Southern Venison Hash

The first time I ate Southern Venison Hash was at a Missions Conference in South Carolina. It was cooked in a way there was disbelief among a few that it was deer. It was so good I asked the pastor for the recipe; it’s discouraging when you hear the words “I don’t really have a recipe, it’s a little of this and a little of that”. I don’t know why I was saddened at the response because I tend to cook that way most of the time. If you are not a fan of venison or don’t have any on hand, you can substitute it with beef. A roast or stew meat would be perfect!

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The most time-consuming part of preparing this recipe is cooking the meat. You want it cooked until it's tender without adding any tenderizer. Pressure cooking the meat would be ideal, but if you don’t have a pressure cooker, there are two other options. Cooking in the crock pot which will take several hours, or boiling the meat in a large pot for at least 2 hours. Until I got my Instant Pot , I preferred the boiling method because I'm usually in the kitchen and can let it boil hard so the meat will be tender. I have not cooked the meat in the crock pot for this recipe; I’m guessing it will have the same outcome – tender meat.

Before cooking the meat, cut it into smaller pieces so they will swim in the boiling water. You want the pot to boil the whole time, so you’ll need to add water during the cooking. When scum forms on the water, remove it. Once the meat is cooked through and tender, dump the broth.

When cooking in a pressure cooker , I cook the meat for 40-60 minutes. Just remember to cut the meat into smaller pieces so it will cook through in the amount of time you set the cooker.

To chop the meat, you can either chop it by hand or rough chop it in the food processor. You’ll want to be careful not to overfill or over chop in the processor bowl because it will become mushy. Yep, I know! If the bowl is too full the meat doesn’t have room to move around and it will settle and keep being chopped until here is nothing more to chop.

The fun part comes when you cook the onions and add the meat, seasoning, sauces, and broth and let it simmer. If I have time, I let it simmer for about 30 minutes because the longer the flavors can mix, the better the taste. If you let it simmer longer, you will need more broth to keep it from drying out.

I know you are probably wondering about me not using the venison broth. Your meat has a game taste, the broth will also have it. Honestly, when the meat is cooking it doesn’t smell very good and I can’t imagine reserving the broth to be used in the actual dish. Over the years, I have found using beef broth helps give the meat a beefy taste. If you have a skeptic when it comes to venison, you may be able to help hide it with the beef broth. (Because of health reasons with my husband, I now use chicken broth with a good results.)

Still a little curious... I think this recipe with a little more BBQ sauce could pass for a good BBQ sandwich.

The following recipe makes a pan full (12 inch pan) of chopped meat, so if you don't have enough meat, you can always cut back on the amount of each ingredient.

Southern Venison Hash

Ingredients:

3 - 4 lbs deer meat, I use roasts or quartered portions
1 stick of butter
1 medium onion, chopped
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
2 Tablespoons Dried Sage
1 cup beef broth
½ cup of BBQ sauce
2-4 shakes Hot Sauce, or more if you like the heat
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Boil meat until tender and chop.

In a large skillet, melt butter and add the onions and cook them until they are tender. Add the meat, sauces, and seasoning and simmer for at least 10 minutes.

Serve on buns, on bread as an open face sandwich or over rice.

No matter how you serve the hash, it will be devoured. If you make the recipe, let me know, I'd love to hear how it turned out.