Although there were a ton of great dishes to be sampled at the foodbuzz Food Festival in San Francisco this November, only a few dishes really stood out as exceptional.  The other dishes that stand out most in my memory aren’t the ones that were done perfectly the first time.  The dishes that always stick with me are the ones that were almost perfect. Those dishes that I find myself wondering just what tiny little detail made them less than everything they could have been.

One of those dishes was Mezzetta’s Beer Braised Flank Steak.  Sure it was good, but it wasn’t great. It had all the right flavors just not enough of them somehow to compete with the other dishes at the same event. (Don’t blame the chef… competition in that room was fierce!)

The memory of that dish has stuck with me since the festival and when I came across the recipe card in my swag-bag I decided to see if I could take the dish up by that one much needed notch.

Now I have nothing against polenta, which is what the chef originally paired this dish with, but as a good southern boy, I don’t necessarily have polenta on hand, but I always have grits, so my first change was obvious.  The second thing I didn’t want to do was to use a bunch of pre-made store bought products to make the dish, regardless of the quality, both because they’re too hard to change to my liking and because I wasn’t terribly thrilled with the first attempt.

Don’t let the seemingly large list of ingredients frighten or deter you.  Basically I just built a pasta sauce in a braising liquid and let it thicken as it went.  You’ll be amazed how quickly it all goes together and how absolutely powerful the flavors are.  It’s simply an awe-inspiring dish and one I recommend that you give a bit of time to while the weather is chill.

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A little tomato, a little wine, a little seafood.  That’s really all it takes to make me happy, at least in this instance.  The fact that my oldest son helped me devour the dish shown above is nothing short or a five-star bonus.  I would have eaten it myself had he not enjoyed it.

(I may have secretly hoped that he didn’t…)

All I can really say about this is that it was sublime.  I’ve spent days staring at the screen trying to find a way to describe it, but words have failed me this time, so I’m just going to get straight to the recipe before I waste any more time.  You guys deserve to have this in your card index, database or PDA.  It’s good.

Really good.

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If you’re thinking to yourself that the above photo looks like a very rare steak on top of some greenery, you’d be just about right, and that is what it looks like, only that’s not steak, that’s American bison in all it’s rare glory perched happily atop a salad of spinach, mushrooms and grape tomatoes that have been touched ever so gently with just a  bit of vinaigrette and a sprinkling pf Parmesan cheese. The bison itself is unadorned as any new thing should be when first tried, so that it’s true flavors shine through.

If you’ve never tried bison, I urge you to go ahead and splurge a little for a good cut of this wonderful meat.  you won’t be disappointed, I assure you. The flavor is much like beef, but mild and slightly sweet, without much of the fattiness that an inexpensive cut of beef can (and should) have.  bison is naturally lower in cholesterol and saturated fats as well, making it the perfect choice in red meats for anyone who needs to watch these components in their diet.

This combination was good.  Very good. Unfortunately I found that the salad fought the flavor of the meat slightly and I’ll be looking for other accompaniments in the future.  A mild addition is needed for this, as the bison’s flavor is subtle and easily overshadowed by other flavors.

In the end, I love this meat.  I’m glad that it’s stocked at our commissary and will be buying it again (slated for the grill this time) before we leave Texas.  I should have no problems finding it in California either, so I’ll continue to muck with combinations well into the future.  this was good, but this could be great, and I’m looking for that recipe.

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