My Favorite Deer Shoulder

[mr surveyor]

O.K., I'll volunteer to kick start this cooking thing. Here's one of my favorites....

Part One

All my hunting/fishing buddies know I have an addiction to deer shoulder. Funny thing, most of them had just had the shoulders boned (the ones that weren't destroyed in the kill) and ground with the rest of the "non-delicacy parts" into hamburger or sausage. The last few years, I get a nice supply of shoulders, and the donor is always the guest of honor when it's done. My favorite all time recipe is as follows:
First, find a shallow roasting pan that will fit into your smoker of choice, but make sure your shoulder will fit into the pan. Probably will have to cut a bit of bone away. Then line the pan with heavy duty aluminum foil (also known as "tin foil" by us old farts), with enough foil hanging out to completely cover the meat at the proper time.
I marinate/baste the meat in a mix of worstershire, tequila and lime extract (about 70/25/5 in that order) with a bit of black pepper and salt while I'm getting everything else put together.
PARTS
1. 6-8 medium-large jalapenos, de-seeded and cut into 4-6 long strips per pepper (I like grilled /smoked jalapenos, so I usually throw in a few whole, unmolested ones too)
2. One large yellow (or white) onion, or two mediums. Cut the large onion in half at the "equator" and dice half and string cut the other half. I also mix in a couple of finely chopped fresh garlic cloves with the onions.
3. Well seasoned "brown sugar dry rub". My standard for most everything I cook is about 90% (by volume) dark brown sugar, and the rest a combination of salt (plain or lowry's seasoned salt user's choice), coarse ground black pepper, a bit of garlic powder, and, most importantly cayenne pepper. I often throw in other herbs and spices depending on the meat, but those are the main ingredients.
4. Bacon. Can't cook without bacon! For this you need to weave a mat by laying out 8-10 pieces of raw bacon side by side, then lacing 8-10 more crossways ... kinda like the old days what making them pot holders for mamma. Make it up on a piece of foil to keep it nice and flat woven.
5. One beer (for cooking .... more beer is optional depending on the cook)
6. the grill/smoker and fuel. I use an old "horizontal split pipe" style charcoal grill so I can grill on one side over the direct heat and smoke on the other side. I build a good hot fire with charcoal on one side of the rig while getting the meat prepped, then add chips/chunks of mesquite or hickory to the fire just before putting the meat on.

[mr surveyor]

Part Two

ASSEMBLY
By the time you're ready to actually start assembling, the meat should have been basted, turned and soaked pretty well in the marinate sauce. So, the next step is to pat excess liquid off the shoulder with paper towels then thoroughly scrub the dry rub on and into the meat, leaving as much on as will stay on. While the meat is marrying up with the dry rub, lay out the diced onions in the bottom of the foil lined pan, and have the rest of the string cut onions and jalapeno peppers at hand ready to use later. Also, make sure the bacon mat is ready.
When all the parts are prepped and ready, and the hot side of the grill is made ready with sweet smellin wood chunks, place the well coated shoulder over the fire. Turn it often so as not to blacken it too much, too fast. You just want to seer it good on the outside and get the cooking started on the inside. When you think you've gotten it as far as you can without burning on the hot grill surface, place the shoulder in the foil lined pan on top of the layer of diced onions, and sprinkle a bit more of the dry rub on the meat. Then place the bacon mat over the top of the shoulder and sprinkle a bit more dry rub on the bacon. At this point it doesn't hurt to pour about a quarter of the beer into the bottom of the pan. Place the pan on the smoker side, and make sure there's enough charcoal and wood chunks burning, and close the smoker/grill .... don't cover the meat with the foil yet. My rig is rather "small" so I turn the cook pan 180° whenever I open the top to add more mesquite. As soon as it's apparent that the bacon is well done (normally 45 minutes or so) close the foil onto the sides of the meat and spread the remaining onions and the jalapenos on top of the shoulder .... add another quarter of the beer.... loosely close the foil on top (still want it to breath), check the fire, then close the cooker top. Check often enough to keep the fire and smoke going. Depending on the size of the shoulder and the temps you can maintain in your cooker, the cook time can be anywhere from 2-1/2 to 4-1/2 hours. Towards the later stages I check the meat and add more beer if needed for moisture, and tightly close the foil for the last half hour or so.
I actually use the same above ingredients with beef, pork, chicken, etc, and the same technique with most "thick cuts".

JD


kinda boring, huh?

[Ranch Dog]

Sounds good to me and will give it a try on a hog shoulder! I caught myself saying "tin foil" yesterday!

[Ranch Dog]

Sounds good to me and will give it a try on a hog shoulder! I caught myself saying "tin foil" yesterday!

[donhuff]

Dang JD, that 's a long one.

Sounds good though, and I'll have to give it a try, but like RD I'll probably use a chunk of pork since I don't do deer. But my pork will have to come from a grocery store since I never hunt anymore dern-it.

[donhuff]

RD,
What's wrong with calling it tin foil? That's all I knew it by until I started cooking and read the box one day.

Did they ever really make TIN in a foil for cooking?

[Ranch Dog]

Did they ever really make TIN in a foil for cooking?

I wiki'd it!

Foil made from a thin leaf of tin was commercially available before its aluminium counterpart. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, tin foil was in common use, and some people continue to refer to the new product by the name of the old one. Tin foil is stiffer than aluminium foil. It tends to give a slight tin taste to food wrapped in it, which is a major reason it has largely been replaced by aluminium and other materials for wrapping food.

I've called it tin foil most of my life!

Twenty years ago, I bought a large ranch that had gone back to brush. Bought it through the Federal Land Bank (now Capital Farm Credit). I paid $350 an acre for it and being the ag value was $650 an acre, I did not need to pay anything down. My first payment was going to be a doozy but it was yet a year down the road. My idea was to invest a lot of labor in the clean up and flip it like you would a house. I hired an older gentleman with a green card and together we set to clearing and building six miles of fence with manual labor. This took about about six months by the time two sets of cattle pens and cross fencing were included.

That spring and summer will always stick with me as one of the most memorable periods of my life. Each day we would start a small mesquite fire burnt into coals to cook our lunch. I had found an old windmill blade buried in the sand and we had shaped it around around a 6" post to form a cook stove that we could slide into the coals. We cooked everything from fried eggs to ribeyes on that blade. After the meal, we each would scoop out a depression in the sand, the lower level being cool to the touch, and sleep like a baby for an hour despite the 100° plus heat. The gentleman was a "hombre del monte", a man of the brush, and taught me an incredible amount of survival techniques that will serve me my entire life. He taught me more about survival that the US Army did. I ended up turning that place for a huge profit and never had to make the first payment. It gave me an incredible stake that financed me through similar flips that were less physical. When I look back on my life, I will always remember those months spent in a really wild part of South Texas with a memorable friend and a sizzling windmill blade.

We always figured it was galvanized but due to the age and the polishing we gave it with wet sand we figured it just cooked too good to care!

[akuser47]

Good stuff

[donhuff]

Good story. funny how some of our fondest memories, center around had work.

[Ranch Dog]

Good story. funny how some of our fondest memories, center around had work.

Add food!!!