My cousin, whom I've mentioned here prior, stopped over for the 1st of 2 venison drop offs.(More on that at a later date) Among all the "roasts" was a little vacuum sealed frozen pearl, on which "elk" was scribbled in black marker. I was asked if I wanted it and/or if I could do anything with it. He didn't ask again. Being only one genome off from venison, I knew I could treat it the same. So, with that, I decided to "speck" it. The speck subject has been covered ad nauseum here, so, I'll spare you the banality. This was prepared exactly as pig speck. This was cured, cased, smoked and dried the exact same time as 3 other venison bresaole I just made. However, this took about 1.5 weeks longer to dry out. Tough to say why, the leanness is near the same, which is to say quite lean. Just pulled it down today and cut into it. Tastes no different than venison, honestly. Slightly gamey, nicely smoked. All around very tasty. Side by side, you wouldn't even know it was elk vs. venison. But, at least I've satisfied my desire to work with elk.........successfully.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Speck d'alce(elk speck)
My cousin, whom I've mentioned here prior, stopped over for the 1st of 2 venison drop offs.(More on that at a later date) Among all the "roasts" was a little vacuum sealed frozen pearl, on which "elk" was scribbled in black marker. I was asked if I wanted it and/or if I could do anything with it. He didn't ask again. Being only one genome off from venison, I knew I could treat it the same. So, with that, I decided to "speck" it. The speck subject has been covered ad nauseum here, so, I'll spare you the banality. This was prepared exactly as pig speck. This was cured, cased, smoked and dried the exact same time as 3 other venison bresaole I just made. However, this took about 1.5 weeks longer to dry out. Tough to say why, the leanness is near the same, which is to say quite lean. Just pulled it down today and cut into it. Tastes no different than venison, honestly. Slightly gamey, nicely smoked. All around very tasty. Side by side, you wouldn't even know it was elk vs. venison. But, at least I've satisfied my desire to work with elk.........successfully.
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the color is nice, and i don't see any signs of case hardening, which is always tricky when smoking in a dry environment..
ReplyDeleteSmoked it back in November, got lucky with a couple nice days
ReplyDeleteNice stuff. I have a freezer full of elk, with some of this with its name on it.
ReplyDeleteKevin, you're a lucky man. All I could scrounge up was this one, small piece. I will assure your satisfaction with this.
ReplyDelete