Venison Tenderloins

Fourth of July Thursday. The annual escape from fireworks. I had not been sure Patrick would make it this year — his right hip has been bad since spring — but Monday at breakfast he said, looking at his coffee not at me, that he wanted to go. So we go. Mom packed the truck with food and pillows and Patrick's medications and his shower chair and the camp chair with the high back and the cane and the walker because he wanted everything and would use what he needed. I packed the cookware and the cooler and the elk steaks and the firewood and the sleeping bags. We left Wednesday afternoon for the Crazies — three hours of two-lane road through grass country going green-gold in the early heat, the Crazies rising out of the plain ahead like a place a man might disappear into and not be missed.

We camped at the spot we have used for ten years. A meadow at seven thousand feet with a creek through it and a fire ring built up by years of campers and the wall of the mountains at our back. Patrick walked from the truck to the camp chair with his cane and Mom on his arm and I set up the chair under the lone Engelmann spruce that gives a circle of shade when the sun is high and that was where he sat for most of three days. He read a paperback he had read four times before. He napped. He watched the creek. He ate what Mom made and what I cooked. He did not, at any point, say much, but he was there, and being there was the whole point of going.

I cooked elk steaks Wednesday night over the fire. The last of last year's tenderloins. Marinade of olive oil, garlic, juniper berries crushed with the back of a knife, a little soy sauce because soy sauce in a marinade is a thing nobody admits to and everybody does. Hot fire built down to coals. Steaks on a grate three inches above the coals for two minutes a side. Pulled, rested under a tea towel for ten minutes, sliced thin against the grain. Mom had made flatbreads on the cast iron earlier and we wrapped the elk in flatbread with a smear of yogurt and some greens she had brought from her garden. Patrick ate two. Patrick ate two of anything is a metric. He ate two and the firelight moved across his face and the tremor in his hands quieted the way it does sometimes for reasons nobody can explain, and he looked at me across the fire and said, You can cook. Two words. Coming from him, the entire body of accumulated meaning of fifty years of food. I went outside the firelight to take a leak and to not have anyone see my face. The Crazies do not care about my face. The Crazies have seen worse.

Fireworks Thursday night were a faint flicker on the eastern horizon — Big Timber doing its show, far away, harmless from this distance. I built the fire up and we sat around it. I cooked trout I had caught in the creek that afternoon with a pan over the coals — three small cutthroat, pan-fried in butter with a lemon slice and a sprig of thyme, eaten with my fingers off a tin plate. Mom said the trout was the best thing she had eaten in a year. I told her she said that every Fourth. She said it was true every Fourth. Patrick laughed once — a short, dry laugh, almost a cough, but a laugh — and that was the whole of his contribution to the conversation that day, and it was enough.

Friday I packed up. We drove back slow because Patrick was tired in his bones and the road took him hard. Mom drove the last hour because I was tired too. We pulled in at sundown and Mom helped Patrick to his chair on the porch and I unloaded the truck in the dusk and the swallows came in and the bats came out and the ranch was the same ranch we had left and also a different ranch because we were three days older and Patrick had eaten elk by a fire in the Crazies and the year was halved and the back half of it was coming whether we were ready or not.

I called Linda Owens Friday night. We talked for fifteen minutes. She asked if I had been out to the Crazies and I said yes and she said good, good, you keep going, and I said I planned to. She is sixty-five. Derek would have been twenty-nine. The math will never stop being strange. I told her about Patrick eating the elk and about him saying You can cook and her voice got quiet on the line and she said, Ryan, hold onto that. I am, I told her. I am.

The tenderloins I cooked that Wednesday night were the last of last year’s elk, and I knew going into the trip that I wanted to use them there — not at home, not on a weeknight, but over coals in the Crazies with the people who deserved them. Venison tenderloins cook the same way whether they come from elk or deer: fast heat, short rest, sliced thin. What changes is who you’re feeding and what the night around the fire means. That night, with Patrick eating two and the firelight doing what firelight does, the recipe stopped being a recipe and became something I’ll be turning over for the rest of my life.

Prep Time: 20 min (plus 2–4 hrs marinating) | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 30 min active | Servings: 4

Ingredients

2 venison tenderloins (or elk tenderloins), about 1 lb total, silver skin removed
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
6 juniper berries, crushed with the back of a knife
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, coarsely ground
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary, crumbled
Flatbreads and plain yogurt, for serving (optional)
Fresh greens, for serving (optional)

Instructions

Marinate. Whisk together olive oil, garlic, crushed juniper berries, soy sauce, salt, pepper, and rosemary in a shallow dish or zip-lock bag. Add the tenderloins and turn to coat. Marinate in the refrigerator (or a cold cooler) for at least 2 hours, up to 4.
Build your fire. Build a good wood fire and let it burn down to a solid bed of glowing coals — you want heat without flame. Position a grate about 3 inches above the coals. If cooking at home, a charcoal grill works well; a gas grill on high is a fair substitute.
Grill. Remove tenderloins from the marinade and shake off excess. Lay them directly on the grate over the coals. Cook 2 to 3 minutes per side, turning once, until the exterior is deeply seared and the internal temperature reads 130–135°F for medium-rare. Do not overcook — venison dries out fast past medium.
Rest. Pull the tenderloins from the heat and lay them on a clean plate or cutting board. Drape loosely with a cloth or foil and rest for 8 to 10 minutes. This is not optional — the rest is where the meat finishes and the juices settle.
Slice and serve. Slice thin on the bias, cutting against the grain. Serve as-is or wrapped in warm flatbread with a smear of yogurt and fresh greens. Eat by firelight when possible.

Nutrition (per serving)

Venison Tenderloins — The Last of Last Year’s Best