Cold Grilled Bison Steak with Flatbread, Hummus and Tzatziki

Cold Grilled Bison Steak with Flatbread, Hummus and Tzatziki

4-6 oz Bison Filet Mignon

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

¼ cup red wine vinegar

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp fresh cracked black pepper

1 tsp granulated garlic

1-6oz plain yogurt, drained

1-large cucumber, peeled, grated and drained

1 vine ripened tomato, diced and drained

1/3 cup fresh dill, minced….save a few ends for garnish!

Black olives, fresh from the deli

Garlic hummus, or your favorite flavor

Honey Wheat Berry bread mix (I used Krusteaz), or prepared flatbread from the bakery

1. If your Bison filet mignon steaks are frozen thaw first. Then combine with the EVOO, red wine vinegar, sea salt, granulated garlic and cracked black pepper. Toss well to coat and allow to marinate 4 hrs in the refrigerator. If you are in a crunch for time go ahead and cook right away. The flavor will be good but not as well developed if you have the time to marinate.

2. Remove steaks from the refrigerator and pre-heat your grill. I used a grill pan in the kitchen so I set both burners to medium and heated the cast iron grill pan for 15-20 minutes. You can also use your oven to preheat the grill pan at 400F for 20 minutes. Just be careful when transferring the hot grill pan to the stove top to start the cooking process. It is very important that the cooking surface be very hot to help with the development of the flavor crust. If the grill is not hot enough you will cook the meat but it will be pale and not as flavorful. 3 minutes on the first side and 4 minutes on the second for a steakhouse medium that yields a ruby red warm interior. Do not overcook as the steaks will become tough and not as juicy and flavorful. Remove from the grill and allow to rest or refrigerate for later use. Can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 4 days after cooking before using.

3. Follow the directions on the bread mix and allow the dough to rise before shaping. Dough can be made 1 day ahead and kept covered in the refrigerator. Allow to come to room temp before shaping and cooking the following day.

4. Put yogurt into a coffee filter set into a colander over a bowl to catch the dripping. This will allow for the water to “drip” out and for the yogurt to become thicker and tangier. 3 hrs should do the trick. You can skip this step if you’re pressed for time but the Tzatziki will be thin and watery.

5. Peel the cucumber and grate into a colander lined with paper towels to absorb the excess moisture.

6. Dice the tomatoes

7. And place on the paper towels to drain also. 3 hrs….same as the yogurt

8. Mince the dill

9. After draining….combine yogurt, cucumbers, tomatoes and dill. Mix just to combine and chill. For the best results use immediately. Can be made one day ahead and chilled but it will be a little watery.

10. Divide the dough into 8 equal balls. Dust with flour liberally and punch down. Roll with rolling pin into 8 inch circles

11. Drizzle about ½ oz of EVOO and rub to cover all over.

12. Only one side will be oiled the other will remain dry for grilling.

13. Pre-heat grill pan on medium heat for 10 minutes and then place flatbread oiled side first. The bread will rise-up a little as it cooks. Lower temp to medium low if the bread is cooking too fast and smells like burning flour.

14. Flip several times to cook through. 8-10 total cooking time per piece. Best when eaten right away but can be made one day ahead

Top flat bread with hummus, Tzatziki and grilled sliced Bison Filet Mignon. Garnish with sliced black olives and fresh dill.

Mushroom Stuffed Bison Meatloaf with Swiss Cheese Sauce

I have been getting quite a lot of feedback from friends and family regarding my blog postings. I love that I'm getting feedback, but I hate that people are finding mistakes. OK I know that sounds funny but in my mind, as my friend and fellow chef Mark Susz likes to say, I like to think I'm perfect. This will come as no suprise to the people who know me....that and the fact that as a perfect person I make many...many mistakes! So some of the feedback, from my friends Stephanie and Janice, as well as my big sister Bert is that I need to post the whole recipe first, with all the steps before breaking it down with photos. That way someone could print the recipe, thanks Stephanie. Or they could read throught the recipe first to see if it was manageable and that all of the steps made sence, thanks Janice and Bert! So I have decided to re-posted my last recipe in the new suggested format....here it is................Chef Forrest, the perfect mistake maker

Mushroom Stuffed Bison Meatloaf with Swiss cheese Sauce

2 lbs. ground High Plains Bison

1 cup breadcrumbs

1 tsp. ground black pepper

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 stick butter
1 medium onion, diced fine
1 # sliced shiitake mushrooms

For cheese sauce:

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup coarsely grated Swiss cheese


COOKING INSTRUCTIONS
1. Pre-heat oven to 350ºF
2. In a large bowl, add the first 5 ingredients and mix well with your hands. Place in refrigerator.
3. In sauté pan melt butter and sauté onions for 8-10 minutes until browned, add mushrooms and continue cooking for an additional 10 minutes until they are browned as well. Remove from heat and cool 20 minutes and then combine with meat mixture.
4. Form into a large loaf shape and bake in the oven on a sheet pan for 35-40 minutes or until an internal temp of 165 has been reached.
5. While meatloaf is cooking make the Swiss cheese sauce.
Make sauce:
1. In small saucepan heat butter over moderately low heat until foam subsides and stir in flour.
2. Cook roux, stirring constantly, 2 minutes.
3. Add cream in a stream, whisking, and simmer 2 minutes, or until sauce thickens slightly.
4. Remove pan from heat and stir in cheese and salt and pepper to taste until cheese is melted. Keep sauce warm, covered, over very low heat
5. Serve sliced mushroom stuffed bison meatloaf with a garnish of Swiss cheese sauce.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.........

Combine the first five ingredients, Bison, breadcrumbs, black pepper, Worcestershire sauce and salt.......

In a large bowl......

and mix well. Place in refrigerator....

finely dice the onion and slice the mushrooms.......

In a saute pan melt the butter over high heat....

Saute the onions first, until browned......

add the sliced mushrooms.....

and saute until browned as well. Remove from heat ans allow to cool 20 minutes.....

remove mixed Bison from refrigerator and combine with mushrooms and onions....

Form into a large loaf on sheet pan and bake.........

While the meatloaf is cooking you can make the Swiss cheese sauce

In a small sauce pan melt the butter


and stir in the flour to make a roux......

add cream in a stream stirring.......

remove pan from heat and stir in cheese......

add tabasco and season with salt and pepper.....

keep sauce warm, and covered......

remove meatloaf from oven........

slice......

serve with Swiss cheese sauce and enjoy!!

Reuben Pizza with Bison pastrami

My friend Andrew was telling me the other day of a great Reuben egg roll he had just tried at a restaurant near the Tech Center here in Denver called Maxwell's Steak House. He and some friends went there after work. Reuben Egg Roll! WOW.........I wanted to eat one right then and there. I could whip some-up at work the next day to satisfy this new craving, but did I really want to drag out the deep fryer, stink-up my whole kitchen and get grease all over the place? Well...it was an egg roll and last time I checked they need to be deep fried. And do you know what the best part was? I could dip the whole thing in 1000 isle dressing!! I love to dip things. Sometimes the thing I'm dipping isn't so important as the sauce I'm dipping it into. I have a friend Janice to whom french fries are nothing more than the carrier for ketchup....she gets me!! So here I am mulling over these egg rolls and how I'm going to make them, dip them, eat them, dip some more... when I thought the heck with the egg roll I'm going to make a Reuben pizza. First I'll make a rye crust, then I'll spread that luscious 1000 isle dressing all over, add Bison pastrami, sauerkraut and top it all off with Swiss cheese. Now that would be good. Pizza's. Why can't I seem to get them out of my head? I sort of have a love/hate affair with them. I worked at a great private hunting lodge in Gladwin Michigan awhile back. Lost Arrow Resort on the Water is where I made way too many pizzas, make that ate way too many pizzas. The owner Avery Sterling had just purchased a recipe from a famous pizzeria down near Sterling Heights and they had just started to make pizzas when I went to work there. I have had pizza on my mind, and my hips, ever since then. What made me think of them is that a Lost Arrow pizza had a buttered crust that was sprinkled with sesame seeds before baking. In 1990 worrying about the crust, and what it might have tasted or looked like was a fairly new thing. Thinking about the Reuben Pizza and Lost Arrow got my mouth watering because I wanted to butter the crust of this new pizza and sprinkle it with chopped caraway seeds and kosher salt to complement the toppings and sort of provide a cool and tasty garnish. To get started I had to make a crust that would be like the swirled marble rye that I like to use when making a Reuben. So I modified a basic pizza dough recipe by futzing with the ratio of the flours to include gluten, rye and wheat flours.

1. 2 cups Rye Flour
2. 1 cup Whole What Flour
3. 1/2 cup Gluten
4. 1 3/4 t. salt
5. 2 tsp instant yeast
6. 1/4 cup olive oil
7. 1 3/4 cup water
   

1. Stir together the flours, salt, and instant yeast in a 4-quart bowl (or in the bowl of an electric mixer). Stir in the oil and the cold water until the flour is all absorbed mixing on low speed with the paddle attachment, do this for 5 to 7 minutes and then switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for 5 to 7 minutes, or as long as it takes to create a smooth, sticky dough. The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl. If the dough is too wet and doesn't come off the sides of the bowl, sprinkle in some more flour just until it clears the sides. If it clears the bottom of the bowl, dribble in a tea- spoon or two of cold water. The finished dough will be springy and elastic

2. Sprinkle flour on the counter and transfer the dough to the counter. Cut the dough into 3 portions and gently round it into balls. If the dough sticks to your hands, dip your hands into the flour again. Transfer the dough balls to separate zip lock bags.

3. Put the dough balls into the refrigerator overnight to rest the dough, or keep for up to 3 days. (Note: If you want to save some of the dough for future baking, you can store the dough balls in the freezer. Transfer them to the refrigerator the day before you plan to make pizza.

So now the dough was done and it was time to work on the toppings. First I sauteed the Bison Pastrami for 10-12 minutes to brown it up after cutting it up. I drained it well after cooking to keep the pizza from getting soggy

Then I drained the sauerkraut and sauteed it. This helps to add flavor by browning it up a little and reducing the moisture.

Now I put the sauteed Bison pastrami in a zip lock bag with paper towels on the bottom of the bag to suck up any left over juices, I did the same with the sauerkraut in a separate bag. It is really important if you want to have a crisp pizza to mitigate any moisture in the toppings. The next day I pulled the pizza dough out of the refrigerator and allowed it to set at room temp for 1 hour. I removed it from the zip lock bag and then reformed the dough balls and allowed them to rest for an additional hour back in the zip lock. I preheated my oven to 500 degrees about 45 minutes before I planned on baking the pizza to insure it was hot and would hold the heat once the cold pizza was put into the oven. I rolled out the dough using flour to keep it from sticking to the counter and placed it in a cake pan, stretching the dough to fit and rolling over the edges to form the crust. I used a 16" cake pan. Then I spread about 1 cup of 1000 isle dressing all over the top of the crust for my first layer, followed by the sauteed and drained Bison pastrami, then the sauteed and drained sauerkraut and topped with a generous layer of sliced Swiss cheese. When making a pizza one of my pet peeves is that all of the topping ends up in the center of the pie. Make sure you spread the toppings evenly all over the pizza to ensure even baking. In fact keep the center of the pizza the area where the least of the toppings are. This will help the pizza bake more evenly and you will have a better chance of having that perfect bite in your slice every time.





Don't forget to butter the crust and then sprinkle with caraway seeds which you have crushed-up and then sprinkle ever so litely with kosher salt. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until crust is firm and the cheese melted and browned. Enjoy. Everyone in the office ate it up. If you want..... serve with extra 1000 isle dressing for dipping. The heck with egg rolls this Reuben Pizza with Bison Pastrami ROCKS!!......................Chef Forrest

Bison Steak Frites

Take a look at this hands only video. Its a great recipe for Bison Steak Frites and the hands are mine, but the voice......well you'll see;or rather hear the voice is not mine!

Char Grilled Bison Ribeye Steak with Creamed Corn and Spinach

For the Steaks

4ea. 10-12 oz. Bison ribeye steaks

4 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

Salt, granulated garlic and ground black pepper to taste

For the Creamed Corn and Spinach

6 ears of sweet corn, kernels cut off the cob

¼ stick butter

1 pkg fresh spinach for salad

½-cup heavy whipping cream

Salt and black ground pepper to taste

Preheat charcoal grill one hour before you want to start cooking. Coals should be ash gray and glowing red. Brush grid well to remove and charred remains from previous cookouts.

Coat steaks well with Olive oil, on both sides rubbing into muscle. Season both sides well with salt, granulated garlic and ground black pepper. Let Bison Ribeye steaks set 15-20 minutes before cooking to allow seasonings and oil to form a seasoned film. When ready to cook, place steaks on grill and turn often to prevent burning. If flare-ups occur, snuff fire with grill lid. Cooking time for a 1” boneless Bison steak over direct heat should be about 4-5 minutes per side. If doneness is in doubt, cut into steak to see if it is done to your desired degree. Steaks should rest on a platter in a warm place 10-15 minutes before eating to let the juices redistribute through the meat.

I was at the grocery store late Saturday night and there were corn shuckings and silk all over the floor in the produce section. It seems that everyone is crazy about the fresh Olathe corn which is now available in the stores here in Colorado. It looks good but compared the corn I am used to in Nebraska at this time of year the ears look sort of small and pathetic! I sure don't miss the humidity but the corn.....ooh the corn! This recipe is great for a Sunday afternoon or when ever you have the time to start a charcoal fire in the grill and wait for it to burn down so that the briquettes are the perfect shade of gray to char the steaks. I also like to coat my steaks lightly with olive oil and seasonings and let it rest. My father taught me this and he always used Wesson oil, I like to use olive oil for the taste! While the charcoal is burning down you will have time to cut the corn kernels from the fresh ears. You could cheat and use frozen but at this time of year fresh is the way to go!

Bison Pot Roast with Braised Vegetables

Bison Pot Roast with Braised Vegetables

Ingredients
1 3-4 lb. Bison chuck roast
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. granulated garlic
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
5 medium to large carrots, peeled
1 can, 1 lb. 12 oz. whole peeled tomatoes in juice
1 medium onion, cut into 1inch chunks
6 bouillon cubes
3 celery stalks, leaves included, chopped into 1/2 inch
1 cup water
1 cup red wine
3 Tbsp. sugar

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Sprinkle Bison roast with salt, pepper and granulated garlic.
3. Heat a heavy bottomed sauté pan over high heat 2-3 min. Add vegetable oil, wait 30 seconds and then add seasoned Bison roast. Brown well on all sides to develop a crust-like appearance.
4. Place browned Bison roast into a covered baking pan. Add the remaining ingredients. Cover and bake in oven for 3-4 hrs. or until Bison roast is fork tender. Makes 4-6 servings with some meat left over.

I cooked this dish as one of the first recipes I made for High Plains Bison. At that time I was traveling back and forth to Michigan from Nebraska and I actually made this in my mothers kitchen in Grand Ledge. I left the vegetables as whole as possible, notice the whole carrot with the stem attached! I think this makes something as simple as Pot Roast seem a little nicer. When I arranged the table for the picture I used the dining room and gathered other items from around the house. The skillet in the back ground has been used by my mother for years to fry bacon and eggs. You can see the patina from years of use, and the old sweater was one my dad always wore during the winter and I grabbed it from the hall closet cause it looked good in the shot. The photo is almost 6 years old but it has the ability to transport me back home to Michigan and reminds me of my mother and father. I hope you enjoy this easy recipe and the flavors are awesome!

Bison Chateaubriand with Horseradish Butter Sauce

This is a great butter sauce for Chateaubriand. The Bison should be cooked rare to medium-rare for maximum flavor and juiciness.

1-High Plains Chateaubriand
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 stick unsalted butter
3 1/2 tablespoons drained bottled horseradish, not creamed
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce


Pat Chateaubriand dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a well-seasoned large cast-iron skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, and then cook 5 minutes on each side for medium-rare. Transfer meat to roasting pan and place in a 300 F pre-heated oven to finish cooking for 8 minutes. After removing skillet from heat immediately add butter and horseradish, stirring and scraping up any brown bits. Stir in Worcestershire sauce and spoon butter sauce over Chateaubriand before slicing. The flavor is unbelievable!!

This is my first post so i thought I would show a very easy and great tasting way to enjoy Bison. Just follow the recipe and you will be amazed at how easy and great tasting cooking with Bison can be................Chef Forrest