Ok, the jury is still out. Being my first try at both of these dishes I'll not condemn them just yet.
The venison fatty is a novel idea. There are several things I didn't like about it. First the ground venison was given to our family by one of our neighbors. I've tried cooking it several different ways and have not been satisfied with any of the final products. When I have venison ground up I get some pork added to it. This stuff is 100% venison. I should have taken that into consideration and wrapped the whole thing in bacon or cut it with some pork. It tasted like jerky......it is ground up very fine, like it was going to be used to make jerky. The consistency is all wrong.
Second, the venison burger was very gamey. I have shot many deer in my life and if treated properly after the kill, they tasted wonderful. Since I wasn't the one who harvested this deer I will assume it wasn't handled the way I would have done it. Oh well, with the right combo of other meat products and paying a little closer attention to the smoker (I was cutting the grass) I think I can do better with my final pound of venison burger.
The filling was excellent! I would only change 2 things about that.....More cheese and bacon on the outside.
Here is what it looked like....
The squirrel was a little more challenging as far as the smoker goes. It tasted great but it took a really long time to get it to fall off the bone. I smoked it for 2 hours @ 240 or so and then foiled it with some apple juice, onions and jalapenos. I took it out after 2 hours in the foil and checked it out. It wasn't tender enough. Back in the smoker for another 2 hours. That did the trick but.........it took another 2 hours....a lot longer than I though it would take. The only thing I didn't care for was how stringy the meat was. It was tender but too stringy for my taste. Once again the texture gets me.
Next time I'll smoke for less time before I foil, use a little higher temp and pay attention instead of tending to distractions.
The final product looked pretty good....
All of the food was edible so it wasn't a totally wasted day. I have 3 squirrels and 1 pound of venison burger left. As long as the final product gets better each time I'll be happy.......I think both of these products have potential.
