venison burgers

Frankly put, anything made with venison is downright delicious. However, we had the added benefit from our neighbors' recent hog slaughter and butchering of having piggie fat with which to make ground venison for burgers the other night.

I also sliced up the hog jowl they gave us super thin and froze it, and it really does resemble bacon, although it will taste differently since we're not curing it (apparently, a laborious process) like regular bacon. (We will, however, be making proper bacon once we slaughter and butcher our own piggies -- we just weren't ready to go that route with the gift jowl.)

Jay's cousin and his girlfriend are currently visiting from Ohio, and by the time we ate the actual burgers (and after some celebratory welcome shots o' whiskey), pictures were long forgotten about so I can't show you the end product, but trust me, they were totally bomb (as were my oven-baked fries -- bread crumbs are the secret!).

Pig fat is a magical thing.

I recently ordered the meat grinder attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer. An well-worth $50 investment!

We estimate that our final ground venison mix was 80/20.

Hog jowl that will likely be added to Mitsy Soup Of Some Sort for fat and flavor. Yummy.