Big Horn Sheep Recipes - Suggestions

[JMG]

Hello--

I helped a friend and his father (80 years old) on a Big Horn Sheep hunt last year and the father was successful. They gave me some Big Horn sheep meat (butchered and wrapped) as a way of saying "thank you".

I have taken out a package and do not have any experience with cooking Big Horn Sheep. Can anyone recommend a recipe for Big Horn Sheep? Please be specific.

Thank you for any suggestions.

 

[6mm Remington]

You didn't state but guessing a package of steaks???

Heat a cast iron skillet and put some butter and olive oil in the pan. Roll the bighorn meat in flour and fry in the pan until medium rare. Don't overcook it. Salt and pepper and enjoy. You are sure to love it.

Another way. Same pan with butter and olive oil. Mix some eggs up in a glass or plastic bowl with a little milk added. Put the thawed steaks in the egg/milk combination and cover the meat with the mixture. Put in the fridge and let it sit a couple hours if you have the time. Not essential to do so though.
Crush a tube of Ritz crackers in the tube and then put them onto a plate. Take an egg mixture covered steak piece out of the bowl and roll it in the cracker crumbs and place into the pan. Do the same with the remaining steak pieces. Cook until the cracker crumb is lightly browned and the meat is medium rare in the middle. Salt and pepper and enjoy.

Either way of doing it you will love!

 

[Bambistew]

Cook like any other wild game. Use your favorite game recipe. Don't over cook it. You'll either like the taste of sheep, or you won't, or that's been my experience with feeding sheep to other people. There is no magic bullet, same goes with deer or any other game meat. Sheep can be pretty strong flavored. The ram I shot last year was the worst eating piece of game meat I've ever had, and I've eaten rutted up mule deer and caribou. It was awful, and made into jerky, and I could still taste it.

My favorite way is to marinate overnight with fresh garlic, rosemary, thyme, back pepper, a little coarse salt and olive oil. Sear in hot pan, finish in oven to 127 internal. Let it rest for 10 min. Make a demi-glace with chicken or bone stock, balsamic and butter. 5:1 ratio of stock to balsamic or to taste, reduce, and add a few pads of butter at the end to thicken, then drizzle over meat. I like cooking roasts the best, it results in the most perfectly cooked meat per volume. Steaks tend to get dried out too easily unless they are thick.

 

[Hem]

If the chunk of meat seems questionable, as in very tough, don't bother trying to grill it. Better off cubing it and making stew.
Some of the muscle on my ram was pretty tough, some of it not so. If it behaves like thick rubber, stew it.
The flavor has been outstanding.

 

[Salmonchaser]

Nothing to add but this: it ain’t mutton and in my mind its the best game meat I’ve ever taken. (North America) As stated don’t over cook you will be pleased.

 

[WoodMoose]

Nothing to add but this: it ain’t mutton and in my mind its the best game meat I’ve ever taken. (North America) As stated don’t over cook you will be pleased.

agreed

wild sheep (dall and bighorn) are my favorite but don't get it nearly enough

my youngest, when I gave her a hunk of backstrap sent me a message and said "when you going again?"

 

[6mm Remington]

Nothing to add but this: it ain’t mutton and in my mind its the best game meat I’ve ever taken. (North America) As stated don’t over cook you will be pleased.

Like Salmonchaser stated sheep meat is pretty darn good. I have not had the opportunity to eat a lot of it, but the bighorn ram that I got to try was excellent. Someone mentioned a ram being gamey tasting. If so the recipe I listed with soaking the meat in the fridge in the egg and milk mixture and then rolling in Ritz cracker crumbs and frying up seems to remove a lot of the gamey taste. I know it works on mule deer bucks in the rut that can sometimes be a little gamey.

 

[JMG]

You didn't state but guessing a package of steaks???

Heat a cast iron skillet and put some butter and olive oil in the pan. Roll the bighorn meat in flour and fry in the pan until medium rare. Don't overcook it. Salt and pepper and enjoy. You are sure to love it.

Another way. Same pan with butter and olive oil. Mix some eggs up in a glass or plastic bowl with a little milk added. Put the thawed steaks in the egg/milk combination and cover the meat with the mixture. Put in the fridge and let it sit a couple hours if you have the time. Not essential to do so though.
Crush a tube of Ritz crackers in the tube and then put them onto a plate. Take an egg mixture covered steak piece out of the bowl and roll it in the cracker crumbs and place into the pan. Do the same with the remaining steak pieces. Cook until the cracker crumb is lightly browned and the meat is medium rare in the middle. Salt and pepper and enjoy.

Either way of doing it you will love!

Well ... I did just that "Heat a cast iron skillet and put some butter and olive oil in the pan. Roll the bighorn meat in flour and fry in the pan until medium rare. Don't overcook it. Salt and pepper and enjoy. You are sure to love it".

I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, so I could try the meat with no additives. It was very good. I've had sheep a long time ago and remembered it as "really good", but forgot how it was prepared. I have several package of steaks and am looking forward to other meals. Thank you all for the suggestions.

I would rate Big Horn Sheep and Moose at the top of wild game meat. Both are really good.

 

[photohunter]

User a meat tenderizer. A 10 year old ram can be tough. Very tasty though.

 

[Gerald Martin]

In my experience it’s the worst and best wild game I’ve tasted. Not much in between.

 

[Carl 9.3x62]

My sheep from this year has been pretty darn good. Tender.

 

[Gr8bawana]

I must say the desert bighorn I got last year was not good eating. We tried a tenderloin after about 4-5 days of aging in the fridge.
I kept it as basic as possible for the first taste of sheep. Salt and pepper, dusted in flour and cooked in butter in a cast iron pan. I thought we would be in for a treat.
As far as flavor, it had no distinctive flavor at all, not gamey in the least bit. It was the toughest piece of meat I've ever had. It was a tenderloin for heaven sake.
Maybe it was because of the harsh environment where they live or what they eat. I'll never know.

 

[Carl 9.3x62]

I must say the desert bighorn I got last year was not good eating. We tried a tenderloin after about 4-5 days of aging in the fridge.
I kept it as basic as possible for the first taste of sheep. Salt and pepper, dusted in flour and cooked in butter in a cast iron pan. I thought we would be in for a treat.
As far as flavor, it had no distinctive flavor at all, not gamey in the least bit. It was the toughest piece of meat I've ever had. It was a tenderloin for heaven sake.
Maybe it was because of the harsh environment where they live or what they eat. I'll never know.

We're they rutting? My ram was not, and I'm wondering if that contributed to it being so tender. Same with you though on flavor, no distinctive flavor at all really.

 

[brymoore]

I must say the desert bighorn I got last year was not good eating. We tried a tenderloin after about 4-5 days of aging in the fridge.
I kept it as basic as possible for the first taste of sheep. Salt and pepper, dusted in flour and cooked in butter in a cast iron pan. I thought we would be in for a treat.
As far as flavor, it had no distinctive flavor at all, not gamey in the least bit. It was the toughest piece of meat I've ever had. It was a tenderloin for heaven sake.
Maybe it was because of the harsh environment where they live or what they eat. I'll never know.

My ram is one of the three worst animals I’ve ate.

 

[Drake4]

My ram is one of the three worst animals I’ve ate.

The 2 rams I've had, have been the 2 worst animals I've ever eaten. The smell was terrible.

 

[mevertsen]

I've eaten two desert sheep.

Both from the same unit, 2 years and less than 5 miles apart. Presumably eating the same diet.

I would not say it was bad. Surprisingly mild, IMO.

We ate my ram tenderloins before they had cooled off completely. Tasted fine to me. But it was like 10 degrees out, and a warm bologna sandwich probably would have been fine.

My daughter killed a ewe two years prior.

Just very lean. We made almost all of both into burger, mixed with fat, (beef probably for hers, and certainly hog fat for mine). We made the backstraps into steaks on both. Maybe a couple more packs of steaks. But I think I got like 32 lbs of boneless meat off my ram, and 25 or so for my daughter's ewe.

I liked it.

I must admit though, I like all kinds if different things, not because its particularly delicious, but because it is different.

 

[npaden]

My ram is one of the three worst animals I’ve ate.

The 2 rams I've had, have been the 2 worst animals I've ever eaten. The smell was terrible.

I need to start eating on mine again. Only thing I've eaten so far was the tenderloins and they were not very good at all. I had always heard that sheep was one of the better game animals from a table fare perspective so I was very surprised. Thought I must have done something wrong somehow.

We tend to always eat our game meat on a First in First Out method and are just finishing up our 2024 game meat and starting on 2025 but might start mixing in some of the sheep. If it ends up as bad as you guys are saying maybe I just need to grind it.

Mine doesn't smell bad at all, and really doesn't taste bad, it's hard to describe it but it just wasn't very good. I thought I had overcooked it in the sous vide because it was very bland and just kind of tasted like mush.