Venison acquired.

And venison was consumed.

We pulled out a sika deer tenderloin and a fallow deer tenderloin. I sliced them up, no more than 1/2″ thick. Threw them in the pan with just a bit of canola oil to mitigate sticking. Otherwise, no seasonings, nothing. Let’s see what the actual meat tastes like.

In a wonderful bit of serendipity (because we didn’t expect to get the deer back today), Wife had started a whitetail deer roast (from the whitetail does I shot last year; all hail the FoodSaver!). So, now we had 3 types of venison to try side-by-side, tho of course the whitetail would be a little seasoned.

Verdict?

We all like. A lot. 🙂

Using whitetail as our baseline, we all agreed that both the fallow and the sika are similar in taste to the whitetail — it’s all deer meat, they’re all in the same ballpark, no radical difference (e.g. the vast difference between beef and chicken). The sika seemed a bit milder than the whitetail, maybe a bit smoother texture — Daughter said “buttery” in regards to the texture. I’m not sure I’d go there, but I know what she meant: it was certainly “softer”. Very nice. The fallow had a slightly stronger flavor. None of us could come up with a way to describe it, but it was something with the overtones, a hint of something more, a little bolder flavor but subtle. Texture was also quite nice.

And in some weird way… the whitetail seemed to pale in comparison. Still good, just somehow the sika and fallow tasted a little better. Between the 3 types of venison, there was no grand consensus. Some liked sika more, some liked fallow more. Me, I think I liked the fallow more, but more research is needed. 😀

In the past we were always sparing with our use of venison because you shot what you shot during whitetail season and it had to last until next year. But now? Gee. Just use the venison at will. It’s no trouble getting an exotic, cost isn’t horrendous, and if that means better, leaner, tastier meat all year ’round? Heck, how can I say no? Well… I still love me some beef, but gee… I’m itching to get through all this meat because next I want to try red deer and axis.