Venison question

I just got a Roe Doe 3.5 /4 years old is the hunters guess It's already split into legs and back (I have it because he ran out of freezer space) at that age how tough is the wee girl likely to be?
I've pulled one foreleg out of the freezer and will have a go at a stew with it tomorrow, it weighs about 2.5lb with the bones I'm thinking that I can see how long it takes to get tender and make a guess at how long I will need to cook the rest of the animal. I'm hoping to do something nice with the back legs for a party we are having in a month and a half, but since it's July stew is not going to be popular.

I'm no expert, but most wild game meats are extremely lean. This means they dry out and get tough/stringy very easily. Not ideal on the barbecue. The recipes I have seen call for a long marinate and cooking in a moist environment.

If the stew is good, nobody will complain. I surely wouldn't.

We can all of our venison.  If you want it to be tender with no game taste, you can't beat canning it.  It's delicious.  You can serve it any way you would serve beef.

For making stew, the slow cooker (crock pot) is the way I like best.

If you have access to a grinder, just make it into hamburgers and grill it. That was what I did with some venison I got a few years back, and it turned out great. I tried to grill some of the loin cuts, and it was like trying to eat the sidewall of a tire. A little motorized grinder can be had for like 150$, and it will make delicious meals out the toughest meat you can find.

We used to do a lot of smoked sausage with venison as the primary meat, and some pork ground into it. The pork gave it the fat content to stay moist. The sausage was awesome; and extra ground meat was frozen into patties that were simply gorgeous in a frying pan.

The location of the cut is a major factor in tenderness.  The backstraps/tenderloins will probably be tender.  The hams may be.  Shanks and neck meat almost always require slow cooking/grinding.

If you think it's tough, I would also suggest grinding it. Ground, I've used it in spaghetti sauce, enchiladas, and chili. For burgers, I add some grated cheese mixed in to give it that bit of fat that makes a better burger.

For stew, I use an electric slow cooker, so if it's hot, I put it out on the front porch so the house stays cool. If I did it in a Pulled Port sort of sauce, I would just serve it on buns with a salad so it seemed more "summery".

Hi, you can also make jerky as an appetizer. There are also some jerky summer meal recipes.

We have whitetail deer in Ohio. My mother-in-law taught me to cook them with onion to address any gaminess. We usually take the tenderloin out and cook it separately (pan fried cutlets to brown it, then turn the heat down low and cover the meat in sour cream and onions and mushrooms until done is my husband's favorite); even older bucks are good this way. The rest is either made into jerky or ground. We found an attachment to put on the grinder to make patties. I go ahead and add onions and seasonings to the ground meat as we are making the patties, so it is really easy to take a couple from the freezer and cook them later.

If you grind it, definitely add some fatty pork or just pork fat. Two things that I have done with ground venison are chili or bolognese pasta sauce. Both are great for large groups.

I am not sure what a Roe Doe is so I assume a Roe is the kind of deer you have where you live.

Usually, doe meat is much more tender than a buck.  

If this were my meat, I would cut the meat off the bone and either grind it or cut in 1" cubes.

I cook deer meat just like I cook any piece of beef.

If I were making a stew and thought the meat might not be tender I would cook just the meat and sauce until the meat was how tender I want then add the veggies and finish cooking.

when making burgers out of ground venison, even the meat from older animals taste good when natural unsweetened yoghurt is added to the mince to help bind it. Yoghurt also tenderises the meat and is a key ingredient in indian recipes as a marinade mixed with spices prior to cooking. It is used to marinate goat, another lean wild meat, as is duck.