I love ostrich meat as do the rest of my family especially my son. I usually just grill it plain with cafe de paris butter which I will post at a latter date. I love it this way because it allows the lovely flavour of the meat to come through but I thought I would try something different last night. Ostrich meat is similar to beef in cooking times and what goes well with it, I thought I would try black truffles as I make this with beef and it is great. It was very yummy here is the recipe.

Ingredients

Olive oil
Butter
4 Ostrich Fillets
11/2 Tablespoons onion, finely chopped
2 Cloves garlic, crushed
80g Mushrooms, chopped into pieces (about a cup)
4 Bacon rashers, chopped
1 Teaspoon tomato paste
11/2 Tablespoons parsley, finely chopped
2 Teaspoons cream
4 Large leek slices
pepper to taste

For the Sauce
1/2 Cup Madeira
1/2 Cup water
1 Teaspoon Beef stock granules (I use quite a dense stock so you may have to adjust according to what you use.)
1 Teaspoon cornflour
2 Tablespoons black truffles, finely chopped (you can’t always get fresh all year round where I live, so I buy dried and they work just as well, when fresh is not possible.)
pepper to taste

Method

1. Cook chopped bacon in a small pan until browned, drain on absorbent paper.

2. Heat butter in a pan (approx 20g-30g) add onion and garlic, cook until onion softens, add mushrooms cook again until mushrooms are soft. Add paste, bacon, cream pepper and parsley stir to combine and then remove from heat.

3. Take fillets and slice from one side, almost all the way through to the other side, without going through, open up. Divide stuffing equally among fillets on one half fold other half over the top and wrap with a wide leek slice, secure with kitchen string.

4. Heat a small amount of olive oil in a pan sear wrapped steaks a minute on each side. Remove place in baking dish. Cook in pre-heated oven 180c for 15-20 Min’s for medium rare-medium or until desired doneness.(Cooking time will vary depending on the thickness of the steak.)

For the Sauce

1. Heat Madeira, water and stock in pan, mix a small amount of water to cornflour and add, Stir until mixture boils and thickens, add truffles and pepper to taste stir and serve immediately.

To serve Place ostrich on plate pour truffle sauce over I served this with broccoli mash and vegetables.

All photo’s taken by me unless otherwise stated.