Exotic Animal Meat in Texas!! Is This LEGAL?

there's a couple more things i want to try here there's duck breast and something he calls pork butter i don't what do i do what do i do [Applause] in the usa nearly all animal protein consumption comes from beef that smells like christmas morning pork what kind of stuff and chicken oh my god he said the full chicken might be too much but i don't think so you can do a lot with those three but i say it's not enough today i'm on a mission to uncover this country's small but growing exotic meat addiction oh there's a deer there's a big one right over there huh i'm traveling to texas where you can find ranchers trading meat you never knew existed in the usa so i know later today we're going to be trying antelope raw i'm also sinking my teeth into the world of aged meats like this a cut that's been aging for over two years wow the smell what is it it all starts right here steve here we are we're doing it made it today i'm with chef steve mccues he's the founder of the restaurant cured an upscale joint with some exotic offerings you might not expect to find at a high-end restaurant some of his more notable menu items start here and this is no ordinary ranch for chefs this is like a mecca of sorts it's a very famous place where we get gorgeous wild boar venison and quail in these 800 acres of natural rolling terrain the animals roam freely they eat what they want they go where they want they're undisturbed and nearly impossible to round up for filming unless you bump into them at just the right moment it looks brawny and tough it's kind of staring us down like we're the ones who are supposed to leave [Music] in a state that ranks first in the number of farms and ranches broken arrow stands out for a reason this is where the local exotic meat industry began and no one can tell that story better than chris hughes the second generation owner of this ranch well hey there hi there it's my interview style did you grow up here i did grow up here it's really an ideal place where's this place started my parents bought it back in 77. kind of semi-retired basically looked for the next phase of his life out here chris's father mike hughes recognized the large numbers of exotic species overgrazing ranch lands in texas this is unsustainable for both the environment and the animals so he worked with federal agencies to develop the first laws that allowed exotic meat trading how many different species do you have here out here on the ranch we have the whitetail axis deer the psycha the silk which are saika and elk crossed together and the fallow deer but we don't harvest just on our property we work with about 30 different ranches around the state that have an overpopulation of deer so we're actually going out doing population management today chris and his team harvest on over 1 million combined acres and offer a long list of game meat products including black buck antelope and our first course today the meal guy antelope what we're gonna do today with this is make a paris parisa is often compared to steak tartare which means this antelope meat will be eaten raw hit so what we have here is a antelope leg fillet as a working muscle it's got more flavor than a loin we're gonna chop this up real small it's gonna be a nice flavorful tender bit this recipe is the result of the spanish mexican and german influence in texas how did it come to be that people here locally could eat antelope and eat illegally i mean i'm from minnesota if you shoot a deer you can't even sell that meat and the difference comes to native species versus non-native species back in the 1930s ranchers started bringing in animals from africa asia middle east now there's about 230 different species of non-native animals roaming around texas because they're not native they're classified as livestock the nilgai antelope we're about to try originated in india antelope meat is loved for its mild flavor and it's extremely low fat content got it completely chopped down just go ahead and add a little bit of the salt a little bit of the pepper mix it in crisp continues with shallots jalapenos and a generous portion of queso fresco for a little mexican flair finish with wild chili bikini oil and lime juice the acid from the lime is supposed to kill any bacteria and make it safe to eat i hope it works gentlemen this looks amazing thanks hey we have beer absolutely look at that cheers i meant to cheers but yeah yeah okay we'll get cheers cheers let's try it out we got spoons and we have ritz crackers so how do you know that your lime is high powered enough to kill all the bacteria well we're gonna find out tomorrow oh yeah that's a real dynamic taste it starts real gentle and there's some fresh aromatic herbs nice seasoning and then the heat just creeps up after you can tell there's different chilies in there because it's hitting different parts of your mouth traditionally this is made with the american cheese or cheddar cheese but i like a little bit of the queso fresco because it's a little more saltiness and that antelope being so lean needs that salt to help carry everything through the cheese doesn't seem like it is out of place at all and you know the ritz cracker it can be in a lunchable and it can also hold this rare indian creature that we're eating raw you've got an argument on ritz versus saltine some people argue saltines are awful that's hospital food wild game dining is not relegated to hunters and countryside folk in fact 95 of broken arrow ranch's customers are fine dining destinations over 100 restaurants nationwide the meat is cherished for its complex wild flavor that can't be replicated on a farm or a feedlot but to preserve that flavor you must harvest [Music] harvesting here brings together elements of hunting and large-scale meat processing imagine a whole butchery from kill to chill packed into a trailer this is a mobile processing unit it's essential for what ranchers call field harvesting we don't capture the animals we take our mobile processing trailer out to the ranch looking for animals to harvest they paraphrase they just shoot them we're shooting them at distances from 50 to 200 yards away the animal's out in the field and then next thing you know it slides out chris takes his rolling butchery to other ranching partners with large exotic animal populations the animals get to roam free and we get one of the most unique dining experiences you'll find in this country like this axis venison rack of ribs some folks avoid venison because it can be so dry but maybe those people just weren't treating it right start off with a little bit of olive oil on both sides it's a very lean meat so you need a little bit of that oil to kind of help all the seasonings stick pretty healthy dose of salt because it doesn't have fat it needs a lot of salt to help carry the flavors next chris gives a twist of flavor with some pepper chili powder and to my surprise cacao powder and cinnamon so this is a very mild flavored venison very very sweet with just a little bit of gaminess so that gaminess is going to play nice with kind of the earthiness of the chili powder bitterness of the chocolate powder and the cinnamon just bringing a little bit of sweet to the party as well time to heat it up the rack of ribs is grilled until it reaches a nice mouth-watering brown hue [Music] for an extra hit of flavor a smattering of cilantro cream sauce i've had a lot of ribs wait no i've only had pork ribs and beef ribs and goat and lamb and fish so this is actually the eye of the loin runs down the back and then some of the ribs it's going to be a very mild flavored venison it's not going to be super gamey but you're going to have just a little touch of game on the bottom of the flavor profile let's try it out this is remarkable it's so soft and tender and easy to chew through when you look at the raw form of these ribs you don't see any fat striations at all but it's so tender this is from the axis deer actually these are both from india tropical species that's why they're all they're all so lean are they going to meet together again together again at the table really good that's the best part right there a lot of people will like to french take all this stuff off yeah but i think that's just a sin there's a little bit of gaminess but just a hint and it's a unique type of gaminess i've not experienced in any other animal it's hard to put my finger on it but it's really enjoyable exquisite flavors and even more remarkable texture to achieve this level of tenderness the meat undergoes a dry aging process dry aging means it's hung up in a temperature and humidity controlled room for a given duration the goal is really tenderization and developing those flavors as you're allowing the enzymes to work in that muscle break down that connective tissue that's going to make that meat that tender oh i thought you're gonna talk for 10 more seconds long when it comes to aging steve is a virtuoso at his restaurant heward he dry ages a range of proteins from two days to two years so i think we should head there next and give me a little bit of a tour sounds great you have to stay here there's not room in the car i'm sorry cured it took 14 months to turn this space inside the 100 year old pearls administration building into this sleek fine dining restaurant you see now the name cured can you tell me a little bit about the meaning behind that we wanted to do a lot of caring we wanted to purchase whole animals to help our ranchers help our farmers and just very time i was coming off of treatment for lymphoma and a friend of mine said hey you should call it cured it really rung true when you step foot through their front door you're immediately greeted by a glass refrigerator housing numerous cuts of meat at various periods in their dry aging journey a pleasure to finally be in your restaurant that nature stuff was great but uh i prefer air conditioning so this is your dry aging closet what temperature do you keep this at about 60 degrees that's like what i sleep at so temperature of ovarian the colder the case will be the longer it's going to take to cure because everything's based on weight we will adjust this based on what's going on outside because our compressor for this thing is pulling air outside and pushing it in so certain times of the year we might adjust it down if it's super hot outside if it's super cold outside we adjust it the practice of curing and aging meat is as old as civilization dry aging is intended to transform texture and flavor but curing involves salt or nitrates that preserve the meat for a long time here steve plays with both techniques and he creates some real jaw-dropping works you know as i open it you can smell the good bacteria the funk that we associate with charcuterie why is he called good bacteria why do you have to put good in front of it so when i say good bacteria i'm looking for these white molds anything that's green or black or blue that's bad we want beneficial molds that are going to help with the curing process get these things losing moisture and converting those fats have you ever had too much bad bacteria on here what do you do in that case if you get ahead of it you can always clean it with a little grain alcohol or vodka if you have a bunch of it you're better off just throwing it out and starting over i usually clean my insides with vodka does it work the same yeah for safety reasons the outer layer is removed before preparing and serving any of these dry aged products if you can't commit to just one cut you can try a load all at once with a charcuterie board the charcuterie board as i call it the shardboard oh that doesn't sound good at all let's stick with charcuterie imagine a cheeseboard now replace the cheese with paper thin slices of various dry aged meats there's so many different interesting foods on this plate here this is two-year-old ham we're gonna build up to that over here this is the pork belly the nine month aged pork belly that i was holding earlier it is like a break you can lay enough of these down and make a house now sliced up into this it's just like a fat ribbon it's greasy it smells like an old classroom it's very satisfying the fat kind of just melts as you chew it so it's breaking down but just the heat of your mouth alone starts to break it down too and the fat just coats your mouth that's a really interesting one right here this is the brisola frisola originating in italy is made from salted beef that's been aged for 30 to 45 days this is what my wife thinks my heart looks like one of my favorite things to cure is beef beef structurally is so different because pork has all its fat around its muscles right beef has its intramuscular fat inside and so it actually cures so much quicker creates this really beautiful pellicle on the outside but inside it's really soft that's delicious it's equal parts meaty fatty it's super salty he said it was beautiful i think he looks at it and he thinks about this taste it tastes amazing there's a couple more things i want to try here there's duck breast and something he calls pork butter oh my god imagine giving this to your five-year-old and you're like it's whipped cream it's not whipped cream what do i do what do i do i need a grape that is so intense pork butter it's like lard but better i guess pork fat is rendered and whipped until it reaches the fluffiness of whipped cream let me try putting it on a piece of toast and let me even try mixing it with one of their sweet jams love it when you mix it with something sweet it mellows out the flavors it's really nice actually it's still rich but it blends with everything else don't eat it plate you're not supposed to eat regular butter plate i do but you're not supposed to here duck breast i've had duck breast that's been dry aged for three weeks oh smell that smell that [Music] oh yes this is like stinky tofu but this has only been aged for 12 hours for me i don't usually call that aging i would call it like i forgot to put it in the refrigerator or something like that after this very brief aging period the breast is smoked for two hours and sliced into what they call a duck ham it's really soft i thought for a second that this was like raw duck breast or something because it has that kind of opaque raw looking chicken breast look to it [Music] wow regardless of how it looks the taste is just like a really soft oily delicious ham like the best ham you've ever had i'm building up to this right here the pig that is two years old this meat collectively could be older than my youtube channel looking at this almost transparent pork shaving no one would think it started out like this oh look at that that is quite an ass so this is heavy all the flexibility's gone out of it it's just super tight and dense and these pigs when they come in they're anywhere between 280 to 360 pounds for an entire animal to lose 30 percent of that weight it takes at least 12 months if not long but we like to go two years with the hams and get a really hard product and then we slice by hand [Music] wow the smell what is it it's a little gamey it smells like an old wood barn a sweater and chick feed at the same time [Music] that's a pig with character not soft and tender much more crunchy instead of oily it's kind of a sticky residue left in your mouth at the very very back there's a little bit of a punky flavor to it but overall i like it i think it's a very good story if you brought someone here you had them try the pig just don't even tell them what it is and then mention to them that is two-year-old meat that's not any candy getting a little taste is nice but i'm ready to really sink my teeth into our final course dry aged wagyu ribeye [Music] these are the beautiful ribeyes from the wagyu cattle and these we will slice them after 45 days cut them into steaks and grill them this feels so weird so how old is this one that's pretty close to 45 actually i think that one's ready to be cut he starts by removing the tough hard dehydrated outer layer i like 45 i feel like you still eat some chews like a steak and you've got some good funk but it's not like eating a big old gorgonzola steak next the meat is separated from the bones this is wagyu yes like from japan american wagyu so it's raised here in texas uh there's no way they would let that dna get out of the country [Music] once the cut is retrieved from the rack it's seasoned lightly with salt and pepper and it hits the pan sear until it's formed a crust gently elevate the flavor with thyme rosemary and a hearty dose of butter continue cooking until medium rare [Applause] oh yeah this is looking good very simple straightforward preparation let me take a bite mmm it has so much flavor just from the beef itself a little bit of salt to bring out even more flavor and that's all you need it's simple it's straightforward and it's a type of steak where you would feel zero temptation to put any sauce on it the color is just different the consistency is just different from steaks that haven't been dry aged this is pure fat that's why the color is a little different here's the protein and you can see that's pretty much rare to medium rare but what's interesting is usually a rare steak can be kind of gummy because it just doesn't have any body to it but when you dry age it that makes all the difference it's like the meat becomes a little bit more dense but not tough it's like how eating an abalone just a different type of texture but a very satisfying texture i'm curious if you took real japanese wagyu and tried to dry age it what would happen but the reality is what a lot of people don't know is that what they're eating in japan is never gonna make its way here in the form of live cat eventually if they want real wagyu in the usa they're gonna have to take a steak and do some jurassic park stuff to it and recreate a beef azore america is just so obsessed with chicken pork beef but there's so much more that can be done with other types of animals which we saw earlier today and that includes dry aging i highly recommend try it push your palate this was incredible the whole day was incredible for me it's an honor to hang out with these gentlemen here in texas to learn a little bit more about texas and how things work here and to get to try even more of their food [Music] best ever food review show is a small team of independent creators and everything we do here works because of you guys click the link in our description to join our patreon and receive exclusive benefits of peace it's a cross between a sika and an elk right like a silk this is good clean water should we do a tasting scene well let me wash my hand downstream and then you go upstream all right there's some bugs in there that's protein so i understand a ranch that has a bunch of cattle and then it's time to slaughter the cattle you bring a bell or something they're like oh it's dinner time and then you're like sorry it's it's our dinner time so this is actually from india do you think maybe it started in africa and moved to india well it depends on your biblical viewpoint oh like it might have taken a boat versus a plane did you learn a lot today i did i learned that you could eat an antelope in texas i learned that deer ribs can be incredibly delicious and tender and not dry i was hoping i would learn something about humanity and bringing people together oh no i had a really good steak at the end too i hope you guys learned a lot too but as for me that's it for this one thank you so much for watching i will see you next time a peace i only walk to here

Channel: Best Ever Food Review Show

Views: 1,658,906

Keywords: best ever food review show, befrs team, sonny side, america, north america food, usa, the united state, texas food, where to eat in dallas, BestEverUSATour, texans are insane, wild meat, raw african meat, EXOTIC Animal, Addiction in the USA, ANTELOPE TARTARE, RACK OF VENISON RIBS, DRY AGED RIBEYE, Dry aged meat, duck, pork fat, ham

Id: LqNh0LhKDcs

Length: 18min 36sec (1116 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 14 2021