| Moscow Food Co-op Recipes | |
Omnivoria:
Bison Revisited
by Alice Swan, from the January 2007 newsletter
I know it was not long ago, in this very column (under a different author) that the subject of bison came up, but the short, cold days of winter make me crave rich, hearty stews. I was recently the lucky consumer of just such a lovely stew made by my husband (who goes through amazing bouts of culinary creativity when a semester has recently ended) with some bison sirloin, conveniently pre-cut and packaged as ‘stew meat’ by the Co-op meat department. The stew was so good, and so seasonally appropriate, that I decided to revisit the topic, and add some more information about bison to that available in the previous article.
When we lived in Minneapolis, my husband conducted a community orchestra in the small town of Buffalo, Minnesota, and it was there that we first learned that buffalo is not actually the correct scientific term for the North American mammal here under consideration. In the community of Buffalo, as is generally true anywhere, the word buffalo is more or less interchangeable with the word bison. But to be pedantic, the scientific name of the species is Bison bison, so I will call it bison. I had an un-illustrious stint as a percussionist in the afore-mentioned orchestra (the main qualification was that I knew how to read music), and so I spent many Sunday afternoons driving out to Buffalo (about 40 miles from where we lived in the city) with Nick. The scenery was mostly urban sprawl, but there was a bison ranch that we drove by, and watching the enormous, shaggy creatures was often the high point of the drive.
Bison can live upwards of 25 years, and take nearly three years to reach maturity, so the very cute and lighter brown young ones stand out year-round in a herd of bison. They spend so much time standing around grazing and looking docile that it’s tempting to think of them as giant cuddly animals. But they are, after all, undomesticated, even when raised on a ranch, and can run quite fast.
Because bison are native to North America, they have evolved along with their habitat, and are extremely well suited to grazing on native grasses, even in the winter. Their big, shaggy heads serve well for clearing snow to find forage. As undomesticated animals, bison thrive when mostly left alone, which means that the entire industry is generally much more sustainable than the beef industry. Bison do best in low-stress environments (i.e., pasture, not feedlots), and are so naturally hearty that the National Bison Association, the trade organization for the industry, has a resolution opposing the use of any drugs, chemicals or hormones in the entire industry. Just imagine if the beef industry had such a resolution—no more feedlots!
The National Bison Association also has a source-verification program, meaning that bison meat products can easily be traced back to the ranches they came from. It’s precisely the lack of such oversight in the industrial beef industry that makes it difficult to trace the origins of outbreaks of E. coli, for example (but of course buying locally raised, grass-fed beef eliminates such problems).
Bison meat is exceedingly lean, since the animals are built differently from cattle. They carry their fat in a layer between the muscle and skin, so it doesn’t marble in the way that beef does. 100 grams of bison meat has only 2.42 grams of fat, and 143 calories, compared to 9.28 grams of fat and 211 calories in a comparable amount of beef. The leanness of bison means that it has to be cooked carefully, but what rewards await the patient cook! Bison benefits from being cooked more slowly, at a lower temperature than one would generally cook beef, to avoid drying it out and making it tough. The end result is a distinctly red meat taste, but sweeter and subtler than beef. The bison meat we had from the Co-op, from Brown’s Buffalo Ranch in Nyssa, Oregon, was true to my expectations: lean, rich and delicious. In addition to the sirloin stew meat that we had, the Co-op usually carries bison chuck roast, sirloin steak, New York strip steak and ground sirloin.
Buffalo Stew with Red Wine
(adapted from Recipes from Home by David Page & Barbara Shinn)
1 c. all-purpose flour
2 3/4 lb. bison sirloin, cut in 2-inch cubes
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
3 oz. bacon or salt pork, diced
5 ribs celery, 2 diced, 3 cut into 2-inch lengths
4 medium carrots, 1 diced, 3 cut into 2-inch lengths
1 medium onion, diced
10 garlic cloves, peeled
2 bay leaves
1 bottle dry red wine
2 Tbsp. tomato paste
6 small white potatoes, quartered
Place the flour in a wide shallow bowl. Season the bison with salt and pepper; lightly coat the pieces with the flour. Cook the bacon or salt pork in a large heavy pot over medium heat until it renders its fat. Brown the bison on all sides in the rendered fat, about 5 minutes. Remove the bison and set aside. Add the diced celery and carrot, onion and garlic to the pot and slowly cook until softened, about 4 minutes. Add the bay leaves, red wine and tomato paste and stir to dissolve the tomato paste. Add the beef, season with salt and pepper, cover the pot, and simmer over low heat until the meat is fork-tender, 2 1/2-3 hours. Add the potatoes and the remaining carrots and celery and continue to simmer until they are just cooked, 25-30 minutes longer. (Or skip adding the potatoes, and serve the stew with mashed potatoes to soak up the really yummy sauce.)
|
Copyright: Copyright on articles, recipes, and
images are jointly held by the Moscow Food Co-op
and the respective authors, except were otherwise noted. |
For additions or corrections to this page, please contact the Webmaster.
