The Next Battle – Bison Stroganoff

With all the big meat done in a night of pure Bison Bliss, it was time to see what other things this quarter of a bison had to offer. One of the things that looked interesting was a bag of sliced bison labelled “stir fry”. Since simply following the direction that the bag was leading me in was not an option, I decided to find something more interesting to treat these tender morsels of bison to. I decided that we were going to head to Russia on this bison battle…

Beef Stroganoff or Beef Stroganov as it is known in Russian, is a classic dish made with sauteed beef served in a sauce made with sour cream. I don’t know what Bison is in Russian, but today we make Bison Stroganov comrade!

Tender pieces of bison were slowly cooked in a mixture of mushrooms, onions, beef stock and wine. It’s seasoned with salt and pepper, dijon mustard, baby dill and finished off with a few dabs of sour cream in the last few minutes before serving.

After this savoury mixture thickens, it is then served on top of a bed of buttered egg noodles and garnished with some freshly chopped parsley. Eat up comrade!

An Epic Battle With Bison…

Here are some of the visuals from an EPIC BATTLE that I had brewing with bison last night. Although I’ve had other bison battles, this one was the biggest one yet. A good chunk of that quarter of the animal that I procured would be put to good use this evening. My test kitchen guinea pigs would be members of CrossFit Vancouver.

Here we’ve got a bison roast going into the slow cooker with carrots, onions, celery, port and tons of brown mushrooms. The beast was heavily marinated in spices and beer before taking this long slow bath.

Next, we’ve got a bison brisket in a red wine and crushed tomato sauce. This is going to be wicked. I actually test kitchened this particular recipe with a roast, but you really do need the extra fat content of this cut of meet to make it successful. Bison was pre-marinated overnight with thyme, garlic, oregano and copious amounts of olive oil and garlic with salt and pepper.

Finally, meatball of all sorts made from bison were concocted. In total, there are three kinds here. As soon as I recover from my wine and bison hangover, I’ll look for my camera and hopefully find more pictures.

Dot Com Dinner Chef – Battling Bison

During the last battle, I mentioned that a quarter of a bison wandered into my freezer. Ever since, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with it. I decided to try a couple of simple things…

First thing I did, was do a simple pan fried bison steak. I just wanted to see how this meat cooked and just treated it like any steak. Seasoned with a bit of salt and pepper, I let it hit the grill. That was a bit of a mistake. First thing I noticed was that it cooked extremely fast. Quite a bit faster than beef due to the low fat content. In fact, it cooked so fast that I almost took my medium rare to well done. You can see that some of the cuts of meat looked more done than the other half. Oops. It was still good though, but one side was a little tougher than the other. Definitely still tasty.

I tried again the next day and used a little less heat. After searing the first side for about thirty seconds, I flipped it over and turned the heat to low. I then let it cook till it was medium rare by touch. I then removed the meat from the heat and let it rest. The bison steak turned out evenly cooked to medium rare and was very tender and juicy. Followed by a side of greens and some yam fries, it kept me quite full throughout the GetConnected Party. It was probably one of the best steaks that I’d had in a while.

With a quarter of this beast inhabiting my freezer, I’m definitely going to enjoy this meat many more times in the coming months. I think I’m going to have to defrost that bison roast for a bit of slow cooking action this weekend.