Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire How do you cook your tenderloins?

Jeffrey: I harvested what I considered to be a very "mature" Whitetail Buck this year just a day or so before the "rut" started here in SW Montana.
This 11 point (6x5) Whitetail Buck I am sure was at least 5 1/2 years old.
I am also sure he had spent most all his life on the ranch where I got him feasting on Alfalfa!
Anyway even this very mature Buck is providing outstanding table fare for the VarmintFamily and is amazingly tender and delectable the way I cook it!
I prepare the "tenderloins" (as well as the filet mignon cuts) in what I call "Sheepherder Style".
I learned it from my maternal grandfather who in his retirement years would head over to eastern Oregon in the spring and herd sheep for a friend who was also a cattle rancher.
He always brought home a bunch of venison steaks at the end of his season of sheepherding (times were different back then - and I was to young to even comprehend criticizing grandpas actions!).
Grandpa would simply age the meat carefully (he was a bit of a poacher and would shoot 2 or 3 Deer a summer/fall season) and keep the meat in a snow/ice filled potato type cellar when he was up in the hills.
Anyway he would get the steaks (including the tenderloins) and roll them in flour, salt and pepper and then cook them in a cast iron frying pan using butter as a medium.
Then salt and pepper again to taste.
It makes my mouth water just thinking about this!
Anyway I modified his simple Sheepherder Style of cooking venison steaks by using butter and olive oil to cook the steaks in - in a ratio of one to one - and nowadays I use a non-stick fry pan instead of a cast iron pan to cook my venison steaks, tenderloins and filet mignons in!
And, I am very careful not to "over-cook" this delicate meat.
Try this simple method I am sure you will be impressed.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Pan fried in butter served with sautéed chanterelles

you guys cook 'em?

Yum

When kids are hungry and food needs to be put on the table... it’s not poaching.

Fester: Back in the 1950's when my Grandfather was doing this (the sheepherding and the taking of some Deer in the summer/fall) my grandparents were indeed bordering right on poor!
I will relay this that back then eastern Oregon where my Grandpa herded sheep the Mule Deer were incredibly numerous. Coyote pelts were valuable and Cougars and other predators were at a low ebb.
In my visits with grandpa I remember seeing huge herds of Mule Deer.
Ranchers actually were rumored to shoot them off their haystacks and just leave them lay in heaps.
My Grandpa (and Grandma) would not have starved without those supplements of Mule Deer but they sure appreciated and looked forward to that wonderful meat.
Were Grandpa to do this type of thing today I would strongly criticize and try to change his behavior.
You are right though if I were to sit on a jury for a man providing meat to his chidren's by poaching "A" Deer I would not find him guilty.
I am thawing some venison filet mignon right now for dinner tonight!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I pound them flat then marinate them in a brandy pepper marinade for 1- 2 hours. I then cook them in a pan with olive oil. Serve with Roquefort butter on the side. Here's a recipe.

Venison with Roquefort butter

Broiled, rare. A lil salt after resting.
Some folks could wrap bacon around dog crap and eat it I guess.

Frying in bacon grease is good too either coated in flour first or not. Learned that from an old Arky coon hunter who is now 83 yrs old. It's yummy

For the win! Or some morels. I Would go a step further with this and make a cognac cream sauce in the pan, with said mushrooms. Maybe some sliced shallots. Twist on steak Au Poivre.

Grilled. Simple. It's hard to get it served at the table cause everyone is eating it off the cutting board.

I like to shoot the young ones. The meat is a pale pink. cuts with a fork.

^^This.
My son cuts them into chunks, wraps in bacon with a piece of jalapeno and grills them...until they turn into rubber. Just can't get the kid to understand the concept of neat being 'done' without being incinerated.

Lots of different ways, but we like the cast iron panini press the best !!

Salt, pepper and garlic.


Grill.


Consume immediately. NO REST.



In fact, if you get to cook them....you also get to carve off bits while you cook them.


If they wanted that privilege they should have volunteered to cook them.

Sous vide to rare, finish in a white hot case iron for a little crust.

Unbeatable.

Pretty much my method also. Garlic salt, pepper, fry in butter to pink inside. We may then use the caribou tenderloins in stir-fry.

If they last that long....and butter works well for cast iron seasoning. win, win.

Iron skillet....Bacon fat, hot iron and fast. Sear-sear and 1 minute each side.done 😎

Not picky and don't have favorite choice cuts, or from what critter come supper time, that said, tenderloin favorite for me is to have Wife whack the hell out of em with tenderizing hammer and cook em in a skillet, then throw about a half dozen eggs beside for breakfast, those two together with black coffee cant be beat!

Cut into medallions about 1/2" thick, roll in flour with a bit of Lowreys seasoning salt and a bit of pepper, fry in hot butter.