Part I: The prep by Fool’s Pappy

Whole Deer Tenderloin was generously provided by Adrian, a high school classmate of Fool’s Pappy:

Adrian is a hunter supreme with duck and deer being his specialties. We invited him to the party (he has poker fantasies!) and he volunteered this beautiful venison tenderloin.

Most wild game require a marinade of some sort and this recipe was obtained from Adrian’s acquaintance who was a previous Illinois State Game Cooking Champion. **Editor’s note – I’m not exactly sure how one attains this title**

1-tbsp minced garlic

1-tsp ground black pepper

¼ cup olive oil

1 cup soy sauce (we used ‘lite’ soy sauce to reduce sodium content and it worked well)

juice from one lemon **Editor’s note – when adding the juice of a lemon run the juice through your fingers so that the seeds do not make it into the marinade**

Marinade in a gallon Ziploc bag several hours or overnight (we did overnight) then remove from marinade and wrap in bacon (we just can’t stay away from that pork fat thing!).

Grill over medium hot coals till bacon is crisp.

Prep: notice the ‘silver skin’ or membrane in the picture below when the loin is turned over?

That must be removed (it doesn’t chew well and would greatly detract form the tenderness of the loin). This is no different than what is found on a pork tenderloin sometimes, or on whole beef tenderloins for that matter.

Use a sharp knife to begin the process with upward pressure on the ‘skin’. You don’t want to remove too much meat while performing this. The next few pictures will give you an idea of how to properly remove the silver skin:

Once the ‘silver skin’ is removed I sliced the loin in half to fit easily into a gallon Ziploc bag. The marinade ingredients were mixed and poured into the bag over the deer loin. Then it’s into the fridge overnight awaiting the bacon wrap tomorrow and ultimately the grill:

Adrian was kind enough to perform the bacon wrapping of the Tenderloin he was gracious enough to offer. **Editor’s note – please note the lemon seeds we had to pull off the loins that wound up on the right side of the cutting board in the next three pics because Dad didn’t bother with running the juice through his fingers**

Part II: The cooking by the Original Grillin Fool

By this time the sun had set and a chilly, sunny afternoon had turned into a very windy and bitterly cold evening. I loaded the grill up with more charcoal before adding the venison to the grill. Once the coals got going I added the loins directly over the heat as evidenced by the red embers visible directly below the meat:

Venison or deer should be treated just like beef in terms of cooking. Maybe cut back cooking time just a bit as there is less fat in venison but treat it like it is beef in terms of method. To that note, I cooked them over high heat and then pulled back to bake till finished. Normally I don’t cook beef or venison over high heat with the lid closed as it could lead to burning the meat pretty quickly without constant monitoring particularly with bacon grease dripping down onto the fire.

But I didn’t have a choice here. It was just too cold and windy to try to cook these things without the lid down. What I did to compensate is I listened closely. When I heard it flare up inside I opened the lid and moved the meat away from the flare ups. I must’ve done this about eight times. Once the bacon crisped on the bottom I flipped them over. Here is a close up of one after I flipped it:

The bacon unraveled a bit with all of the moving of the loins that I did. Don’t let that bother you. Once the bacon was cooked I tested the firmness of the loin and it was still extremely rare. So I pulled it off to the side to bake with the lid down. But I didn’t push it off to the side with no coals. I put them right on the edge of the coals. One in the front and one in the back. The other side of the grill was only running about 150 degrees. So I had to leave them right next to if not over some of the coals. About 10 minutes later they were done. The bacon was a little over done but the meat was perfect. Here they are resting (sorry about the poor lighting):

After 10 minutes of we gave Adrian the honor of slicing into those beauties. Here is the one that is a bit more done than the other – a nice medium:

And here are a couple shots of the one a little closer to medium rare. I had a hard time capturing the color of the meat. The flash washed it out but without the flash it was pretty dark. Hopefully you get the idea of how great this was:

What I would do differently? I probably should’ve moved the grill over to the side of the house and used the house as a wind break. Otherwise I wouldn’t do a thing differently. This came out incredibly good. Everyone was surprised to find out it was venison rather than beef. There was no gaminess at all. This got nothing but raves…

If you have any questions about this feel free to email Scott@GrillinFools.com or Greg@GrillinFools.com or simply leave a comment below.

Also, you can follow the Grillin Fools on Facebook and post your own grillin pictures.

I want to start with a little about Bison before I go any farther. First off, Bison is not cheap. I bought two Rib Eye steaks at $18.99/pound. Second, the steak is very lean. There was very little marbling if any in these steaks. The NY Strips had a little marbling but were and extra $1/pound. They say that the lack of marbling is due to the Bison being grass fed over corn fed like most of the beef we buy, but I don’t know if that’s true. I want to apologize for not getting some pics of the meat before I threw it in a marinade. I was distracted when I got home and was prepping them for the following evening and totally forgot to get some pre shots.

Here are the steaks after I pulled them out of the marinade. Decent size but if you have been here before you know these pale in comparison to some of the other monsters I have done on this site:

The marinade was as simple as can be. Garlic, fresh ground black pepper, and this marinade:

I gotta say I like this stuff. It’s milder than Andria’s so I didn’t feel the need to cut it like I do Andria’s with coke or oil. It has much less sodium than Andria’s as well. I’m gonna add this to the repertoire as a regular. Expect to see more of this stuff on this site.

One thing I was disappointed in was the wine:

The Gallo Reserve stuff is really good normally. And this got a 90 point rating and was only about $11. I was very excited. Love to find good 90+ pointers for $10. But I gotta wonder if they got the labels mixed up with a batch of merlot. Zin is supposed to be meaty, spicy, hearty. This was very smooth and velvety, which is all well and good if one is drinking a merlot. I wanted something to stand up against the Bison. This was not it. I wonder if somewhere there are people drinking a Gallo Reserve Merlot and wondering why it is so spicy?

People ask me all the time how I know when the coals are ready to dump. Well when doing steaks the cook time is only a few minutes of searing and a couple of minutes of baking, if necessary. So you don’t need to save the charcoal for a long grill session. You want hot and fast not slow and low so no need to save the charcoal. So when the charcoal chimney looks like this you are ready to go:

After dumping the coals you can see that they are ready to go for a high heat sear. This is a HOT fire:

Same as always, coals on one side for the searing. No coals on the other side for the baking.

My wife likes her steak a little more done than I like so hers went on first:

Seared for about 60 seconds, rotated about 60 degrees and seared some more and then flipped:

Here is a close up of a great sear:

Put hers off to the side to bake. After a few minutes of baking here comes mine for the sear:

Different flash setting along with the edge of my wife’s steak which is off the heat but I have it close to the coals as it was a cold and windy night. If I had it all the way over, as far from the heat as possible, it would completely stop cooking while I flame seared mine as there would be no heat anywhere near it for about 4 minutes:

I only baked mine for maybe 2 minutes. The steaks were thinner than I normally make and Bison is supposed to be cooked for a little less than beef. If it were a hot summer night with no wind, I probably would’ve just seared and pulled mine off. But here we have both on the cutting board ready to rest – hers on the right, mine on the left. Hers has a little better sear than mine as the fire was hotter when I did hers. While hers baked the fire died a bit:

After taking this shot I threw some foil over the top to let them rest and retain some of the heat:

And here we have the money shot of mine. My wife does not care for me delaying dinner with the taking of pictures of said dinner so I didn’t risk upsetting her by making her wait while I got pics of her steak. But here is the money shot of mine. Grey around the edges. Pink to red in the middle. Almost perfect where I am concerned:

Now, I want to talk about the differences between Bison and Beef. Bison is meatier, leaner, more expensive and maybe a little tastier. Although that could be the new marinade I used. I need to marinade a steak all night in it to see if that is the difference. Remember I only marinaded the Filet I did a few days ago for a couple hours. But the question that begs to be asked – does a meatier, leaner, more expensive and a little tastier Bison steak warrant the extra cost over a beef steak? Do the Bison benefits merit paying $8/more per pound? Probably not. I liked it a lot, but I also have a little boy that my would like to one day send to private school. I will do it again. I want my dad to try it. But I can’t see myself doing Bison very often. But if you have the means and want a healthier steak then this is the way to go.

As usual, if you have any questions about this recipe, please email me at Scott@GrillinFools.com or simply leave a comment below.

Also, you can follow the Grillin Fools on Facebook and post your own grillin pictures.