Venison Pepperone

Because we love the outdoors, we tend to live at least some portion of our lives according to the seasons, rather than the calendar. Fishing season starts in the spring and ebbs in late summer, as we prepare for dove, deer, squirrel, and then waterfowl. Each season blends into the next, until the end of our trapping season in late February. I feel like the first stirrings of early spring mark the new year, more so than the Gregorian new year. The coming of spring brings a pause in my annual rituals- the hunting is all but over for now, and while I watch buds form on trees and tiny seedlings struggle, I am mentally and physically preparing myself for the year ahead. While we wait for the water to warm and the last of the morning frosts to burn off, we busy our hands and minds with the projects that we’ve put off through hunting season, and ready our plans for the coming year. 

One project that has already begun yielding delicious results is our curing chamber, which Wade began building and testing out a few weeks ago. It’s a great off-season project while you wait for the weather to catch up with you. You can start making use of last season’s harvest in the form of delicious whole-muscle cures and sausages, and free up space in the freezer for your fishing trips in a few months. Building and tweaking the cure chamber takes a little time, but once you have it up and running, you have the perfect space to experiment with fermentation, and even dry-aging once hunting season comes back around again.

Once you’ve built your curing chamber, give this pepperone recipe a shot. This is a traditional, unsmoked Italian-style pepperone that has been dry-cured and fermented. It’s tangier than the store-bought stuff, delicious on a charcuterie board or on a pizza. This was one of the first cured sausages we made, and it’s definitely going to be part of our annual rotation. A lot of charcuterie recipes call for the addition of pork fat, but this one doesn’t. It’s 100% wild game, perfect for a purist.

Venison Pepperone

As always, if you’ve never cured sausage before, please check out our primer before you get started- these instructions assume a baseline knowledge of the process. These ingredients are measured by percent weight, not volume, to make them easy to scale to the amount of meat you are working with. Grind the meat you would like to use, weigh it, and then do the math to figure out how much of each of the other ingredients you will need by percentage. Do not substitute or change the ratio of instacure #2 or salt. You may adjust the spices to your liking.

Prep time: 1 hour

Hang time: 12-18 days

Ingredients:

100% venison trim, cubed (trim silver skin, leave some fat)

2.4% salt

0.3% instacure #2

0.45% cayenne

0.045% . allspice, ground

0.09% fennel, crushed

1.7% dextrose

0.35% smoked paprika

0.35% half sharp paprika

1.3% dry red wine

3.0% distilled water

bactoferm f-rm-52

Method:

Combine venison, salt, cure #2, dextrose and spices, cover and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight. 

Grind meat mixture through fine die.

Reactivate bactoferm as directed on the package. Set aside.

Using a stand mixer or wooden spoon, mix the ground meat mixture and incorporate the red wine. Add the bactoferm and water mixture. Mix until slightly tacky, about 1-2 minutes.

Stuff into casings, twist into 10” links, and prick with a sterile needle or sausage pricker. Weigh and record the weight of each link, then incubate for ~12-18 hours. Hang in cure chamber for 12-21 days, 30-35% weight loss

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