Tag: Venison

Like many hunters, I had in the past been guilty of discarding deer necks. However, thanks to the influence of Steven Rinella—his cookbooks and the excellent MeatEater television show—that all changed a couple of years ago and I will never again allow a neck to go to waste. Nor will I go to the effort of boning the neck meat for mince or sausages. I am now totally converted to the ease and delicious results of slowly braising whole venison necks. The meat once pulled from the bone can be used in countless dishes.

I find the best results are achieved by braising very slowly in the oven using a large French enamelled cast iron casserole dish. But it is a lengthy process that can take over six hours depending on the size of the neck, and it needs regular inspection to ensure the meat remains covered in sufficient stock.

For this recipe I have taken the much faster route and used an electric pressure cooker. If you do have a large casserole dish and not much on for the day I suggest trying this same recipe in the oven.

Print Recipe

BBQ Braised Venison Neck

Slowly braised venison neck making the perfect base for a variety of meals

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time1 hour hr 30 minutes mins

Total Time1 hour hr 45 minutes mins

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Contemporary Australian

Keyword: bbq, braised neck, braised venison, venison, venison neck

Servings: 4 or more people

Equipment

• Pressure or large heavy casserole dish

Ingredients

• 1 fallow deer neck (trimmed of excess fat and tendon removed) half or even quarter neck for larger deer
• 1 tbsp canola oil or any oil with a high smoke point

For the rub

• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp smoked paprika
• ½ tbsp nutmeg
• ½ tbsp onion powder

For the stock

• 3 cups game stock beef stock if you don't have your own game stock on hand
• 4 tbsp bbq sauce
• 2 tbsp golden syrup
• 1 tbsp HP sauce
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp garlic paste
• 2 tbsp tomato paste withhold until thickening the sauce

Instructions

• Firstly, combine of all of the rub ingredients in a small bowl and mix well.  Set half of the rub aside and using the other half, cover all sides of the venison neck well. 
  
• While preheating a heavy frying pan, combine all of the stock ingredients (except the tomato paste) along with the remaining half of the rub. 
  
• Once the frying pan is hot, add the oil and brown all sides of the neck.

  You could skip this step entirely, but the depth of flavour in the finished product will be lacking.
  
• Place the browned neck into your pressure cooker and pour over the stock. Set your pressure running, for my particular model I’ve found 90 minutes at medium pressure works perfectly.
• Once the pressure cooker is finished, carefully release the pressure, and check on the neck. The meat should easily slide off the bone. That easily that you will need to take extra care removing the neck from the pot. Set the neck aside to cool a little while you reduce the stock.
• I like to strain the stock to remove any chunks of meat or tendon. Once strained, add the 2 tablespoons of tomato paste and place the stock in a saucepan over medium/ medium-high heat to reduce.  Reduce the stock until it has a sauce like consistency. 
• While the stock is reducing pull the meat from the bone using a pair of forks and some tongs. Combine the pulled meat and the reduced stock and use in any dish you can imagine, if you can resist eating it all straight away. 
  
• The pulled venison neck meat makes the perfect base for any number of meals, some of favourites include burgers, enchiladas, tacos, boa buns, and bibimpab (Korean mixed rice)

Notes

Without a pressure cooker the same, or even better, results can be achieved in a large heavy casserole dish placed in the oven for 4-6 hours at 150C.

These are some of my favourite ways to use venison neck meat, the spring rolls and boa buns are real crowd pleasers and a great way to introduce wary friends and relatives to game meat.