This is not a common cut of meat in the bison world. In fact, this cut is generally separated into its components to be marketed as either New York Strip or a Tenderloin. The T-Bone and Porterhouse are very similar. They consist of a T-shaped bone with meat on each side. The larger side is the New York Strip, which is from the strip loin, whereas the smaller side contains the tenderloin. Porterhouse steaks are cut from the rear end of the short loin and contain a much larger section of the tenderloin. T-bone steaks are cut from further forward in the short loin and contain a comparatively smaller section of the tenderloin. My T-Bones and Porterhouses were part of a gift from a friend. A friend of mine became the owner of several bison as somewhat of an incidental gift from a neighboring land owner who was tired of dealing with their aggressive and wandering behavior.

For my recipe, I decided to use a simple marinade of garlic powder, soy sauce, and a bit of Brandy at the end. Truth be told, this is a bit of a derivative of a longtime midwestern steakhouse’s marinade recipe. The now defunct Steak and Ale chain had a club steak called “The Kensington Club” that used a marinade of soy sauce, Sherry, garlic, unsweetened pineapple juice, and maybe one other component. It was a perennial big seller and had an enormous flavor. Sadly, that chain never really changed its image or offering and became a victim of the most recent recession. I only marinated the steaks for a few hours and then decided to sear them rather than grilling them.

The best base for starting a stew or soup with bison meat are the drippings, juices, and leftover meat from a pot roast, arm roast, or sirloin roast. Recently, I cooked a large roast and after serving the roast, I poured all of the juices into a freezer container and packed as much meat as I could into it. I purposely seasoned the roast simply so the juices could be used for a soup or stew. I seasoned the top of the roast with salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder and cooked it on low heat for several hours covered. The roast has some fat on it of course and this adds to the flavor of the juices. The resulting juices were very rich mainly due to the presence of a bone in the roast and the high quality paprika I used. After freezing, you can reach into the freezer and essentially have a readymade kit for making a bison stew or soup. Simply start with this seasoned mix, add some tomatoes and mixed vegetables and you are ready to turn on the crockpot or simmer in a stockpot.

This South African steak seasoning was given to me as a gift from a great friend of mine who grew up in South Africa. He has been very eager to share the culture and went out of his way to purchase this seasoning for me at a local import shop. I immediately applied this to some bison steaks to see how it would taste. Robertson’s Steak and Chops Spice is different from most American seasonings in that it proudly lists monosodium glutamate as an ingredient, much like Spanish seasoning blends. I detect ground chiles, garlic, turmeric, and of course salt in this mix. It was quite unique on our bison steaks and I would certainly purchase this again.

The T-Bone is a classic cut of meat but has been pushed to the side somewhat. Of course, there is a trend moving towards boneless cuts of meat and in general away from larger cuts. However, bone-in cuts of meat are very flavorful, as you should know if you’ve ever ordered a Porterhouse or T-Bone in a steakhouse. These T-Bones are not from an online or store purchase, but were part of a gift from my friend who has had bison grazing on his ranch for the past year. You should notice in that there is marbling on this cut of meat, unlike most cuts of bison tenderloin or ribeye. Some amount of fat in bison meat is just fine. I cooked these T-Bones on the charcoal grill and they turned out to be exceptional eating. You’ll notice that some bone-in cuts will have some fat on the edges and this will naturally char on the grill during the searing process. I only seasoned them with salt and pepper. I highly encourage you to consider a bone-in cut occasionally. (Notice I left the juice drippings on the plate!)

I was recently the recipient of a great gift of fresh bison meat from a very generous friend. The reason I say this meat is fresh is that it is extraordinarily fresh – he had it processed himself from an animal actually on his land. I got several bags of ground meat, so we immediately tried to come up with some basic dishes we could use it in. We decided on some “Texas Red.” Texas Red is just a basic chili with few extras. No beans. We used approximately 2.5 lbs of ground bison, one 14.5 oz. can of diced tomatoes, one small diced onion, and of course three tablespoons of chili powder.

I used my own mix that I made using ancho chile powder, pasilla chile powder, garlic and onion powder, salt, black pepper, and cumin. Ancho and Pasilla powders are both produced by Spice Islands and can be found in any store that carries their entire offering. I did add half a can of water and approximately 2 tablespoons of Bob’s Red Mill unbleached flour for something to thicken the pot. I cooked it for 4 hours on high in our crockpot. The bison meat made the chili have a sweet flavor and of course the lean meat eliminated the layer of fat usually present in a bowl of chili.

In my own experience, marinating meat is much like grilling. We tend to overdo it and often go way over the top. If a little is good, A LOT must be much better, right? There are a number of myths about marinating meat. There are also some things you may not understand about meat and how it accepts liquid.

• Marinade only penetrates a very superficial layer of meat. Marinade will not enter the insides of a steak and add flavoring to the inside. Marinade hits only a thin layer of the outside of a piece of meat. If you’d like to try this yourself, take a simple marinade such as soy sauce or worcestershire sauce and soak your meat in it for a long period of time. Then, slice the meat down the middle. You’ll see that only about a millimeter of meat has been penetrated by the marinade.
• Acids and Enzymes actually begin to cook your meat during the marinating process. The conventional wisdom is that acids “tenderize” meat, but the reality is that acids turn the outside of your meat mushy and don’t have any significant effect on the substantial connective tissue of the meat. If you do decide to use some sort of acid in your marinade, use it sparingly and for only short periods of time. Enzymes from fruits or juices do the exact same thing.
• Marinades are best for small or thin cuts of meat. A huge steak is not going to accept much of your marinade. Small cuts of meat are the best. Think a petite sirloin.
• Avoid salad dressings as marinades. Salad dressings tend to have a lot of acids. Also, why put some Wishbone salad dressing on a $10 steak?
• Use salt. Salt is not just for flavoring. Salt has a brining effect which increases the juiciness of the meat.
• Use oil. Herbs and spices are soluble in oil, so oil helps herbs to release their full flavor. To get the most out of a marinade that has herbs in it, always use a little oil.
• Use soy. Soy is my favorite marinade ingredient and many of the great marinades include soy as a substitute for salt. The regional steakhouse Steak and Ale had a legendary steak called the Kensington Club and its marinade recipe used soy. Soy on its own is a wonderful marinade for steaks.
• Long soaks in marinade do not help – they actually harm the meat. Long soaks actually are bad for the meat and do not increase the meat’s absorption of the flavors in your marinade. Since marinades do not soak into meats very deeply, this is just pointless. Long soaks are the marinating version of the backyard barbeque guy that flips the meat ten times and never closes the lid on the grill.
• Pepper burns and is not a good component of a marinade.
• Sugar or honey is a great ingredient for marinades if you wish for your meat to brown or blacken during the cooking process.

What you’ll find after you experiment with marinades is that less is more. Of course, when I first got serious about cooking, I came up with some crazy improvised marinades. However, what I found was that they didn’t really do anything to the meat that was interesting or recognizable to the taste. My favorite way to marinate a steak is to soak it in a little soy sauce for about 30 minutes. It has a nicely complex flavor with reasonable salt flavor. No, it doesn’t taste like Chinese food either. The main ingredient in soy sauce is wheat, much like beer. Wheat and salt together create a very complex flavor.  I encourage you to experiment, but I will give you some ingredients that work well for marinades:

• Salt
• Garlic powder
• Soy Sauce
• Oils
• Sugars or honey

Using bison flank steak for fajitas is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. First, I wanted to experiment with a good cut of flank steak before I decided to do a full blown fajita dinner. I started with a very nice cut of flank steak that I purchased by mailorder from a small bison ranch Minnesota recently. I used an adobo recipe I found in Rick Bayless’s Authentic Mexican cookbook but altered it slightly for some more ground chiles I had in my pantry. I used a mix of Pasilla and New Mexico ground chiles. You can generally find Ancho or Pasilla chile in ground form in the Spice Islands display at a good grocery store or you may find small packets of ground chiles at upscale markets such as Whole Foods or Wild Oats. Adobo marinade is basically a mix of ground or dried chiles, salt, cider vinegar, garlic, ground thyme and oregano, cloves, and cinnamon. It is a traditional Mexican marinade and you will find a good recipe here: Adobo Marinade. After you make this marinade, it will look somewhat pasty and that is just fine. Put it all over the flank steak and let it rest for at least an hour. However, make sure you don’t let it marinate too long as the vinegar will make the meat mushy. Vinegar based marinades essentially start to cook your meat after too long of a soak. Traditional mexican meats in the north are generally cooked over charcoal. Cook your meat to medium rare and slice it into one inch strips for your fajitas. Serve your fajitas with lightly steamed flour tortillas and pico de gallo. Remember that bison meat cooks more quickly than beef.

My bison flank steak turned out very well and was much more lean than beef. It was a big hit with our guests and a few people asked for the marinade recipe. Steak cooked over charcoal is amazing.

On this first cold day in Oklahoma City, I decided to make a stew with a small bison brisket I had in the freezer. This recipe is about as “slow food” as you can get, so don’t plan on making this one in 30 minutes or even an hour. The meat I used here was left over from a brisket I slow cooked in the oven with carrots, Yukon Gold potatoes, onions and parsnips. We only ate about half of the big four pound brisket, so we had some leftovers. I started by placing the brisket and leftover vegetables on a stock pot. Then I added 8-12 cups of water, a generous grinding of black pepper, and of course a big palmful each of dried thyme and rosemary from our summer garden. I then added a 14 oz can of diced tomatoes, a few tablespoons of olive oil, a handful of lentils, and of course a small bag of frozen mixed vegetables. I avoided any garlic or salt since my original brisket was seasoned very well. If you do add any salt, wait until later. The “different take” on the stew comes from the fact that the brisket was soaked in salt and pickling spices prior to us eating it the first time. The pickling spices added a very complex flavor to the brisket and this came out in the final stew. I hesitate to say it’s corned bison since I didn’t quite follow that method. I slow cooked the stew covered on low heat for several hours. It would be fine to cook this in a crockpot all day long as well. This is a leftover recipe and could be used with leftover bison roast or brisket. You could make a small batch with bison stew meat as well. I would like to submit that I believe iodized salt makes stews and soups taste a little weird – I would avoid them.

Recipe:

2 lbs bison brisket, roast, or stew meat (leftover is best)

1/4 cup lentils

1 small bag frozen mixed vegetables

1 tablespoon dried thyme

1 tablespoon dried rosemary

1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon black pepper

Salt to taste (sea salt or kosher salt)

After eating a lot of meatloaf in my life, both at home and in restaurants, I have strong opinions about what it should taste like. Many people think it’s dreadful and that is probably because of all the junk we tend to mix into it or put on top of it. I’ve even read some bison meatloaf recipes that recommend mixing in ground pork with your expensive bison. Mixing swine with my expensive bison meat is out of the question. I set out to make some meatloaf that is about the meat and not a confused jumble of common flavors and textures.

My bison meatloaf is inspired by a fantastic plate I had at Denver’s Rocky Mountain Diner. The market in Denver is fairly competitive with the buffalo meatloaf and buffalo burgers so I had no success in getting the waitress to give me the recipe. The focus was the bison meat, not other flavors or textures. With this in mind, I chose to grate my onion rather than dice it and I also decided to keep the seasonings very simple: celery salt, black pepper, and a small amount of garlic. I also decided to ditch the Americana ketchup that seems to be on most of the diner offerings. In place of the ketchup/mustard mix, I brushed on a small amount of olive oil.

I started with 2 lbs of lean ground bison meat. Remember that the flavor of the bison meat is the focus here, not swine or ketchup. I used one fresh brown egg from our family’s chickens as the binder along with one cup of store bought unseasoned breadcrumbs. I grated 1/2 a cup of onion and cooked it briefly in about a tablespoon of butter with a teaspoon each of celery salt and black pepper. After a few minutes I folded this into the mixture of bison meat, breadcrumbs and egg. I formed the loaf on a pan on some parchment paper and cooked it on 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

The resulting meatloaf was a beautifully dark creation that smelled good and tasted even better. We did serve it with traditional sides: mixed vegetables and mashed potatoes with a light brown gravy.

I’d like to summarize the most important ideas in making a good buffalo meatloaf:

• Don’t use ketchup for a topping. Leave it in the refrigerator or in the bag of leftover fast food packets in the kitchen. Why ruin expensive and sweet tasting meat with it?
• Let the ground bison meat do the talking. Don’t overwhelm the meat with complicated seasonings or dominant vegetable textures. Grate your onions and mince your garlic. Limit your seasonings to celery salt and pepper or just salt and pepper. If you’re using seasoned breadcrumbs, go easy on the salt.
• Try a gravy instead of a topping. Making a gravy with the scraped stuff on your meatloaf pan would be great.
• Don’t use one of those loaf baking dishes that is made for meatloaf. Use a flat tray to allow your meatloaf to breathe from all sides and develop a crusty texture.

In our area, late October and early November is when the fall season really sets in. We tend to have a number of mild days and that means there are opportunities for grilling at our local park or in our backyard. For a quickly prepared meal that is heavy in the taste and health categories, I grabbed some ground bison steak, some fresh spinach, and of course some onions and fresh peppers. The ground bison steak was ordered from a ranch in Minnesota and the peppers are freshly grown here in our state. Ground bison steak should be available from most online sellers.

I prefer the flavor of charcoal grilling for burgers and burger steaks. The flavor from the charcoal also adds a smoky flavor to roasted vegetables. In this case, I placed some habaneros, onions, and a single Bishops Crown pepper on the grill with the steaks. If you roast peppers, be sure to rotate them as the sugars will blacken quickly. Some blackening is expected though. These particular peppers are hot – very hot – but the roasting process will make them a little less dangerous and enhance the flavor. The habaneros will still have quite a bit of heat. To season the meat, I placed two pounds of ground bison steak in a mixing bowl and then seasoned in with Goya Adobo con Cumin, a Spanish all purpose seasoning, and some black pepper. I prefer this seasoning because it is essentially a garlic salt with a few extra ingredients and it is very subtle. I mixed this up with my hands and then formed the ground bison steaks. Your charcoal should be burning while all this is taking place. Remember that bison has much less fat and water than other meats. This meat will cook quickly and much more quickly than b**f. I generally grill mine for a good 2-3 minutes on each side depending on how many coals I’ve put in the grill. If you’re using a gas grill, keep the grill on medium heat to avoid drying the meat.

I could go on about this recipe, but it’s really just a simple example of how to use good bison meat in your everyday life. I’ve used some regional ingredients here and raised the health factor with the spinach salads.