Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Shuffle Off to Buffalo

Over the last couple years I've seen ground bison meat appearing in the supermarket. Sometimes it's packaged as "buffalo," and is sold in one-pound packages. This ground bison is a great replacement for beef in almost any chili or meatloaf recipe. I just posted a couple delicious buffalo recipes, so you can give this tasty meat a try. By the way, I have no plans on converting this blog to a regular old recipe/food blog, but I'm still waiting for the backlog of video recipes to be processed at About.com. So in the meantime, I thought I would post a couple recipe links to some new content I just published on my American Foods site.

In case you're not quite sure about eating bison, here are a few facts that may convince you to give this wholesome and healthful meat a chance. Contrary to conventional wisdom, buffalo meat is not "gamy" at all. It has a lighter, and slightly sweeter flavor than beef. Buffalo has much less fat than beef, and contains 50% less cholesterol. It's also higher in protein, and because of a diet that contains natural grass, omega-3 fatty acids. The other advantages of being grazed on open grassland is they are not fed commercial feed, and don't need the antibiotics and growth hormones that cattle do. And, according to the buffalo whisperers, the animals are much happier and less stressed.

Bison meat can be used in anything that calls for ground beef. If you want a couple suggestions here's a chili and meatloaf recipe I think you'll like.

Spicy Buffalo Chili Recipe
Buffaloaf - Buffalo Meatloaf


Finally, for those of you that remember a certain "naughty" t-shirt from the seventies (regarding saving trees), what do you think about an "Eat a Buffalo, Save a Blade of Grass" version? Enjoy!

Photo © Flickr user organic.matter

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo

Chef John said...

Very interesting, thanks!

Anonymous said...

LOL, I had that shirt! They still sell it online.

Anonymous said...

Buffalo meet is awesome! As are elk and deer, if you know someone who hunts... ;-)

Anonymous said...

Meat! I meant Meat!

Anonymous said...

Is all buffalo meat grass fed? Do they sell buffalo butter too? Do you live in (or near) Oklahoma where buffalo meat is common, or is it spreading across the US?

Shreela

Chef John said...

I believe that it is grass fed. I've never seen buffalo butter. I live in San Fran. CA and all the large supermarkets sell these 1 pound packages of bison. If you can't find it in the market, call a local restaurant and get the number of their meat vendor and call them. They can order it for you.

ghanima said...

I find buffalo meat much easier to digest than regular ol' cow. There aren't a lot of places in Toronto that sell it, but it's worth hunting down (no pun intended). Thanks for the reminder to pick some up!