Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Elk backstrap recipes

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Thats just molesting good meat!

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Lots of this in Texas. Some even chicken fry the tenderloins. Everything else either gets wrapped with bacon, Jalpeno and cheese or ends up in a tortilla. Can't forgot Chili, I cringe when I hear of someone putting Axis backstrap in Chili, sacrilege.

Life is good.

This is elk tenderloins, tied for smoking. These are real tenderloins and not to be confused with chops from the top of the back. They need to be pulled as soon as the elk is gutted.

Too many people don't get them out soon enough and many more don't know what to do with them when they are finally out. This is some of the best red meat on the planet, and to destroy it as some have suggested is a sacrilege...



Perfection...

I use a little SuzieQ Santa Maria seasoning and olive oil on the grill cooked no more than medium rare. When my wife cooks it one of the recipes she likes is 3 kinds of mushrooms in a reduction sauce over rare back strap elk or venison. A salad, vegetable and little baked garlic potatoes or Israeli Couscous are a good combination. Add a little fresh baked rolls or bread to really top it off.

Season with salt and a bit of pepper. Flash fry in bacon fat, just enough to sear the meat. Dust with fresh chopped sage.

Move to the Egg at 450 degrees with a very hot grill in the low position, add plenty of wood chips - pecan/apple, heavy smoke to 125 degrees (about 4-5 minutes total, maybe 2m per side).

Serve with a nice Barolo that's been open and airing for two hours...

I like to butterfly elk backstrap at least an inch thick. Blot dry with a paper towel, a light coating of seasoned salt, screaming hot grill for 2 minutes on first side, one minute second side, rest under foil for 10 minutes.

Rare and awesome.

Some good white bread or rolls and butter is mandatory with rare red meat of any kind. Sautéed mushrooms don't hurt any either.

I have a hunting friend that wont eat game meat.

I was cooking up 2 Elk tenderloins at a predator callers gathering and offered him some. He turned his nose up.

Lightly sprinkled with garlic, onion, black pepper... Seared over 1200'F mesquite coals. Lightly salted when it came off of the fire.

About 3 minutes later his son came over and said "Man, that steak smells good" I did not tell him that is was elk. I said here, try a piece. He said "WOW, that's the best steak I've had in a long time."

I said here, take your dad a piece. His father was in heaven. Said "Where'd ya find that?" He said "It's Jeff's steak that he's grilling over there". Mike came over and said "You planned that!"

I said "NOPE, couldn't have planned something like that if I'd tried for a week."

Although Mike loved the Elk, I could not get him to eat another piece. His son? He came back and said that he had never tasted game meat before because of his father. Asked If I had more to share.

So, served him up some green beans with bacon, boiled parsley potatoes that were heavily laden with butter and about half of an elk tenderloin sliced into medallions.

He even got his father to eat another piece.

Properly prepared game meat can't be beat.

A few months later asked Mike why he would not eat game. I guess that his father had brought home a poorly processed desert mule deer, and he thought that is what all game meat tasted like.

Why tie it up for smoking, never tried it, but just got a smoker and would love to try some after the next harvest!
Thanks

It looks like you do more than just wrap it in bacon. What's your recipe? For the elk, not the mac and cheese; I should be able to figure out that part...

Shrapnel, can you elaborate on how you smoke them? My father shot a moose in Newfoundland a few years ago and we smoked one of the tenderloins. It was good but somewhat underwhelming, and certainly didn't look like that. Your pictures look like it was cooked at high heat for a short time, not smoked for an extended period.

Sprinkle venison rub on both sides, wrap in bacon, let sit 20-30 min, grill for a couple minutes on both sides until rare. Done.

Kosher salt, and cracked ground black pepper, grill rare to jut a little past, oven roasted potatoes, wedge of Iceberg lettuce with pepper, red onion and tomato, blue cheese dressing, and a Cold Sam Adams!

The meat is cooked on a Smoker Grill, not smoked like a cured piece of meat. The grill is propane fired and easy to use with hardwood chips at about 350 degrees over the propane flame that turns the chip into smoke. Very simple and the finished product is second to none...

My sattimboca recipe... It's a bit of work and needs close timing, so the cheese doesn't melt completely, but it's worth the trouble.

There are as many saltimbocca (Jump in the mouth in Italian) recipes as there cooks who make
it. It has a basic requirement of fresh sage, prosciutto, Swiss or provolone cheese.
My Saltimbocca:
Slice venison or elk backstrap or round steak into medallions about 1/4" thick and big enough to roll
with several ingredients stuffed inside. Pound them a bit flatter if you wish or if the meat's tough.
Put in a bowel and squeeze a fresh lemon over the meat and mix with your hands...set aside
Slice portobello mushroom caps 1/8 to 3/32" thick. You need one per piece of meat. Chop up the
stems and set aside.

Chop fresh sage leaves, enough to flavor a sauce to your taste.
Save a sage leaf for each piece of meat .
Chop garlic to taste
Slice red onions or rough chop shallots to taste
Slice the cheese to size to roll inside the meat with the mushroom slice.
Cut thin prosciutto pieces/slices the same size as the meat. I like a bit extra for my taste.
Saute' the onion, garlic, chopped sage, and mushroom cap slices in olive oil. Put the mushroom
in last, as the onion starts to soften and add sherry over a High heat. Take the slightly softened
mushroom slices out and set a slice on each piece of meat.
On the meat slices with mushroom slices on top now add a sage leaf, prosciutto, cheese slices.
Roll it up and secure with a toothpick.
In the skillet you satuee'd the onions, mushroom slices, and garlic add the rest of the chopped
mushrooms and the rolled meat. Cook at a high heat, until the cheese just begins to melt, turning
frequently to brown outside. Take the meat rolls out and set aside.

Add to the skillet with the onions, sage, and mushroom pieces some sherry or Marsala, beef
stock, and 1/2 & 1/2. Reduce to a moderately thickened sauce. Put the meat rolls in the sauce as
it bubbles. Serve now directly from the skillet. Set the meat on the plate and spoon the sauce over
it as desired.
Play with the recipe to make things to your taste. I like to serve this with angel hair pasta with
pesto or the rosemary roasted potatoes.
Add salt and pepper to taste when cooking the mushroom pieces and onion, and salt and pepper
the meat to your taste. The cheese and prosciutto are salty, so go easy.
I like fresh-cooked spinach with a drop of lemon juice as the vegetable.
Serve with a full-bodied red wine or a spicy one like a Pinot Noir.
A flaming rum cake individual serving with French vanilla ice cream, served with a small snifter
of Grand Marnier is a perfect ending.






Good Eating!
L2S

I couldn't agree more, Kirk! Surgically remove them quick, and keep them extra clean and there isn't anything better.

For those interested.. I bought one of the grill Shrapnel mentioned after seeing some of the thing he cook with it.. It is an out standing grill.. We have had chicken, burgers, steak, and pork chops on it .. We have only used it for these items since we haven't had it long.. A great grill, thanks for mentioning it Shrapnel..

I need to start proof reading again.!!! Yikes!

What grill is it?

Jordan, it is a Cabela's 7 in 1 smoker!! The things we have done are nicely cooked but not dried out.

Shrapnel, has posted several photos of it.. I have been using gas, but it will also use characoal...