Venison Chili Failure

I feel that it is my culinary responsibility to post when I have been a kitchen failure.  Hey, we're all humans, right?  Except my son, he's a yeti.

My dear friend, whom I will here after refer to as the Deer Slayer, gave us a huge supply of venison (deer meat to all of you city folk).  Unfortunately, due to being pregnant and having a newborn during deer season, I was unable to obtain my own supply.  I excitedly began my search for a delicious venison chili recipe and decided on one from The Food Network by Emeril.  His recipe called for solid meat, cut up, but I wasn't going to waste my steaks and back straps on chili, I was planning on using ground meat.

For those of you who don't know, venison is EXTREMELY lean.  It is imperative not to over cook it or it becomes dry, tough, and tallowy.

Soooo, other than the substitution of ground meat, I followed the recipe exactly.  I was salivating at the thought of eating my first serving of delicious side hill beef in about a year.  Venison was actually the first meal my dear Red cooked for me (which we later found out was moose, not venison, but hey, its all good).  The verdict?  It sucked.  First of all, it was so spicy, it masked any flavor of the meat, wine, or anything else for that matter.  A tablespoon of chili powder is overkill.  That is a few too many Bams for me.  I love spicy food.  I haven't found anything too spicy for me to conquer.  Always a few popsicles in the freezer to, uh, wipe with the next day.  However, I still like food to have flavor.  Also, the recipe was very dry, I like a chili that is saucier.

I have made some of Emeril's recipes in the past and thought they were great, but this one is definitely not going in the box.  Hormel would have been a better substitution.  Wish me luck in my next venison endeavor.  I have posted the link to the recipe below, if anyone is curious.

Venison Chili