In the modern age, now that hunting isn’t a necessity for most, people have gotten used to the taste of farm animal meat. Game meat often tastes stringy and full of iron due to its minimal fat content and leanness. If you want to cook what you catch without having to endure the earthy flavor, here’s how to remove the gamey flavor from game meat.
Start in the Field
The main way to prevent gaminess is to clean your catch quickly and properly. The blood that remains in the muscles is part of what gives the meat that overpowering iron flavor. In addition, the longer the meat stays hot, the more the enzymes break it down and add to the undesirable taste.
So gutting, hanging, and bleeding your catch is the best way to mitigate as much of that gamey taste as possible so that you don’t have to over-marinate the meat.
Remove the Silver Skin
While the fatty silver skin may add flavor to other types of meat, this is the opposite for wild game. A large portion of that unwanted flavor comes from cooking it in the silver skin. So while you’re gutting and hanging your catch, it’s worth your time to take a small knife and take off that extra membrane.
Soak and Marinate
While there is a lot of debate as to what liquid you should soak your catch in, you’ll want to avoid acidic liquids like lemon or vinegar. While this may get rid of the gamey taste quickly, it will make your meat tougher and stringier than it already is. Salt water and dairy help remove the blood from the tissue that didn’t come out while letting it hang.
Don’t Overcook It
Most seasoned cooks know that steaks on their own don’t need a lot of time to cook, but due to the lack of fat content, wild game cooks even faster. You need only a few minutes on a skillet, pan, or grill, and you don’t want to cook it all the way to well done. While the blood adds to the gamey flavor, overcooking it will make it harder to chew and taste too earthy, so if you’ve followed all the other steps, you won’t have to worry about a bit of blood in the meat.
Now that you know how to remove the gamey flavor from game meat, you can catch and cook like a pro so that you can show off after your next hunt.
