

Gentlemen: thanks much for your input.

My favorite way for whitetail backstrap has always been chicken fried, with lots of cream gravy.

In this case, sounds like I need to break out the grill and proceed gently!

Should make for a happy Fathers Day!

Don't just grill it, smoker grill it, you won't be sorry...

shrap: sounds like a plan...and you may be right about it not being backstrap.

Just cause it's got a sticker on the package that says elk backstrap...who knows what lurks inside!

Dang, that looks good! Was raised on the stuff, but dipped in flour and fried hot and fast. 'Cept for THIN T-bones broiled with garlic salt, that was the only way I recall ever seeing it until doing my own thing... Mouth watering - drooling as I type...

"Blackstrap", I believe, is molasses.😛

No elk hereabouts, at least not anymore, but lots of people use the word tenderloin to describe what's really the loin of deer. It's sacrilege, but a fair number don't even know about the real tenderloin, and many that do call it the "fish" for some reason. Those misguided people that take their deer to commercial processors stand a good chance of losing that best part to pilferage or burger.

That dinner you pictured in your second post appears to be pretty much perfect, except there's not quite enough elk on the plate!

Thats just molesting good meat!

Shrap has the right idea..


I'll often inject it with Teriyaki, cook it on the grill, then slice it into serving portions like Shrap. Medium rare, of course! Works on deer or elk, and sprinkling the outside with Montreal steak Seasoning doesn't hurt either!

Grind together 1 and 1/3 TBSP dried juniper berries, 2 tsp black peppercorns, 1 tsp Herbes de Provence, 2 tsp kosher salt. Rub on the elk steak. Let the steak sit on the counter for a least half an hour before you cook it so it comes to room temp. I use a charcoal grill, so I do this while the charcoal is heating up.

Cook to rare or medium rare, but no more. Somewhere around 125 to 135 on a meat thermometer. Bring the meat in and let it sit on the counter for 5-10 more minutes if you can stand it.

Eat with blackberries as a side dish. You may want to stir the blackberries with a little sugar first if they aren't sweet enough.

This is my favorite way to cook elk. It's taken mostly from "Commander's Wild Side", a cookbook featuring game recipes from Commander's Palace in New Orleans.

A good marinade is 1 cup olive oil, 1/3 cup each of lemon juice and soy sauce, and about a teaspoon each of black pepper, garlic powder, and celery seeds (whole not ground).

Salt Pepper Knife Fork

Knife and fork optional.