Expert: Keith Patton - 1/24/2008

Question
My rumproast of venison was tough,dry and hard to chew.What cause this to occur?

Answer
Samanta:

What happens to meat when it cooks is as follows:

The muscle fibers contract and squeeze out myoglobin.  This is the pink fluid people mistake for blood in rare meat.  As the temperature increases, the protein in the meat coagulates.  This is the point at which it starts to turn gray and dense.  When this is complete, you have a piece of well done, dry and inedible meat. Now if you roasted your rump roast this is what happened.  Since venison has roughly 30% less fat and 30% more protein, you can see you have a problem.  The meat drys out more easily than beef.  So the easiest thing to do is eat it rare or medium rare.  To do this you need a meat thermometer to cook by temperature of the meat, not time and temperature of the oven.  Another thing is the old saying "if it is done in the oven, it is overdone on the table"  This means that the meat continues to cook after it is taken of the heat. Remove the meat a bit before it is the doneness or temp you want.  Let it rest under foil for 10-15 minutes before cutting.  That way you loose less juice and it is easier to cut.

If you braise the meat, the kind of cooking in a crock pot, venison does not do too well there either.  What happens in braising is the temp stays just below boiling and the hot moist heat gelatinizes the connetive tissue.  The gristle turns to the brown gellatin you used to see on a pot roast.  The cooking also goes to the point where the coagulated protein starts to break down and the meat falls apart.  I venison has little fat, so the meat will still be a bit dry with this method, so gravy laced with butter or a fat of some kind is in order to hide the dryness.  Fat makes our salivary glands work in overdrive so the increase in apparent moistness when we chew it comes from our own saliva.  Try it with a dry piece of chicken breast and some butter.

Keith