Krissie Mason’s Venison Carpaccio

Ingredients

Mock tenderloin sliced into 1/4” thick slices

Salt

Pepper

Capers

Red onion

Mustard

Pepper sauce

Whiskey, or a very good red wine

Directions

1. Place individual slices between two sheet plastic wrap or parchment paper. Pound thin with a flat faced meat mallet (Don’t be too forceful or you will obliterate the tender cut.) Pull off one side of the plastic wrap and place thin venison on plate.

2. Garnish with remaining ingredients.

3. To eat, pull bites apart with a dinner fork, scoop up a little bit of each garnish and savor!

Click here to see more photos of this recipe in the Outdoor section.

With Fall hunting season in full swing your hunting, pocket, butchering, and tactical knives can face some real abuse. Slipping out of bloody hands into the dirt or gravel, whacking into bones, and coming into contact with rock outcroppings used as cutting boards are just a few situations that can leave blades jagged, bent, and dangerously dull.

Whether making the initial gut cut after downing a deer, boning roasts, back straps, or slicing off a ¼” mock tenderloin medallion for venison carpaccio, hairsplitting sharpness of knives makes easy, safe, and enjoyable work of harvesting a deer.

Of course, there are a variety of methods and products for sharpening knives, including the time consuming way I used to sharpen my own; with whetstone and strop. But if you find yourself jockeying between the field, camp, and the kitchen throughout the Fall hunting season with an assortment of knives but lack of time, you might want to try the Chef’s Choice Sportsman Diamond Hone Knife Sharpener, Xtreme 317 between trips afield. In addition to being made in the USA, and coming with a two year warranty, the deal sealers for me were:

*Sharpens both straight edge and serrated blades

*Ideal for double bevel and single bevel style knives

*100% diamond abrasives for sharpening and honing

*Advanced stropping/polishing disks for microscopically flawless polished edge

* Guide system ensuring uniform sharpness from tip to bolster.

The Chef’s Choice Xtreme 317 Diamond Hone Knife Sharpener was developed specifically with the outdoor enthusiast in mind. I find it to be the ultimate time-saving sharpening solution to apply hairsplitting edges on virtually all knives, including the heavier and thicker hunting and tactical knives we use for field dressing and butchering.

After sharpening my knives with the Chef’s Choice Xtreme 317 Diamond Hone Knife Sharpener and breaking down a deer, I recently carved out a venison shoulder tender, (also known as the mock tender, or petite fillet), to make Venison Carpaccio. The muscle is the second most tender muscle in the animal after the prized tenderloins. It is a small, oblong muscle that rests on the shoulder next to the top blade and is part of the chuck primal cut. The tender is made by separating the teres major muscle from the shoulder along the natural seam. Making the cuts and removing the connective tissue yielded the lean piece of muscle and my work was a breeze with my Xtreme 317 sharpened knives.