What's For Dinner: Porkelope Burgers

[D busy at work making ground meat for burgers]

So, let's face it, antelope is not the tastiest of meats. This probably has to do with the high amount of sage in their diet. So, following this year's antelope hunt, D had most of the meat processed into chorizo and breakfast sausage, but also saved several pounds to be made into burger at home. Because antelope is such a lean meat, we procured some pork fat from one of D's colleagues who also happens to naturally raise cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats. (They also supplied the delicious pork our caterers used to make into pulled-pork sandwiches for our wedding rehearsal dinner last fall.) The Kitchenaid mixer was put into use to make the ground meat with the help of the meat grinder/pasta maker attachment. First D ground up the antelope meat, then he ground up the pork fat, and finally to make the burger meat, he ground together a mixture of the antelope (~90%) and pork fat (~10%) together. We then used our handy vacuum sealer to seal up packages of the meat for the freezer. We kept out one package, and had a dinner of porkelope (a term which deserves all its credit to my Dad) burgers. The porkelope burgers turned out great -- garnished with a little spinach and goat cheese -- we found them to be just as satisfying as any red meat burger.

[Porkelope burger served alongside sweet potato chips

and roasted zucchini and yellow squash]