The Deerslayer's Wife
Embracing the Hunting Lifestyle
Venison/Wild Pork Picadillo
Picadillo (peek-u-dee-yo) is a traditional savory Mexican dish that is easy to make and loved by all. It is what people think of as the usual filling for tacos, flavorful ground meat with tomatoes, onions, garlic, comino (cumin), beef stock, and sometimes potatoes. I really love this recipe because it uses stuff that I always have around the kitchen. It’s a relatively forgiving recipe in that it lends itself to substitutions nicely. In essence, it’s nicely seasoned ground meat to be used primarily in tacos. There are purists, I’m sure, who reel at the thought of leaving out any of the traditional ingredients. Let’s be realistic, though. We must use good judgement and adjust all recipes with our loved ones in mind. Well-seasoned ground venison and/or wild pork with some fresh corn tortillas or tostada shells, avocado, tomatoes, cilandro, and a nice cheese will bring love and admiration from any deerslayer family. That said, let’s begin:
Picadillo
1 lb. ground venison/wild pork mix (or just plain venison)
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 or 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
a glug of olive oil
1 tsp. comino (cumin)
1 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. salt
approx. 32 oz. beef stock
1 red potato, cubed
1 cup (or thereabouts) petite diced tomatoes
In a large cast iron skillet, saute onion in olive oil for a couple of minutes. Add garlic and stir until fragrant. Add ground meat. Season with comino, salt, and pepper. Cook on medium high heat until well browned.
Add potato and canned tomatoes.
Add enough beef stock to cover and simmer until potato is cooked through and liquid is reduced.
Use your imagination. Add picadillo to tacos, use as a filling for enchiladas, sprinkle it over taco salad. Eat it out of a bowl! Just know that it will be good and good for you, too.
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The Deerslayer's Wife 
Mmmmm! We are leaving for an 11 day hunting trip tomorrow & I promise I’ll be trying this! Thanks for posting 🙂
Some place cool, I hope! Enjoy. Let me know how the recipe turns out!
Love this..and your blog! Bow season is underway….time to stock the freezer!
YOU BET! Don’t forget…. label, label, label.
This, along with all the others looks great. Do you ever premix the wild piggy with the venison before you freeze the ground packages or do you keep them separate? If you mix them together, what’s your favorite ratio of pork to venison?
This year the ratio was determined by the number of piggies. We did a little bit of just venison; about five pounds, in one lb. packages, about eight pounds of just pork, since I use it for breakfast sausage and the rest was a 50/50 ratio, for a total of about 65 pounds. I really liked the mix and used just about all of it up in time for hunting season. I literally have only about five one-pound packages left. I really enjoyed having the depth of flavor that the pork brought to the mix. I’m gonna try to do the same this year. I really dig the wild pork!
Awesome I just found the instructions “cook all day venison”
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