Back to the Venison FAQLike any other meat animal, the condition of larger antlered game such as elk and caribou (reindeer) depends on the diet, age, sex and general health of the animal in question. If you got your steaks from a hunter who wanted to shoot an old, tough, trophy buck for the sake of pointy branchy things to hang on the wall, you may well have some pretty tough steak there. If the hunter didn't treat the kill well, rode it home on the car hood before gutting it, etc (this is more common with deer than elk or caribou for obvious reasons), you might have truly nasty stuff better interned in a toxic landfill than eaten.
But if you harvested a young to middling aged individual (under 3–4 years) which was in good general condition and treated the kill properly, caribou can be a very tasty meat. It is reminiscent of mild, almost sweetish beef, with only very faintly gamy overtones. There is very little marbling (fat) in the meat, making rapid cooking or moist cooking techniques preferable. You could also bard or lard the meat, draping fatty bacon or pork on it or inserting slivers of pork fat with a larding needle.
Elk is a meat that can range from assertively gamy to pleasantly full-bodied. A lot of the taste of the meat depends on the region the animal was harvested in, and the kind of diet it has been getting. Elk can be substituted more or less equally for deer in most standard venison recipes, unlike antelope, which is subtler and more delicate, and caribou, which is sweeter.
All antlered game meat, even the ranched product, tends to be leaner than that of domesticated animals which have been long bred for fat and marbling. Overcooking can toughen the meat. You can use moist heat, larding and barding (inserting slivers of fat or wrapping in bacon) to help keep the meat tender during cooking. Fast searing over high heat can also work for smaller cuts, such as tenderloin medallions or rib chops.
My picks for caribou recipes are: carpaccio with whisky-juniper cream sauce (smoke or dry-cure and slice instead of serving raw if you are suspicious of the origins and health of the animal), Norwegian style caribou stew served with juniper-honey cabbage and caraway seeds, and caribou roast in a crust of horseradish and cornmeal paste. All of these recipes can be used for any assertively flavored wild game meat, including Avion (ostrich or emu).
Clean a section of tenderloin or leg muscle and remove all silverskin and connective tissue. Rub thoroughly with a mixture of half salt and half sugar, and add cracked pepper and ground juniper berries to taste. Roll tightly in plastic wrap and set under a heavy weight in the refrigerator for 2 days, turning every 12 hours. Rinse well, cover with rendered fat or rub with oil and freeze solid overnight. Slice thinly with a food processor blade while still frozen, and serve raw. If you are not certain of the health of the animal, smoke the meat instead.
Whiskey-juniper sauce: Simmer juniper berries in 1 cup cream; strain, allow to cool, and whip the cream thickly. Set 1/2 cup of whiskey on fire in a metal bowl, and slowly and theatrically pour it into the cream, whisking constantly, with a metal ladle while it is still on fire. Making this sauce is a very showy and attractive process, and it is amazingly tasty on the carpaccio or the smoked meat.
Bon appetit,
Tanith
"At the time I write, the glory of the truffle has now reached its culmination. Who would dare to say that he has been at a dinner where there was not a piece truffee? Who has not felt his mouth water in hearing truffles a la provencale spoken of? In fine, the truffle is the very diamond of gastronomy."
Jean Antheleme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste, 1825More fun food quotes
