chicken fried backstrap

before i get to the tasty part let me tell you about today. husband and i woke up around 530a to discover snow falling. yes. snow. white fuzzy looking stuff falling from the sky and immediately melting upon landing on with anything. by noon, when i head home for lunch (kinda nice being 6 minutes from work) it was nice. i didn’t really need a coat, maybe a light jacket. it was awfully windy, awfullllly windy, but nice. this all is not so great for me… i’ve been recommended to avoid windy situations and warm-cold-warm-cold..etc weather. (HA, Texas this year has been only this, all winter every week or few blast of cold.. ugh) as this aggravates my allergies and leads to headaches which leads to migraines. migraine meds are wicked. yes in that they kill a migraine (for me at least) but they also either knock me out or sometimes my entire body aches. knees, hands, neck, all my joints. but my head doesn’t hurt any more.

now for the backstrap…

last sunday we headed over to some friends and took a deer backstrap with us. its like a tenderloin, and has been compared to filet mignon. i’ve never had it. but i was hungry. and it took forever to get dinner ready so i was terribly hungry by the time we got it all finished. here is how it went:

The backstrap was sliced thinly (~1/2 inch) and then pounded thinner.
it was then soaked in enough milk to cover with a little bit of Tabasco, salt and pepper. we went for about an hour. longer would be better and butter milk would also improve over 2% or whatever was found in the fridge.

the pieces were dipped in egg whites and dredged through a mix of flour (whole wheat, its what we had on hand), salt, pepper, little bit of Tony Chachere’s (original blend), and LOTS of parsley flakes than intended. a little cornmeal would be good too.

this then went into my new cast iron dutch oven. (HECK NO we did not pay that price. The Kroger Signature store down the street had them for less than $50.) more later on why i prefer enameled cast iron. we poured enough oil to come about half way up the side of the meat. let it get hot, we observed some convection in the oil before adding out first few pieces of meat. how long did we cook it? good question. until the meat stopped releasing blood. (ie no pink juices). flip, and repeat. *do not over crowd the pan. oil and pan cools and then meat absorbs oils -BAD*

draining. This is best learned by watching the episode of Good Eats in which Alton Brown makes fried chicken, the fish and chips episode will also do. paper towels bad, holds oil to food, that means absorption, BAD. take cookie sheet in one hand and cooling rack in one hand. invert cooling wrack and put on cookies sheet. this will allow the oil to drip off of the meat and on to other things that will not hold the oil to the meat. I want to think at some point there might have been news paper under the cooling wrack. unfortunately i have seen both of those episodes lately and there was no newspaper involved.

next: EAT IT, before everyone else does. it was GREAT. If I could I would have eaten it all and not shared. we also had roasted veggies and some sausage we grilled up just in case we really goofed the backstrap, we didnt. although likely we will not ever replicate it. i think i might try this weekend. only i’ve decided i’m not sharing with friends.

on the house front we have a contract and financing. we just have to make it to the end of the month which is when we sign papers and get keys. i’m excited. its move in ready, we dont have to replace carpet, or reface cabinets etc. we might want to repaint the master. and i will want to repaint what was the girls’ room, it has a pink wall. kitchen KITCHEN, wow, its lovely, its large. the “man” bathroom, its a half bath off the laundry room. ok will stop. it has already felt like a month since monday, now i have ~3 more to go. oh, ~3.5 acres + house! we’re dreaming of veggie gardens, berry bushes/vines, maybe goats some day… maybe.