Traditional-Style Venison Hotdog

[Dogfish]

This is a great way to use up venison hearts and pieces for hunters and occasional sausage makers. Put the word out to your buddies so you can up the stash. These taste like good cocktail weenies, hence my preferred (but wife has assured me, crude) title of Venison Cock-Doggies. Best flavour when blazing hot. The finish-cooking in a 170 oven, replacing the typical poaching, makes more concentrated and tasty dog. This is a Wedliny Domowe hack. Notice no food processor or additives.

Traditional-Style Venison Hotdog

70% pork picnic minus skin
30% venison hearts trimmed of fat, tendon, and clots

Ingredients per 1000g (1 kg) of meat

salt 18 g 3 tsp.
Cure #1 2.5 g ½ tsp.
white/black pepper 2.0 g 1 tsp.
paprika 2.0 g 1 tsp.
coriander 2.0 g 1 tsp.
nutmeg 0.5 g .25 tsp.
onion powder 1.0 g 1 tsp.
ice water/ground ice 1.25 cup

Instructions

Grind meats half-frozen through 3 mm plate into same bowl. If still ice cold, mix together and grind a second time. Freeze solid in big ziploc bags, rubbed about an inch thick for uniform freeze-thaw.

Powder dry spices in designated coffee grinder.

Thaw meat in the bag in a fridge until still frozen but cubeable with a knife. Cut into one inch cubes. Run through metal grinder that has been stored in ice or ice water.

Mix crushed ice, ice water, and spices together. Mix quickly by hand; it should be cold enough to hurt your hands quite a lot. Place in freezer, load stuffer with preferred size and type of casing (usually sheep or collagen breakfast sausage size), stuff. Always keep extremely cold.

Link and hang until dry. Smoke over fruit wood for an hour at about 60 C. Preheat oven to 170 F. Place a cookie sheet on the bottom shelf to deflect heat. Lay hotdogs in single layer and place on top shelf on a cookie sheet. Turn every half hour or so for uniform colour. Cooking this way will bond the casing to the dog -- don't do it if you want caseless hotdogs. Ice down when cooked and let mature in the fridge for a day. Package and freeze.

[scolobey]

I'm working pretty hard on getting together a great hot dog recipe. This was pretty helpful. I can back you up on the importance of keeping everything cold. Also, that method of slow-baking worked great, and I haven't seen it anywhere else. Many thanks for a solid recipe.

[Dogfish]

I'm working pretty hard on getting together a great hot dog recipe. This was pretty helpful. I can back you up on the importance of keeping everything cold. Also, that method of slow-baking worked great, and I haven't seen it anywhere else. Many thanks for a solid recipe.

For sure; glad you like it. I don't have a food processor so was glad this worked without it. FYI I found that in the precooking it's extremely important that the fat does not get hot enough to settle out or all the flavor comes out with it.