Does rum and Coke transform a regular person into a master chef?

Obviously not, but it makes for a hell of an attempt! This evening my wife and children let me have a night to myself to do whatever I wanted as a sort of father's day gift. I have to say, it's been incredible. So, naturally I found a sale on Captain Morgan and began mixing it with Coke. Next thing I knew, I had the full confidence (perhaps not the skills) of a master chef! So, I began work on my latest masterpiece, stuffed venison backstrap!

The meat!

Our deep freezer is still stocked pretty well with deer meat from the fall hunting season, so I found a nice chunk of backstrap that I felt was an adequately challenging but non excessive size for me to tackle solo. By that, I mean it was way bigger than one person should eat by themselves, but with the confidence of a few rum and Coke's I was ready for the challenge! So, without hesitation, I ripped open the package and began my attempt at a masterpiece! Here's what the meat looked like out of the package!

The first thing I did was carefully cut some of the fatty tissue from the top of the meat. Not sure if others do this, but if I was going to stuff cheese in this thing like a starving Wisconsin after a long vacation at a California vegan cousin's house I didn't need excess fat on top of that! So, after a little more time than I care to admit due to my surprisingly sub-par kitchen knife skills, I head turned that fatty chunk of meat into this lean masterpiece.

Gotta have your veggies!

Now that I have all the vegans on edge from my Wisconsin cheese joke earlier, I'm going to win them back over (temporarily) with this beautiful display of freshly washed spinach. Just look at how green and non-meaty that is. Wait, the vegans already left you say? Oh, crap, well I guess if I trick my 2 year old into eating veggies by mixing it with other foods I should still do the same to myself...

So, I chopped up that spinach like it was a zoo animal in Venezuela (too soon? Seriously, support Venezuelan steemit users, things aren't great there). Of course, I couldn't stand the sight of vegetables on the cutting board by themselves, looking at me, judging my stereotypical dad-bod. So, I also cut up some cheddar cheese. I'm not saying cheddar was the right choice, but I'm saying cheddar is delicious and what we happened to have at the time.

Putting it all together

So, I had all my ingredients ready and it was time to get this thing ready to cook. I cut a slit down the middle of the meat (long ways, hot-dog style, vertically, you know what I mean) in order to stuff the cheese and spinach in there. It didn't quite produce the amount of open space I had presumed so I was only able to fit 2.5 of the cheese sticks and about half of the spinach in there, but that was okay with me. Let's be honest, this was never about the spinach, the spinach was a facade to try and trick you into thinking I'm not a complete savage. It was also never about the cheese, because I was going to eat it anyway. It's cheese.... It's good okay!

Oh, and the seasoning I used? Nothing too complicated really, I coated it with cheap olive oil and used Montreal Steak seasoning. You would be totally fine just using the olive oil and a nice salt/pepper if you prefer. Or, just use whatever seasoning you like, I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life!

Let's get cookin'

"Do the dishes" my wife says, "you never know when you'll need one of them" she claims. Well, I showed her! I didn't need the bigger frying pan, I just wanted it... In any case, the smaller one worked just fine, albeit looking a little ridiculous in the image below. I cranked the burner to full and put some extra olive oil in it to sear the meat. It was glorious, and smokey as I forgot to initially turn the microwave fan on. But like a shark smells blood in the water, I smelled the venison searing and didn't care if the smoke was testing the limits of our fire alarms.

I flipped it at the most strategic moment, like Hillary Clinton on her views of gay marriage, looking good so far! I noticed that some spinach had escaped since I put this in the pan, good riddance

Bam, finished, I seared both sides of the meat and I was ready for the next phase of my brilliant plan. As you can see, I was not sufficient with my original cut as the cheese was already making an appearance on one side from the searing part.

More cookin'

The next part of my evil plan was to throw this meat masterpiece into the oven. I refused to look up any information to help me in this venture as I was prepared for any of the glory or devastation to follow. I figured 350 degrees was a good bet and I went with it. After 10 minutes in the oven, I was disappointed to find the temp was under 120 degrees. So, I gave it another 5 minutes... just over 125 degrees. 5 more minutes and we were up to 140 degrees and I pulled it from the oven. I was nervous about how long it ended up in the oven but I was sure that my evil plan couldn't possibly have failed.

I gave the meat 5 minutes to cool before I cut it open, I feel like I read you were supposed to do that somewhere so I convinced myself it was what a professional chef would do! Then, it was finally time for the big reveal!

The Finale

I was completely shocked with what I found. Even after the inspirational drinks I had consumed, the fruits of my labor were not perfect! How could this be, I followed all the steps perfectly. I was overconfident, I didn't follow any instructions, and I made every decision based on my gut. It should have been flawless! Although it wasn't flawless, it was still wonderful. I suppose I can live with that. The meat was nice and soft and did not taste overly gamey which deer meet is quite susceptible to when cooked incorrectly. I ate the whole thing, there wasn't a bite I didn't enjoy, but there were some things that didn't quite turn out how I had anticipated.

If I could do it again?

If I had a re-do on this, here's what I would have changed.

• I would have cut more carefully. The cut that was supposed to be surgically precise down the middle to make room for the spinach and cheese was inadequate for perfection. I poked through the other end a little bit and cut a little too high throughout.
• I would have seared or otherwise found a way to seal the end I cut open so the cheese couldn't escape. I was a little disappointed that I didn't have as much cheese in the middle as I had anticipated.
• I would have put the oven at a higher temperature and not let it sit in there more than 10 minutes. I was careful to get to the temp that I thought would be medium rare, but I felt the result was medium instead. I think it's because of how long I had to put it in the oven to get the center to that temp.
• If I was to share this with someone else, slightly more seasoning. I'm acclimated to the taste of venison, so I was fine with it as the only person consuming the meat, but I would imagine someone less used to the taste of venison would have preferred it have a little extra seasoning.

That being said, it was very enjoyable. I've cooked some delicious backstrap before and tried a few things such as wrapping in bacon, but this is at the least conceptually one of my favorite ideas. It's always good as long as you don't over-cook it. If you get the chance to try a dish like this, I do recommend it. I will definitely try and take some of my own advice above and try this again for the whole family next time.