Sous-Vide Bison Prime Rib

Posted by johngl

As  my most glorious spousal unit and I were doing our regular Costco mosey, I noticed that bison prime rib was now available. I nearly piddled myself. Having had some really tasty bison prime rib during our recent vacation in Wyoming, I could hardly wait to get a roast into my sous-vide rig.

The results were exceptionally tasty even though I nearly ruined a $50 hunk o’meat.

You see, the whole idea of sous-vide is to cook stuff at a constant temperature for long periods of time.  My goal was to do this prime rib for about four hours at 135°. This is a perfect medium rare. I’ll get back to the “constant” thing in a minute or two.

Here we have a High Plains All Natural Bison Prime Rib Roast. The packaging also says it has 63% less fat and 48% less calories in comparison to USDA data for prime beef ribeye. I’ll get back to the packaging thing in a minute or two.

In the photo above, the previously frozen bison is thawing in our sink filled with cold water. I’ve determined that using the sous-vide method for thawing works as well as the sous-vide method for cooking. It also makes the meat less appealing to our family’s newest addition.

Meet The Tipster. If you check out the very tip of his tail, you will notice his namesake. This feral baby-boy showed up at my doorstep a couple of months ago as a 10-12 week old emaciated handful of kitten. He and Señor Patches, resident big-boy (over 15 lbs), a formerly feral cat that adopted us two years ago, have quite the time of it playing chase throughout the house. They are resourceful little fur-butts and I don’t want them eating better than we do.

Anyway, back to the bison.

I filled the sous-vide rig with hot water from the tap and plugged the roaster directly into the outlet. I do this frequently just to get the water up to temp a little faster since hot water coming out of the tap is usually less than the temp I wish to cook something. While the water was warming, I went back to the sink to drain off the fluids surrounding the now fully-thawed bison.  I rinsed it with cold water and patted it dry.

I liberally applied some kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper, and a touch of granulated garlic then rubbed that into the meat with the bottom of a soup spoon.

I bagged it, vacuum sealed it, and set it aside waiting for the water-bath temp to rise.

I plugged in my temperature controller, dropped the probe into the water bath. 127°.

Only 8 degrees to go to get up to my desired temp.  Not bad.

We were going out to run some errands, so I dropped the bagged bison into the bath and the temp immediately dropped about five degrees. No problem; this is expected. I put the lid on the water bath (actually a large Rival electric roaster) and we were off to do the errand thing.

We went to Nanami for lunch, then went to find an appropriate pot for out rapidly growing Peace Plant that I got as a gift last year.

We were planning to stop at the grocers for some fingerling potatoes to accompany the bison, but most glorious spousal unit thought we should just have some quinoa with it. I was cool with that; quinoa is one of my favorite foods these days.  We hydrate it with homemade chicken stock, add a couple of pats of butter and a little salt, and in 20 minutes, its ready to eat.  Simple!

We got home and unpacked the car. While searching for the pot for the Peace Plant, I spotted a tall ceramic pot glazed in a brilliant cobalt blue.  Though it weighed about 30 lbs, we needed it for the back yard.  Need is relative.

Most glorious spousal unit was kind enough to hold open the front door — as not to allow our formerly feral friends to return to the wild — then quick-like-a-bunny, she dashed to the back door to guard it whilst I carried said cobalt-blue colored ceramic to the back porch.  This took me right by the sous-vide rig.

Oh shit! There sat the controller with its bright LED numbers taunting me with a reading of 157°. WTF?

Damn it all to hell! What had gone wrong with the controller?  This had never happened before and I was bummed that such a great piece of bison flesh would overcooked to the tune of twenty-two degrees. I quickly reached into the water bath, grabbed the bison, and tossed it into another dry pan. I shook the hot water off of my reddened hand. Crap! Crap! Crap!

Determined not to let this dinner be a complete disaster, I started preparing the quinoa and the bordelaise for the meat. The bison rested comfortably in its bag of juices for a half hour whilst I finished out the sauce.  A little Bordeaux reduction, some sage leaves, some cilantro (I didn’t have fresh parsley), and some pequin powder and some pepper went into some reduced beef demiglace that I had in the fridge.  I grabbed the bison bag, snipped off the corner, and allowed the bison juices to drain into the bubbling sauce.  While this was reducing I tended to the quinoa.  It was sufficiently hydrated and I added a couple of pats of butter and two pinches of salt.

Time for truth.

I eyeballed the bison and had this rather empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. I cut into it.

Holy crap! Praise Thee Oh Bison Gods! While more medium than the intended medium-rare, dinner was saved!

Had we stopped to get those fingerling potatoes, all would have been lost. Thanks too to the most glorious of all wives for suggesting we just head home rather than making another stop.

I plated the bison and the quinoa, applied the sauce and we sat down to eat.

The bison was very flavorful, seasoned very nicely, and very tender.  It was very much on par with what we enjoyed in Wyoming back in September!  Further, we enjoyed a wonderful wine along with the meal.

This 2007 offering of QED from Walla Walla’s Rasa Vineyards, a blend of 94% Syrah, 3% Granache, and 3% Mourvedre and sporting a whopping 14.8% alcohol, was truly magnificent. This wine comes at you in huge proportions and literally kept improving even though we had decanted it hours before.  Big name reviewers give this wine an easy 93.

“QED stands for Quod Erat Demonstrandum (what was to be shown). A further motto on the label reads ‘the proof is in the bottle.’ This is supple, almost voluptuous, dark, sappy, packed with compressed black fruits, streaked with iodine and coffee. It shows excellent length and opens with scents hinting of game, earth, sweet mocha, lead pencil and cedar. Complex and intriguing, with six or eight year aging potential. A very impressive debut.”  -94 Points – Wine Enthusiast

“The first release, the 2007 QED is made up of 94% Syrah, 3% Grenache, and 3% Mourvedre sourced from several top vineyards. It was aged in 25% new French oak. Dark ruby-colored, it offers up a classy nose of pepper, mineral, smoked meat, game, spice box, and blueberry. This leads to a mouth-filling, intense, super-concentrated, opulent wine that has enough underlying structure to evolve for 3-4 years. It will deliver much pleasure through 2022 if not longer. This is a very fine debut indeed!” -93 Points – Jay Miller – The Wine Advocate

“(94% syrah, 3% grenache and 3% mourvedre, from Les Collines vineyard; aged for 18 months in all new French barriques Good deep ruby-red. Highly aromatic nose melds kirsch, mocha, smoked meat and brown spices. Chewy, dense and saline, with dark cherry, mocha and gunflint flavors accented by an emerging note of white pepper. In a rather suave style, this plush, round, fine-grained wine finishes with sweet tannins and excellent breadth.” -91 Points – Stephen Tanzer – International Wine Cellar

“This estates first release and a mix of 94% Syrah, 3% Grenache and 3% Mourvèdre, the 2007 Rasa Vineyards QED is much more full, and ripe on the nose with decadent cassis and blackberry fruit, roasted meat, truffle, licorice and roasted herb aromatics. These lead into a full bodied, powerful wine that carries fresh acidity, a brilliant, seamless texture, perfect balance and long, quality finish. While I think the ?08 might age longer, this should still drink beautifully over the next 10 to 15 years.” -93 Points – Jeb Dunnuck – The Rhone Report

I’m quite pleased I have 10 bottles left. My goal is to have one per year on or about my birthday.

So, you may be wondering what happened to my controller. And what about that “constant” thing I mentioned earlier?  Why didn’t it work correctly?

In a word, I was stupid. Plain and simple. In order for the controller to work, the water bath needs to be plugged into it and not directly into the wall socket. Had I had the temperature of the roasting pan cranked, all would have been lost.  As it was, I had dialed down the roaster’s built-in thermostat to just under 200 degrees, which apparently is actually, and thankfully, only about 160.  Good to know.

And about that packaging on the label of the bison; that 63% less fat and 48% fewer calories bit. Yeah, well, read it very carefully.  It says: “In comparison to USDA data for prime beef ribeye”. The name “prime rib” doesn’t mean the cut is rated USDA prime, it is simply the name of the cut.  Further, there is no such rating for bison.  The label quite clearly says “Bison Prime Rib Roast” which refers to the cut of meat, not its grade, while the fine print says “prime beef ribeye” refers directly to the “prime” grade of beef, the fattiest grade of beef. Those tricksy marketing folks are comparing apples to oranges and offering “statistics” to show the health benefits of bison.

Yes, bison has less fat and fewer calories than USDA prime graded beef, I’ll give you that, but don’t eat it for that reason.  Eat it because it has its own unique flavor, not a marketing ploy. Its really very tasty. Its also considerably more expensive pound for pound than USDA Choice graded beef (easily 2x — and probably closer to 3x — even at Costco).  Further, it is tough to find it fresh.  Even at our Farmers’ Markets, the bison is always previously frozen which makes it risky to try and dry age like I do for cryovac’d fresh beef.

And one more thing, given the size of this cut, it looks like it came from a bison calf and not a full grown animal, making this closer to veal than beef.  I’ve seen a prime rib cut from one of those full-grown animals and they are massive by comparison.

Given all that, I really like the flavor of bison and I will be buying more of it, probably in the near future. Even though I dorked up the sous vide temperature on this one, it came out amazingly tasty.

I can’t wait to actually get it right.