Sausages and Ground Meat Dishes
Photo by Holly A. Heyser
This is my catch-all category for sausages as well as dishes like meatballs, burgers or chili. Basic thing you need to know is you will almost always need to add fat to ground wild game. Some people add beef fat, some pork (that would be me), and a few add lamb fat. I prefer pork fat.
Every once in a while, you will get a deer or moose or elk with enough natural fat to make ground meat without added fat — test the fat by frying some up in a pan, and if it smells and tastes good (dip some bread into the hot fat to see), go for it. If you don’t like the flavor, trim the fat off and use domestic.
If you are not a hunter, ground lamb or bison would be closest in flavor to ground venison.
- Venison Burgers, with lots of herbs in the patties
- Venison Burgers with Mushrooms, dried mushrooms are the secret!
- Vension lasagne, based off my mother’s recipe
- Greek Venison Meatballs
- Swedish Venison Meatballs, with lingonberry or cranberry sauce
- The best Venison chili you will ever eat. I guarantee it.
- Sicilian Venison Meat Pies, like a Cornish pasty, with Italian flavors
SAUSAGES
Photo by Holly A. Heyser
These sausages can be made into links or into patties. I’ve tried to include a selection of different flavors from different countries. In every case you can use any form of venison — deer, elk, moose, antelope, caribou, etc — or you can use lamb or pork, too.
- Fresh Venison Sausages, with Porcini Mushrooms and Sage
- Spanish Longaniza sausage, made with goat or antelope
- Greek loukaniko sausage
- Lamb, Venison or Antelope Sausage, Greek Style
- Venison Sausages, flavored with Bay Leaves and Garlic
- Catalina Island Venison Sausage, with sage, gin and juniper
- Summertime Vension Sausages with Basil, Lemon and Garlic
- Dry-Cured Venison Landjaeger
