Antelope Table Fare
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MY preferred method for antelope, shoot one in late afternoon or early evening. Skin and stretch out to cool in open area. Set up a blind about 150yds down wind. When coyotes pick up the scent of supper and come to the 'table' hammer 3-4 if possible with fur friendly caliber/bullet. Skin and stretch coyote pelt. When fur buyer comes to town sell pelts. Take wife or girlfriend to a nice 'Steak House'! Prime rib or ribeye steak should be great! If not choose a different place next year when you bag yer speed goat! 
Advice I found in Martha Stewarts cook book. lol
Advice I found in Martha Stewarts cook book. lol
I have had Pronghorn Antelope, Blackbuck Antelope and Nilgai>>> all from the Antelope family, all taste the same and all are EXCELLENT eating! Of all the game animals I have had they have the leanest meat I have seen. About the only 2 game animals that are just as tasty, albeit in a different way, are Axis Deer and Bison! As a matter of fact, I went to this "Very High Brow" restaurant that served all manner of Bison. The tenderloin of the Bison was THEE FINEST eating I have ever had the pleasure of tasting! However, Antelope is not very far behind!
I completely agree that the key regarding Antelope is their diet. If they live on Sage, the best thing you can do with it is grind it fine, brown it well and use it as dog food. The dogs will love it and you won't have to suffer through a horrific meal. I've never had Antelope that I didn't hate. They are such terrible table fare that I have little interest in hunting them. Groundhog road kill, run over by an 18 wheeler, that's been left on the highway all weekend in the August heat makes for better table fare.
Living here in New Mexico the pronghorn is some of the best eating, I am rather partial to Elk but the back straps are hard to beat. Elk mixed with prong for sausages is the ticket!
All of the Antelope I have eaten have been in the sage brush and any one who doesn't like it is doing some thing wrong!!I would like to actually see how the people who say it isn't good Have taken care of it! They are basically a goat and I have never had a bad goat but they have been butchered by some one who knows what they are doing!
I take my antelope burger (pure) to various BBQs and lots of people with little exposure to game meat. Consistently, the antelope burgers are GONE and beef is left over with no complaints. I've heard the "antelope meat is crap" line even from locals in MT where I took my first, but I just don't get it. It's a mild meat and actually more approachable than corn fed venison IMHO.
jepp2
Gold $$ Contributor
I'm another one that really enjoys antelope. I have killed them on alfalfa sections and those that have lived on sage. No difference in taste. What does make a difference on wild game meat:
- kill it quickly
- don't contaminate the meat with dirt, hair, digestive juices, etc.
- chill the meat as quickly as possible
- only cook it until it is still pink and moist in the middle
The way I hunt deer and antelope is to skin and quarter them where they hit the ground. Quarters, loins, neck meat and tenders go into game bags. I put the game bags in coolers and completely cover in ice. Drain the liquid frequently until the meat is chilled. Takes me about 45 minutes to have them in game bags from the time they hit the ground.
- kill it quickly
- don't contaminate the meat with dirt, hair, digestive juices, etc.
- chill the meat as quickly as possible
- only cook it until it is still pink and moist in the middle
The way I hunt deer and antelope is to skin and quarter them where they hit the ground. Quarters, loins, neck meat and tenders go into game bags. I put the game bags in coolers and completely cover in ice. Drain the liquid frequently until the meat is chilled. Takes me about 45 minutes to have them in game bags from the time they hit the ground.
jds holler
Gold $$ Contributor
I just expect different species to taste different -- and they do. Consider the difference between beef, pork, duck, chicken, and whatever. It would be a pretty boring situation if all meat tasted the same.
Every type of meat has a few "best ways" of cooking, and I'll bet that I can find it for anything that runs, flies, hops, crawls, slithers or swims.
I like jerky and pepperoni as well as anyone, but taking a complete pronghorn and converting all that good meat into that is just crazy.
A lot of good wild meat gets ruined by folks who think that it must be cooked to death because it's "wild". If you simply must do this, stick it in the oven with a couple cans of mushroom soup and cook it to pieces. At least it will be moist and edible, and decent tasting. jd
Every type of meat has a few "best ways" of cooking, and I'll bet that I can find it for anything that runs, flies, hops, crawls, slithers or swims.
I like jerky and pepperoni as well as anyone, but taking a complete pronghorn and converting all that good meat into that is just crazy.
A lot of good wild meat gets ruined by folks who think that it must be cooked to death because it's "wild". If you simply must do this, stick it in the oven with a couple cans of mushroom soup and cook it to pieces. At least it will be moist and edible, and decent tasting. jd
When I shoot my first it was around Chalis Idaho and I went hunting with my girlfriend and her father, My girlfriend and me had the tags that we had drawn! Well her father said that if you kill it you have to eat it!!! He had lived there his whole life had never ate any as he had been told it was uneatable! Well we shot two close together and we took them back to the house which was only minutes away!! We had them skinned and not quartered and hanging in cold storage all with in 30 minutes of killing them. The stayed in the cold storage over night and we left the next day and wrapped them up to keep them cold for the trip home. Once we got them home we hung them up in the garage for about 3days and then cut them up and packaged it up! and then in the freezer! Well several months went by and my girlfriends father came down to visit and I had some left overs that I had cooked in a dutch oven with minimal spices. We he found the left overs and eat them all up saying how good it was and he could have been eating them all along when times were lean!! He said how he had always been told they didn't taste good! Now he is a convert saying how much he loves it!!!! So I cringe when I hear of people feeding it to there dog! So there you go. ron
Here's the deal:
Not everyone's taste buds work the same.
Anyone recall sticking PTC paper in their mouth during grade school science class? To most people it tastes very bitter but a certain percentage of people taste nothing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylthiocarbamide
Why do some people love cilantro while others say it tastes like soap? Same deal. Personally, I don't understand how anyone can get excited about eating liver but maybe they can't taste or smell the same rotten, putrid devil's ass that I can.
Not everyone's taste buds work the same.
Anyone recall sticking PTC paper in their mouth during grade school science class? To most people it tastes very bitter but a certain percentage of people taste nothing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylthiocarbamide
Why do some people love cilantro while others say it tastes like soap? Same deal. Personally, I don't understand how anyone can get excited about eating liver but maybe they can't taste or smell the same rotten, putrid devil's ass that I can.
A lot of it comes down to how you hunt 'em. Some people run a herd with a truck and shoot one ten or twelve times when they stop running, then complain that it tastes strong and gamey. Doh! Others try to shoot their pronghorn at longer ranges every year, hitting one vaguely in the torso region from 900 yards with a .338 Lapua, then can't figure out why their pronghorn are never tasty. If you shoot a relaxed pronghorn in the heart/lung area and take care of it right, there's no reason it wouldn't be tasty.
No, it won't taste exactly like a deer- it's not a deer. It's not a goat or an antelope either, really. The closest relative they have is the Saiga of the Mongolian steppes. They are a super-specialized speed critter, therefore the muscles will be denser, darker, and less marbled than venison, which is pretty much non-marbled already, and very prone to drying out if you try to cook them like beef.
Hair and fat are the enemy when you are butchering. It takes very little of either to ruin a package of meat. I generally spend at least as much time picking hair and peeling fat as I do butchering, and the results are worth it.
No, it won't taste exactly like a deer- it's not a deer. It's not a goat or an antelope either, really. The closest relative they have is the Saiga of the Mongolian steppes. They are a super-specialized speed critter, therefore the muscles will be denser, darker, and less marbled than venison, which is pretty much non-marbled already, and very prone to drying out if you try to cook them like beef.
Hair and fat are the enemy when you are butchering. It takes very little of either to ruin a package of meat. I generally spend at least as much time picking hair and peeling fat as I do butchering, and the results are worth it.
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