You Gotta Try This!

Sopchoppy · **Posted:** Fri Jun 15, 2012 2:50 pm

I love to cook, and enjoy smoking meats of all kinds. Today, I was making meat loaf and thought, "Reckon how this would taste cooked on the smoker"? DAD GUM, THAT'S GOOD!!! If you want to try it, here's the recipe;

2 lbs. of ground beef, 70/30 works better than 80/20.
1 lb. of ground venison
16 oz. of seasoned croutons
1 red bell pepper
1 orange bell pepper
1 medium onion
8 oz. tomato sauce
8 oz. Rotel tomato sauce; or you can use Rotel tomatos if you want more spice
2 eggs

I sauted the onions and peppers to get them soft, I've found they are still "crunchy" if I just mix them in the meat.
Put the onions and peppers in a food processor with the croutons grind 'em up fine.
Mix everything in a LARGE bowl until completely mixed.
I put BBQ sauce on the top of each loaf.
I used disposable loaf pans with holes punched in the bottom and the sides cut down so the grease can drain out.
The loaf pans help the meat keep it's shape.
Got the somoker to 225, I use charcoal to start the fire and add hickory wood for the smoke.
These cooked for about 1 3/4 hours until they were 160 internal temp.
I did let them "rest" for 10 minutes before getting at it.

I've make a lot of meat loafs, but this is the best.

wacokid · **Posted:** Fri Jun 15, 2012 3:45 pm

thanks for posting, that looks incredible ! I'm going to do one of these over post oak smoke.

Ol' Arky · **Posted:** Fri Jun 15, 2012 4:00 pm

I might just try it with 100% ground venison... :mrgreen:

YUM, YUM!!!!!

cosmos24 · **Posted:** Fri Jun 15, 2012 5:45 pm

Man that is great I wanted to put that pic between 2 pieces of bread and eat brother :mrgreen:

Where do you live in Tn u say?

T-post · **Posted:** Fri Jun 15, 2012 10:35 pm

Looks awesome! Thanks for posting it.

wacokid · **Posted:** Sat Jun 16, 2012 1:00 am

Sop, as a cook as I have a question for you, and its not related to the meatloaf at all, but when a frying recipe calls for oil to be at a certain temp, how do you determine that if you are frying in a skillet ? is there a thermometer you can use or do you just have to eyeball it ?

Sopchoppy · **Posted:** Sat Jun 16, 2012 6:42 am

wacokid wrote:

Sop, as a cook as I have a question for you, and its not related to the meatloaf at all, but when a frying recipe calls for oil to be at a certain temp, how do you determine that if you are frying in a skillet ? is there a thermometer you can use or do you just have to eyeball it ?

When deep frying stuff like shrimp and fish, I use a candy thermometer. You can get one at Wally World. The one I use has candy temps on one side and frying temps on the other. When frying chicken or country fried steak, I usually can tell if the oil is hot enough. Two things you can do, pinch off a piece of the flour on the meat and drop it in the oil, if it cooks, the oil is ready. Or you can wet the end of your finger and flick a SMALL drop of water into the oil. If it pops, it's ready. My mama taught me how to cook and fry stuff. The most important thing is to only use peanut oil to fry. It's smoke point is higher than other oils and just tastes better. I can tell when something is fried in peanut oil or some other kind of stuff. There is that much difference in the taste. Oh yes, I use cast iron to fry, it maintains the oil temp better than thin frying pans.

Sopchoppy · **Posted:** Sat Jun 16, 2012 6:44 am

cosmos24 wrote:

Man that is great I wanted to put that pic between 2 pieces of bread and eat brother :mrgreen:

Where do you live in Tn u say?

Up on the beautiful Cumberland Plateau.

Anthony · **Posted:** Sat Jun 16, 2012 8:41 am

Has anyone tried smoking a deer shoulder or hind quarter? how does it turn out? I am assuming it takes many hours and does it dry out ?

Ol' Arky · **Posted:** Sat Jun 16, 2012 9:13 am

Anthony wrote:

Has anyone tried smoking a deer shoulder or hind quarter? how does it turn out? I am assuming it takes many hours and does it dry out ?

I've done it in the past and used a water bath smoker... It was great... I also had a friend (huntin' buddy), who passed away 15 or 20 years ago, that owned a Bar BQ place that smoked um on his big commercial grill and those were great also... Tender but not as juicy as beef or pork because of the lack of fat...

Sopchoppy · **Posted:** Sat Jun 16, 2012 10:30 am

Anthony wrote:

Has anyone tried smoking a deer shoulder or hind quarter? how does it turn out? I am assuming it takes many hours and does it dry out ?

I have done a couple of backstraps and they turned out great. I do plan to do a deer ham this fall. As for smoking larger cuts of meat, pork butts (shoulders) and ribs, I learned how from a buddy of mine who is a serious smoker, he has a trailer smoker that holds 60 pork butts. Smoking butts....smoke for 3-4 hours, then take off and wrap in HD foil and put back on the smoker for 3-4 hours. If the shoulder bone can be pulled out without any resistance, it's done. As for ribs, smoke for an hour and then wrap and put back on the smoker for 2 more hours. Be sure to pull the membrane off the bone side of the ribs before smoking. Use a paper towel to get a hold on it. On the deer backstraps, I smoked for about an hour and then wrapped in foil and cooked for another 2 hours. I saw a recipe on a hunting show where they smoked an elk backstrap....butterfly the strap and put strips of bacon inside and roll up and tie with string. The bacon adds some fat and makes it juicier. All the meat gets my special rub before smoking. Wrapping the meat in foil steams it and makes it unbelieveably tender.

Ol' Arky · **Posted:** Sat Jun 16, 2012 11:32 am

I forgot, my youngest son told me they smoked a deer ham last year after he hunted with us and killed 2 deer... He said it was great and they would do it again this fall... We still have a bit of cut meat and ground deer left from last season and I'm goin' to try the deer loaf on the grill when I can get my son's to help... :wink:

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