Meat Week: How to Cure Venison Prosciutto

“Great googly, moogly.” That was the subject line of an email that Wild Chef blogger David Draper sent me last week. Inside the email was a link to another food blog, The Cage Free Tomato. And on the other side of that link was this gloriously cured venison leg.

Great googly, moogly, indeed.

Prosciutto is my favorite food. There’s always some in my fridge. Add it to a sandwich, wrap some around apple slices, eat it alone–the stuff makes everything better. While I don’t have any whole whitetail hindquarters available to try and replicate this recipe in all its Meat Week-worthy glory, I do have some big roasts in my freezer that might work. (Of course, I’m not sure how my wife will feel about a cheesecloth-wrapped cut of meat hanging inside our apartment.)

Dan, over at The Cage Free Tomato, was kind enough to share these photos with us. I hope they’re enough to inspire you to give the recipe a try, which you can find here. It doesn’t sound too complicated, just some salt and spices–and some patience. Dan let his deer leg cure for more than a month.

**Here are the other posts from Meat Week, in case you missed any: **
– How to Cook Whitetail Deer Ribs
– Rules for Grinding Wild Game (And Mom’s Meatloaf Recipe)
– How to Smoke a Black Bear Ham
– Meat Week Holiday Party Food Fight