Meat!

[plonq]

One of the benefits of bison is also one of the pitfalls, that is, it is generally much leaner than beef. While this makes it arguably better for you, it also makes it a little tricky to cook since most recipes assume your meat will have a higher fat content. If you are not careful you can end up with a lump of dry, flavourless meat.

Here is some farm-fresh bison, sliced thin and mixed with a small amount of soy sauce and sesame oil. It ultimately went into a stir-fry with some baby bock choy (also fresh from the farm), onion, red pepper, bean sprouts, and sliced water chestnuts, carrots and celery. You can tell that the bison did not come from the grocery store because it is not a bright orange-red like the meats you typically see in the store.



Usually when I do up a stir-fry, I cook the meat, drain it and then dump in all of the vegetables and steam it all together for a bit before I add the sauce. This time I removed the meat after it was cooked, poured off the juices, and then stir-fried the vegetables by themselves. I added some fresh oil and tossed the onions until they were just starting to turn transparent around the edges, then I dumped in the carrots and celery. Once the carrots were showing preliminary signs of cooking I tossed in sliced red pepper and water chestnuts to heat up a bit. I stirred that for about a minute and finally added the bock choi, along with a couple of tablespoons of the stir-fry sauce.

Once it had cooked down a bit I poured in the bean sprouts and covered the wok to let it all steam for a couple of minutes. I poured off the excess moisture, added the meat back to the wok and cooked it all together again for about a minute. Finally I added the rice vermicelli and the rest of the sauce. I tossed everything over high heat until it was thoroughly mixed and pronounced it done.

Even though I had dumped off excess liquid more than once, the stir-fry still ended up a bit soupier than I'd have liked, but it was still pretty tasty in my humble opinion.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Have you guys tried a simple bison stew--with potatoes, carrots, onions and such? Slow cooked?

[plonq.livejournal.com]

Not yet, but I think that picking up bison at the market is going to become a fairly regular thing for us over the summer. I'll pick up some of the bison stew meat the next time we're down there.

[warheart.livejournal.com]

Wow when I saw that picture I thought it was stewed prunes or something!

[nrasser.livejournal.com]

You really know how to make someone hungry. :)

I really wish I could get bison at more eating places, I love the stuff.