Venison mix with pork

[vetter3006]

I mix a little less than half of mesquite bacon with my venison. I get it at a butcher and it adds a great taste better than just pork.

[Dredly]

+1!! I substitute pork fat for bacon fat. BAM!! Instant bacon flavored burger, or meatloaf, or whatever. (I still put bacon strips on top. You can't have too much bacon. )You can't really do it with the lean bacon from the supermarket. You need to go get a box of bacon ends. Lots of fatty pieces there. MMMMMMM....... good stuff.

where are you guys getting bacon fat from? or are you just buying slab bacon and grinding it up?

sounds fricken awesome, especially for burgers!

[1iarrowking]

For my hamburger I add 10% lean pork just to give it a little fat without too much cholesterol. The place that makes my sausage and bologna (Dietrich Meats) adds 1/3 pork.

[smithwessn]

where are you guys getting bacon fat from? or are you just buying slab bacon and grinding it up?

sounds fricken awesome, especially for burgers!

I don't use straight bacon. Go to a farmers market or butcher and by a box (or bag) of bacon ends. There's a lot of fat on those to trim off and grind up. Yeah, you can grind up some pieces of bacon while you're at it, but the big hunks of fat are what you really want.

[God's Country]

where are you guys getting bacon fat from? or are you just buying slab bacon and grinding it up?

sounds fricken awesome, especially for burgers!

I just usually use whatever cheap bacon is on sale.
Bacon ends as mentioned work well too.

[fingers80002]

None! You don't need it. The butcher we use from camp is in Rosetto/East Bangor and he will do it either way but we always got it w/ out the pork. We get a large plastic bag of ground venison that we all split [our cabin shares, if you were there you get a share] by hand same as we split up the steaks, loins & chops.

When we do our own at camp [just me and my neighbor on Saturdays] all the scraps w/ out tallow & silverskin go in a large zip-loc and gets taken home to Mom who has a grinder for her Kitchen Aid mixer. She runs it thru twice puts it in quart freezer zip locks making 1/4" thick squares that freeze really well and weigh around a pound.

I never have a problem w/ a burger staying together and we make alot of ground in caserole and taco style dishes where it doesn't matter anyway.

^^^^^^^ THIS!!!!!!^^^^^^^^^^^

[vetter3006]

where are you guys getting bacon fat from? or are you just buying slab bacon and grinding it up?

sounds fricken awesome, especially for burgers!

I buy slab bacon by the pounds that I need to mix.

[Coop650]

Considering my wife won't eat a venison steak or burger, I ground all mine straight because we use it in stuff like chili, sloppy joe's, etc. When I get a deer I cut out the back straps for me and the rest I ground. Nothing goes to wast that way. I used to cut steaks, roasts, etc. but she won't eat it so I ended up giving the majority of it away. Not anymore .

Once I get the hide off and the deer hangs a couple days, I quarter it and put it in bags and then in my garage fridge. I leave it chill another day or two before I start cutting it. Makes getting the silver skin off much easier. But I use a fillet knife and the technique previously mentioned to remove it.

[NA Wreckdiver]

I used to mix pork or sometimes sausage with the ground venison usually about 20-25%. I no longer do that. the pork over powers the venison in my opinion.

Now I just grind strait venison & package in 1-2 lb packs. For many things I've found the extra fat is not needed. When I am making something like meatballs or burgers where I need it to stay together, I will instead mix in "regular ground beef"... (the cheap stuff, that I would never otherwise buy) at a rate of about 20-25%... just enough to add some fat to keep them together. I add it when I'm making those things. I thaw a pack of pure ground venison & mix in some of the cheap ground beef... then make the burgers or meatballs.

I find that this doesn't really change the taste much.