Rummaging around in the chest freezer I found two deer shoulders that my wife's friend gave to us to make Osso Bucco. Keep in mind, this is mostly just the scapula with about two inches of the leg bone in place from where they sawed off and discarded each limb. Bless her heart, but my wife's friend isn't the brightest bulb.
Historically, I have alway fallen into the mindset that shoulders were meant to be deboned and ground. That is until a few months when I saw one of Steven Rinella's videos on slow cooking a deer shoulder in a crock pot. Remembering that video, we decided to give it a shot.
We seasoned the shoulder with salt, pepper and some other simple spices then browned it on all sides in a skillet. From there, we added it to the crockpot with enough simmering stock to almost cover the shoulder.
Once fall apart tender, we served with rice and brussel sprouts. I had NO idea any cut of whitetail could be so tender and succulent! It completely blew my mind. We have done so many hind roasts in the crockpot over the years that we have grown bored with them. They regularly came out tender but would often dry out. That was absolutely not the case with this shoulder. This experience completely changed how I look at venison shoulders now.
One of our favorites. I season them up and brown them over coals for an hour, then add a little lard or pork fat then wrap the you know what out of them with foil. Low and slow in the back of the pit flipping every 2 hours. After about 3 flips I forget about it and go to bed. Get up in the morning and open up the foil and the bones are just sitting loosely in a pile of meat. Corn tortillas, guacamole, pico and salsa...
Blade roast is one of my favorites just behind backstrap. I don’t do ousso Bucco with deer but elk shanks are plenty meaty for it. I also like to cook the whole neck in a similar fashion bones and all.
I don’t grind front shoulders anymore unless they’re too shot up.
i put them in a deep cookie sheet with a bit of seasoning on it cover tin foil and put in the over on 180/ 200 d temp when i go to bed in the morning turn it off and leave it in the oven all day .make rice when you get home pull the bone out spoon meat over rice and eat. add any veggs you like
I will post a pic once I learn how but the deer shank came out great. Cooked about 3.5 hours and was falling off the bone. I will never throw them in the grind or scrap bucket again.