My husband got to go caribou hunting this winter for the first time in his life, and for the first time since we have been married I have an ample supply of this wonderful meat in the freezer. It had been several years since I had a freezer with more than one or two packages of caribou meat, and I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it.
I've always preferred fresh, wild meat and seafood to the stuff in stores. It just seems like it's healthier and with all the food recalls in the news, it probably is. Wild game doesn't have antibiotics and hormones in it. The animals eat what nature intended for them to eat.
What I don't like is a real "gamey" taste to the meat. That's probably one of the best things about caribou. Caribou meat is lean, and doesn't have the marbling you find in beef. At first, that may sound as though the meat will be tough, but amazingly it is as tender as veal (or so I've heard... I will not eat veal.) I read somewhere it is because the meat is so finely grained.
With all game, you do not want to have fat on your meat. Preferably it should all be removed during processing. I like to trim off all visible fat before cooking game meat.
Caribou meat is extremely healthy. Nutritionists call caribou a nutrient-dense food. Caribou meat is low in fat but high in protein. See the comparison below, per 100gram (approximately 3.5 ounces) portion:
FAT Protein IRON
Caribou 1 gram 38 grams 6.2 mg
Beef 23 grams 17 grams 3.0 mg
Veal 12 grams 19 grams 2.5 mg
Chicken 13 grams 20 grams 1.0 mg
Pork 45 grams 12 grams 2.0 mg
Lamb 28 grams 16 grams 2.0 mg
The same meat portion roasted only has 167 calories, no carbohydrates, and no sugars and is very low in cholesterol. The different cuts of meat lend themselves to a variety of cooking methods. Steaks are best cooked fairly hot and fast, yet served rare to medium rare. Roasts can cook low and slow and are good everywhere from medium rare to well done (overcooking can make the meat tough though). Ground meat is exceptionally good in any dish you would use ground beef. The stews are excellent, and chunks of caribou are as good as the best beef on skewers with vegetables too.
I think he needs to go caribou hunting every year. Here's a photo of my babe and his "boo".
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