I'm going to break the ice here with what isn't so much a difficult or sophisticated recipe, but more a salivating reminiscence of one of the best meals I have ever had.
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<br>You should know that eating game is no big novelty to me or my family. Before all you rural guys who eat venison three times a week jump all over my case for that statement, just be aware that I live in Los Angeles, and regularly get comments about how eating (fill in the blank) is just plain gross. I do doves, quail, pheasants, grouse, rabbits, deer, elk, trout, sand bass, calico bass, white sea bass, halibut, sheephead, etc., with impunity, all gotten by me or mine. Call me a fish out of water around here.
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<br>Anyway, a couple of years back, in Montana, a downed whitetail took a buddy and me quite a few hours to get back to the truck. It was quite a drag in two feet of snow over sagebrush and hills. We had saved the heart and the liver, and more than once while we stopped for a breather I was tempted to leave that bag behind with the excuse that we could come back for it, but with the knowledge that we probably never would if we left it. The latter made me hang on to it.
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<br>Longer story shorter, when we finally got back to my buddy's house that night, the night before Thanksgiving it was, we hung that deer in the barn, went right inside, and he butterflied the heart, added a few simple spices, and broiled that sucker. We opened up a bottle of red wine, and when the heart was ready, broke a loaf of french bread, and proceeded to eat what has got to be one of he very best meals I have ever had. Mind you, I have eaten in some of the fanciest joints in LA, and the only thing that I can remember coming remotely close was some fried barracuda a mate on a fishing boat I was on made just to prove barracuda was worth keeping.
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<br>I don't know if it was the appetite we worked up dragging that deer out, the way the red wine went perfectly with the venison, or the good french bread. Probably all of the above. Anyway, I will never, ever, let anyone discard a heart or liver as long as I live, unless it's badly shot up. And I hope to never have to freeze them. I'm eating them fresh, that night, with a bottle of red and a loaf of french.
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<br>Rick
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<br>P.S.: Oh, and barracudas get filleted every time.

Rick et al ( I saw that et al on a legal paper once, always liked it and think it would be good on a food thread) here is a neat liver recipe now don't go substituting on me.
<br>In a heavy iron skillet or dutch oven:
<br>Put in a half pound of butter
<br>Chop up four big RED onions.
<br>Saute onions add salt and pepper add a drained can of mushrooms and a half cup of red wine. Make a bed of the onions and mushrooms.
<br>Lay liver slices on top of onions. Do not allow liver to touch the bottom of the pan. Reduce heat and cover simmering until liver is white. Turn occasionally.
<br>BCR

In the cookbook I'm putting together, this one of the champs. It makes beef incomparable, venison (which is otherwise too strong for my taste) delicious, and -- I suspect -- cow chips edible. I call it, in the book --
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<br>Stew Too Good for Kings
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<br>1� lb round steak from any red-meat critter
<br>6 oz red wine (I use a lot more!)
<br>2 Tbs olive oil (I also plan to try it with peanut oil)
<br>� lb lean salt pork
<br>1 lg carrot
<br>1 celery rib
<br>1 lg onion
<br>� cup canned button mushrooms
<br>12 pitted green olives
<br>2 cups tomatoes
<br>1 bay leaf
<br>� clove garlic
<br>2-3 sprigs parsley
<br>1/8 tsp black pepper
<br>1� tsp salt
<br>� tsp thyme
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<br>Cut the steak into about 1�-inch cubes. Marinate it in the wine and olive oil, covered, in the refrigerator, for 24 hours. I use a large bowl and hold the meat baptized in the marinade by pushing a foil pie plate down on it.
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<br>The next day, grate the onion, the carrot, and the celery very fine. Halve the olives. Mince the garlic.
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<br>Cut the salt pork into �-inch cubes and saut� it in olive oil.
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<br>Drain the steak (save the marinade) and brown it well in the same oil.
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<br>Hold the mushrooms back for now -- in the pressure cooker, stir everything else (including the saut� oil, but not the parsley and bay leaf) into the marinade. Mix well. Lay the parsley and bay leaf on top.
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<br>Seal the pressure cooker and heat it up to cooking pressure. Cook the stew for 20 minutes. Remove the cooker from the heat and run cold tap water over it to reduce the pressure immediately. Open the cooker and remove the parsley and the bay leaf.
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<br>Drain the mushroom pieces and add them to the stew.
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<br>Seal the cooker and bring it to cooking pressure again, then remove it from the heat immediately and run cold water over it to reduce the pressure.
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<br>Serve over rice (my preference), pasta, noodles, or small boiled potatoes.
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<br>There's never been any left-overs. You'll be glad ol' Ken ain't there to eat a lot of it, but set a place for me anyway!

Ric the heart is the best of the best in a venison, simply fried in lots of onion and garlic and eat asap. Next the liver, soaked in cold water over nite and fixed for lunch the next day, same as heart but drippings and glaze in pan make gravey for boiled spuds. Throw in a good bunch of Chantrel mushrooms if you have them and all kings in world will beat a path to your door.
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<br>Bullwnkl.

I vote for the liver as the best part of the venison. It's my favorite and I get to eat all of it myself because my family thinks it taste like beef liver and I won't tell them different.

At my house we smother the deer liver in onions, garlic, pepper and assorted other delicacies, fry it up, throw away the liver and eat what's left.

Best liver you are going to get is hog liver. Got to be carefull with it though 'cause hogs got gall bladders. Pig liver is even milder than deer liver. I would rate them hog, deer, antelope, beef.
<br>BCR

I confess I've never eaten any deer heart. Now, i'm sorry about that. I have never had liver as good as venison liver.
<br> But, the secret to preparing venison, or ducks for that matter, is to soak them in a strong salt water solution. Leave them, or it, for at least two hours. Then change the water. Or marinate what ever your doing. Apparenetly this leeches the body fuilds, and blood, out of the meat. Turns out less strong, and more tender, but definately less strong.
<br> Then my only rule is don't let it, or them, dry out when you cook. E

My mother gets fresh pig liver from a local slaughter house. Guy just gives it to her when someone does not want it. After she has done her magic, you can take one bite, sit the plate on your head and your tounge will beat your brains out trying to get to it! TM

We drag our deer out whole (gutted, but heart and liver and lungs still in there) on Kodiak and finish removing the giblets on the boat. The deer get a line tied around them and go swimming for the duration of the hunt. It does a beautiful job of cooling the meat and flushing the blood and reducing the blood-shot areas.
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<br>The hearts and livers are eaten, fried, on the water, and if they make it home without being eaten they get tossed into the burger bucket as an extender that does not even get noticed, but keeps from wasting a liver by freezing it.
<br>art

Erimicus,
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<br>As a substitute for the salt water try this:
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<br>Enough milk to submerse the meat
<br>1 or 2 raw eggs (important)
<br>Spices to taste:
<br>garlic
<br>mustard powder
<br>paprika
<br>onion powder
<br>salt
<br>pepper
<br>Combine as a marinade and let soak overnight. Drain well and cook however you like. This really works to quite down the "strong" taste in game meat. It really does work!
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<br>Bill