I usually buttefly mine but this year decided to cut them in half before freezing.

What is the best way to marinate and grill them without drying them out?

I have know idea what the best way is but marinated in Italian dressing and thrown on the grill cooked to medium rare is never bad.

no marinade. And I used to use marinade for years.

some olive oil, salt, fresh pepper and sear quickly . let rest 10 min serve med rare or rare. you can throw some butter on while resting.

keep it simple

Garlic and butter and onion

I do mine very simply. Salt and pepper to taste. Get a cast iron skillet ripping hot. Add a pat of butter. Sear 3 min or so per side. Let rest 10 minutes and enjoy.

Plus 1 as far as what others have said. Cut it into small pieces so that it cooks fast to no more than medium rare. It doesn’t have the marble fat that beef has. Over cooking it is the best way to ruin it.

Over charcoal, bacon wrapped around it if to dry, medium rare, no marinade ever.

I put mine on the smoker, sometimes with marinade the last few times without. Season a little and put it on at 220 for 2 hours or so. Absolutely amazing.

Marinade in Italian dressing.
Take a small piece, place a jalapeño slice. Fold over and wrap with bacon. Stick a tooth pick to keep it together.

Season with Tony’s., Cavenders.

Grill to medium.

Yummy.

There are countless great ways to cook it. Coming up with the absolute best is impossible. Anyway you would cook a prime piece of beef works for venison back strip. The only thing is to never overcook. I love fajitas and stir fry. For a good marinade, I will sometimes pour olive oil into a gallon freezer bag along with garlic, salt, pepper, and chopped fresh rosemary. Put whole piece of back strip in and marinate a few hours. I usually cut back strips in half or thirds depending on the size of the deer. They are usually around 1.5 lb pieces. Preheat oven to 425. While oven is preheating, put a cast iron skillet on the stove and get it white hot. Throw the back strip in the pan and sear for a couple minutes on each side to get a good crust. Throw the pan in the oven for 10 minutes. Pull it out and put the meat on a cutting board for 5 minutes. Slice thin.

Drizzle with a Port Wine reduction add a side of sweet potato hash and a nice pino noir.

Cooked some the other day. Cut into medallions, added a little salt and pepper. Used a 120 year old Griswold skillet. First sautéed some bell pepper and onion in olive oil for flavor. Then smeared the medallions with butter and seared them on both sides. Removed them and let sit before serving. Soft as butter, very juicy.

Grill no less than 550 degrees.

Deer back-straps chunked into no more than 4 pieces.

Bathe meat chunks @ room temp in either olive oil or melted butter. Salt, pepper, or whatever rub you like in beef steak.

With the grill @ 550+, flop the meat on the grill, close the cover. 90-120sec depending on the flare-up. Embrace the flare up. Flip, 60-90 sec.

Insert temp probe. Move meat to indirect heat. Either oven, turn off some burners of the grill, or move the meat/charcoal apart. Leave the top Of the grill/oven closed. You don’t need to look at it or “poke it” to see if it’s done. The temp probe tell you more than your eyes or finger can.

Pull the meat off the heat @ 120 internal temp and tent under tin-foil for ~10min.

Salt, pepper and dried in the oven

This is the way.

here is what i do with almost any cut of deer meat that is not made into burger. backstraps are great for this but roast meat works good too.

1 cup pineapple juice
1/2 cup teryaki
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ginger powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (if you want a little heat)

heat in a pan to mix and let it cool. then cut meat into 2 inch square chunks and marinate overnight in a freezer bag with 1/2 the marinade.

next day, take out of marinade and bring used marinade to a boil. put meat on skewers and cook on campfire or grill while basting with used, boiled marinade.

use unused marinade for a dipping sauce.

What the hell is all this medium, medium-rare crap? If you go past rare, you ruined it!!!

We do a real quick sear also, just salt/pepper.


As with beef steaks, let it sit out for a couple of hours and assume room temp before you cook.

I agree and I will go one better. I know I am boring, but I don't care for any marinade seasoning on ANYTHING. Salt something, you taste salt. Pepper something and you taste pepper. I want to taste the FOOD I am eating.

Often overlooked!

I find that olive oil works very well on deer (and chicken) to keep it from being dry. I always grill. a bit of garlic salt and lemon pepper. then rest in foil for ten minutes (as mentioned above).

One thing that helps me is to not butterfly the strap before freezing. Reduces surface area exposed to air/ freezer burn.

Cast iron skillet.... Rocket hot, in bacon grease.
Till the outside is black. Rest for 10 minutes, v slice thin.

Saw a pic of Sams cooking, wanted to eat the pic!

When butchering, I cut my back straps in thirds & vacuum pack.

I always cook them whole & slice, not as steaks.

Unless, I'm bacon wrapping !







Same for tenders;

So I just cooked Maryland sika deer backstraps last night and the wife said to go get another sika deer. Best wild game I have had.

I cut them into 1.5” steaks and wrap in bacon tied up with kitchen string. Olive oil and some seasoning. Famous Daves steak and burger is what I use. Sear both sides good in a carbon steel pan (cast iron also works well) then place the pan in a oven already heated up to 350. Cook till medium.

Take out and let the steaks rest. Deglaze the pan with red wine, add mustard and butter and reduce a little. Spoon the sauce over the steaks and enjoy.

Son uses a sous vide cooker and the turns out fantastic deer roasts.

Dip in egg batter,roll in flour and fry in olive oil...Season to taste..

Enjoy....

It's hard to beat chicken fried backstrap. I freeze mine in about 1 foot sections, thaw it, butterfly it, season with salt/pepper, dip in batter and fry in hot peanut oil. My grandkids love it and people can't believe it's venison..

Rooster7: Disregard that grill nonsense!
Get'cho self a cast iron frying pan!
Heat it up, cut that backstrap 5/8" thick while the pan is heating. Add to the cast iron frying pan equal amounts of virgin olive oil and butter Stir this while the butter is melting - do NOT overheat.
Roll backstrap steaks in quality flour add salt and pepper then cook for a few minutes per side - till just some pink inside is evident.
NO drying out here - and the taste will be sublime.
Enjoy.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Love some fried deer steak chunks dipped in some flour but taking a fresh blackstrap rubbing it down with olive oil and then seasoning to taste followed by wrapping with lots of bacon and using lots of toothpicks. Grill set at 475 deg 10 min per side and you’ve got Filet mignon.

I used to either butterfly or cut into medallions, but anymore usually cook as small roasts and slice afterwards as New 2 99s posted. Salt, pepper and garlic are all that's needed but I do use other rubs at times. I like a little smoke flavor so start with the pellet grill on low temp for 20-30 minutes and do a finish sear on either a hot grill or in a cast iron pan with butter. I've been getting better results reverse searing in the cast iron pan than on the grill - doesn't seem to dry out as much.

As others have said, don’t overcook it...it’s low fat, pretty dry meat to begin with. One thing I’ve learned is, like a prime rib roast, don’t do that sear-first business. You get it cooking like that and end up pushing the grey, over-cooked zone half way through, leaving a little one inch cross section rare. Despite what you’ve always been told, it doesn’t seal in the juices. Instead, slow roast to an internal temp of 95-100 degrees, then sear the outside in a pan or the hot side of the grill. You’ll end up rare all the way through with just a little bit of grey under the surface.

Another way to avoid overcooking it is to not cook it at all. Backstrap makes great carpaccio. Slice it 1/4” thick then roll it between two sheets of wax paper with a rolling pin until paper thin. Marinate in olive oil, vinegar and capers a couple of hours at room temperature. Roll it up and slice into pinwheels. A plate of that will disappear when everybody’s hanging around having drinks.

About 1/2 thick
Cast iron skillet
Flour,salt and pepper
Crisco or bacon grease
Milk or butter milk

Salt and pepper added to flour to your taste

Pieces dipped in either milk or buttermilk to help the
Flour to stick to the meat

Put meat in flour and cover it with the flour well

Put oil or bacon grease into the skillet

Get it hot enough that the meat and flour do not soak up the oil or grease.
I just wait until I cans get a pinch of flour between my fingers and when I drop in in the oil it immediately starts cooking,if it just sits there doing nothing then your grease is not hot enough.

Cool it hot and fast and keep in mind that every time you add a piece that it drops the temperature of the grease.

Do NOT walk off from skillet.
You need to be standing there because some pieces will need to be taken out before others .

As you take out place on plate with several towels on it to soak up excess remaining grease.

I like it best when it is slightly crispy on the outside and a tad less than medium rare on the inside.

I find that the best heat the grease is so hot that it is almost to the point of burning.

Just pan fry it in olive oil with salt amd pepper ,, it ain that gotdamn complicated

Sous vide for a couple of hours at 125f. Then sear using your favorite method.

perfecto

Carpaccio good option too

tag

It’s obvious that we have some fine cooks here!

Cut the backstrap thin 3/16" using a jerky board. Put some flour and seasoning in a bag add the backstrap shake and fry fast and hot in bacon grease.
Shake n Bake seasoning and baking backstrap in the oven for 10 minutes is good.

Been doing them this way for 40+ years.
Preheat pan with a drizzle of olive oil.
Slice loin about 3/8 to 1/2" thick and dust with pancake flour or Bisquick.
When a drop of water sizzles and pops in the oil put the steaks in and season, I use Morton's Nature's Seasons (lightly).
When blood starts to show on top, turn them over (doesn't take long) and season again.
About 30 seconds before you take them out, drizzle just a few drops of Worcestershire on them and be sure to get a few drops on the hot pan around the steaks.
When the Worcestershire sizzles away remove and enjoy.
The smell is addicting.

Didn't read everything maybe this has been mentioned. Got this from a trained chef that was the food and beverage manager at a big fancy hotel. Its simple as hell. Grilling is great but if you want to do it in the house this is the way to go IMO.

Take the meat out of the fridge and rub it up good with spices. Can be as simple as salt and pepper or whatever rub you like but keep it simple and not over powering. Let it sit for an hour until its up to room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 400. Put a shot of oil in a cast iron fry pan or other fry pan that can go in the oven on medium high heat. When the oil is good and hot put the meat in the pan. Sear it quickly on all 4 sides and the ends too using tongs. Remove from the heat let cool slightly and add abot 3/4 inch of water. Add some quartered potatoes, chopped carrots and onions if you like but don't cover the meat. Stick it in the over for about 1/2 an hour or a little more depending on quickness. You're shooting for medium rare do not over cook. Serve with a little horseradish.

And another way is to deep fry it ,either in a deep fryer or a regular deep pot 6 inches or deep is plenty filled with oil.
Flour with salt and pepper to your taste and dip in milk or buttermilk then get plenty of flour on the meat.

Get oil real hot and then drop five or 5 or six pieces in it (if over a couple of inches long cut in half)and wait till they start floating a little then take them out and place on a plate that has paper towels on it to soak up the grease.

Don't try and put too many pieces in there or you will drop the temp of the oil too much and the flour will be soggy instead of slightly crisp.

Sous vide. Tried it for the first time this year. Salt and pepper in the bag, then heat to 125 degrees for a couple of hours. Hot sear in a cast iron skillet afterward. Rare center and very tender. Will do it again.

Reverse sear.

Yes. I'll add some while garlic in pan while searing...

Amen.

Japanese style.

Japanese MD, hunter and fisherman gets his wife to prepare backstrap, Japanese style.

This is the most important post in this thread. I cut mine in three sections and butterfly before cooking.

I’ve been giving my dogs several ‘meat sicle’ 1/3rds of backstrap. Found some from 2011, 2012 other day.

I seen a very ugly, rude side of some otherwise very docile fat labrador retrievers. lol

I bbq mine on pit with mesquite wood. I cook it on a piece of foil so it doesn’t dry out.

Thanks for all the replies and good ideas, guys!

Yeppers

throw out the backstrap and spread that on a piece of toast, or maybe pancakes

I cube up backstrap and soak in apple cider, then wrap in bacon and make grilled poppers, with sweet onion, banana pepper,

Kind of like kbobs

Goes great with Cici’s “pizza.”