Ostrich is a difficult meat to think up recipes for. There are loads of dedicated websites but most of them seem to be re-hashing old beef recipes. You’ll find ostrich stroganoff, ostrich bolognese, ostrich kleftiko, the list goes on. While it’s true that ostrich will work as a beef substitute, it seems a bit of a waste to only use it like this.
The flavour of ostrich is much more gamey than beef and so it can take strong fruit flavours. If you look through my recipes, you’ll see this is how I’ll usually approach cooking this meat. I’ve done an apple-honey sauce and a cranberry and orange one. I was thinking about flambeeing it in apricot brandy for a while too.
But last night I had to use my ostrich steak up and I really wasn’t in the mood for a steak and sauce with mash type affair, most probably because I’d just had that a couple of days ago. I was having a bit of a carb craving and once I’d figured out that I really fancied some noodles, I thought I’d make my ostrich into a chinese dish.
So I made a sauce of honey, black pepper, soy and five spice. It was delicious- I’m very proud of this one. 
The sauce was fairly sweet which worked well with the gaminess of the ostrich. The pepper gave the sauce a good flavour but didn’t make it hot. I made a vegetable stir fry too, to get rid of the aging veg in my fridge and served everything with some fine egg noodles tossed in sesame oil.
I tried out a method of cooking the ostrich which had worked well with beef before. I cut it into inch thick slices, seared it on high heat for 30 seconds per side and then stirred into the saue, which I’d just taken off the heat. The idea is the residual heat of the sauce cooks the steak a little more The result was this.
Rare meat that melts in your mouth. Lovely!
The recipe for this is certainly worth posting, so check back and I’ll have it up soon. I apologise for the state of the recipes now. The website crash has destroyed some of the links but I’ll recover any that I can as soon as possible.
16/09 Update: And now we havea recipe for Ostrich with Black Pepper and Honey Sauce
Ostrich is a difficult meat to think up recipes for. There are loads of dedicated websites but most of them seem to be re-hashing old beef recipes. You’ll find ostrich stroganoff, ostrich bolognese, ostrich kleftiko, the list goes on. While it’s true that ostrich will work as a beef substitute, it seems a bit of a waste to only use it like this.
The flavour of ostrich is much more gamey than beef and so it can take strong fruit flavours. If you look through my recipes, you’ll see this is how I’ll usually approach cooking this meat. I’ve done an apple-honey sauce and a cranberry and orange one. I was thinking about flambeeing it in apricot brandy for a while too.
But last night I had to use my ostrich steak up and I really wasn’t in the mood for a steak and sauce with mash type affair, most probably because I’d just had that a couple of days ago. I was having a bit of a carb craving and once I’d figured out that I really fancied some noodles, I thought I’d make my ostrich into a chinese dish.
So I made a sauce of honey, black pepper, soy and five spice. It was delicious- I’m very proud of this one. The sauce was fairly sweet which worked well with the gaminess of the ostrich. The pepper gave the sauce a good flavour but didn’t make it hot. I made a vegetable stir fry too, to get rid of the aging veg in my fridge and served everything with some fine egg noodles tossed in sesame oil.
I tried out a method of cooking the ostrich which had worked well with beef before. I cut it into inch thick slices, seared it on high heat for 30 seconds per side and then stirred into the saue, which I’d just taken off the heat. The idea is the residual heat of the sauce cooks the steak a little more The result was this.
Rare meat that melts in your mouth. Lovely!
The recipe for this is certainly worth posting, so check back and I’ll have it up soon. I apologise for the state of the recipes now. The website crash has destroyed some of the links but I’ll recover any that I can as soon as possible.
16/09 Update: And now we havea recipe for Ostrich with Black Pepper and Honey Sauce
Wow, what a great idea. I think I am going to make it for my parents when I go home for Christmas (my dad really likes ostrich, buffalo, venison, and other non-everyday game like this), so I will look for the recipe. Thanks!
Comment by Cakegrrl — September 15, 2006 @ 9:55 pm
Hi Cakegrrl,
The recipe is now up and ready to be used and improved! If your dad likes venison, he should try kangaroo. I bet he’d like it!
Comment by ros — September 16, 2006 @ 3:05 pm
Oooh, I wanna try ostrich! The sauce sounds just fantastic too!
Comment by Garrett — September 18, 2006 @ 3:07 am
That’s something I bet he’s never had. He would try kangaroo in a minute, but I don’t think he would ever eat sushi. Isn’t that funny? Thanks for the recipe.
Comment by Cakegrrl — September 18, 2006 @ 11:20 pm