Food neep: bison steak, horseradish

[coraa]

Not really a recipe, just a neep.

Dinner tonight: bison sirloin, cooked the way I usually cook steak. (Simply, is how I usually cook steak. Meat salted and peppered on both sides; cast-iron pan blazing hot; lube the meat with an extremely thin layer of high-smokepoint oil and slap it in the pan; don't move it for 3-5 minutes [depending on thickness of steak] to get a nice brown crust; flip and cook on the other side until as done as you want, and I use a probe thermometer to determine doneness. Of course, I like my steak rare or medium-rare. I suspect if you wanted well, you'd need a slightly less than blazing pan or you'll risk making charcoal instead. This is my Steak Cookery the Alton Way method.)

Mostly I wanted to see whether bison meat tasted vastly different from cow meat. Conclusion: this part of the bison, in this type of preparation, not really. It seemed to be a bit more cooked at the same temperature than beef. That could very well be my error, and of course it's hard to account for carryover cooking, but it could also be accounted for at least in part by the fact that bison meat has more protein and less fat. (It's also, accordingly, better for you.) The flavor was maybe a tiny bit different, but not much; I'd need to taste side-by-side to determine the difference. Less juicy, probably because I overcooked it slightly. Note to self: next time, you'll need to hit a lower temperature for 'rare.'

The other lesson of the day is that fresh horseradish isn't as potent as grating it would make you believe. My eyes were watering like mad by the time I finished grating some, so I was sparing, but if I had the pan sauce to make over again I'd put more horseradish in this time.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/selina_/]

I can never seem to get steak to cook right at home, there seems to be a 3 second difference between blue and so well-done you can't even get a knife through it. What's the secret?