Antelope Filets

I received several 4 oz South Texas Antelope filets as a gift and I am planning on grilling them this weekend. Does anyone have any cooking / sauce suggestions. The antelope is a very lean meat. I was going to grill them with a little bit of seasoning, but am now thinking a nice sauce might go better. Oh, I will also be grilling some wild boar sausages.

For antelope I usually oil them lightly, then season with salt and green pepper and a little granulated onion and garlic. You're right that they're lean so grill to med-rare tops.

I like a sauce with a berry element for antelope. Usually I use blueberries, most often dried ones. Essentially I start the sauce as if making a beurre blanc but add berries, a crushed clove of garlic and a bay leaf with the shallot. When the wine is gone I add chicken stock plus a splash of beef stock and some thyme, remove the garlic clove and the bay, and reduce the stocks well. Whisk in a little Dijon, add a few more berries and a little pinch of sage. Mount with butter, adjust salt and adda little pepper; serve.

If this doesn't make sense and you'd like me to flesh it out let me know.

Kevin, thanks for the response. Do you recommend a sauce with the antelope or will it still be good with just the seasoning. I usually like to try new types of meat with few extras on it so I get as much of the meat flavor as possible.

The sauce sounds great! If you would like to fly out to California and make it we could put you up for the weekend. The couch is really comfortable!!

I'm a HUGE sauce fan but, that said, I do not like anything swimming in sauce. For something like antelope I really love a little sauce drizzled on--but I never add too much for the reason you note.

If you'd prefer to forgo sauce feel free, of course. I'd suggest letting them sit out to come to room temp before grilling then, 10 min or so before you're ready to cook, seasoning the steaks with a little salt on both sides. Allow the steaks to sit while you mix up a little seasoning blend of granulated onion, granulated garlic (about 1 T of each), 2 t well-crumbled dry thyme, 1/2 t well-crumbled dry marjoram, and 1/4 t powder bay leaf. Add to this a few turns of the green peppermill (or black if you don't have green) then mix well. Sprinkle the steaks lightly on both sides with this mix and reserve the remainder for serving on the side.

The last time I grilled antelope I made a very simple mustard sauce just kissed with the barest hint of orange. With the steaks, I served a slaw that included fresh blueberries, sauteed corn freshly cut from the cob, and oven-roasted steak 'fries'. That worked very well (but I really like the sauce above!).

I'll be in Eugene, Ore this weekend. Is this the weekend you're cooking them...?

Yes, I will be grilling them this weekend, Sorry. I am going to try your seasoning you recommended and if time allows I will make up a berry sauce to go with it.

Thanks again for your help!

This sauce looks great Kevin. If i read it right, you make a buerre blanc without the cream and use the dijon as the emulsifier. Similar to a suace you suggested to me for pheasant that was great. Do you like to use the dijon in place of cream in a lot of sauces?

Paul

Thanks.

Yes, I often use Dijon. Prepared mustards are decent emulsifiers andthat's why I use Dijon often. I will use cream for flavor or body if appropriate.

Note: Beurre blanc does not include cream. Though one sees recipes, often on the Net, that call for it (usually to stabilize it), the addition of cream means the sauce is no longer beurre blanc.

Beurre blanc is a reduction of acidic liquid(s) (white wine and/or a clear vinegar, citrus juice, etc.) that, usually, during reduction, has aromatics included (most often shallot) that are then strained out. The reduction is then mounted with butter and the sauce is done.

The recipe above starts out like a beurre blanc, using wine only as the acid, but is no longer considered one with the addition of the stocks.

This procedure is one that, with various changes in liquid(s), aromatics, spicing and dried fruit, I often employ when making sauce for grilled steaks (lamb, beef, game, or yes, grill-roasted fowl), or when needing a pan sauce for same, in which case the liquid(s) go into the cooking pan to deglaze it before reduction, while the steaks finish on a sheetpan in the oven.

Still learning my sauce basics. I can really see where it can enhance my cooking. My Peterson book "Cooking" and an old Joy of Cooking book had cream in the recipes, so i thought that was standard. I think Petersons wine and vinegar.

The only reason i read this whole post to start with is when you said medium rare "at most" . "Kevin knows antelope too" i thought.

A sauce making 101 would be greatly appreciated sometime.

Paul

Any time. You can ask here and/or shoot me an e. Address in profile.

You might like Peterson's Sauces.

Yup. Cooked many an antelope steak.