“The last time I ate ostrich, which was many years ago, I had a steak that I found very dry and quite tough. Either we cooked it too long or too hard. This time I decided to go for ground ostrich. I added some seasonings and bacon fat and hubby grilled it BEAUTIFULLY! Taste was just stellar! It’s much more delicate tasting than ground beef and in my opinion, is worth the cost when I want to snow guests. Best grilled chopped steak I’ve ever eaten. 🙂 It’s also available not ground. If you buy it that way, I would marinate it in the mixture below (minus the bacon grease and just melt the bacon grease and brush over the meat surface before grilling.

Though ostrich is quite pricey, you can sometimes get it on sale if you shop around. I can get it for $9-10 per pound at my local Natural Grocers. Many of us pay nearly that much for good grass-fed beef! It’s about 98% lean, so there’s no waste or shrinkage during cooking really. In fact, it’s so lean, you need to ADD fat to the mix so it will cook up better. I have also seen ostrich at Whole Foods. You can also obtain it on-line, I’m sure. This dish is suitable for any phase of Atkins and for Paleo-Primal followers as well. You can use ground sirloin or lamb for this, too.

Just take a close look at the nutritional stats below!!! Impressive, non? I know I sure plan to now increase my intake of ostrich, for more reasons than GREAT TASTE! This recipe would also be good made with ground elk, bison, venison or any ground game meat. This is suitable for all phases of Atkins, Keto and Primal-Paleo as well.

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INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. ground ostrich meat (or other ground meat)

2 T. bacon grease (or other fat/lard of your choosing)

1 clove garlic, minced

3/4 tsp. finely chopped fresh rosemary

Dash each ground thyme, onion powder and black pepper

1 tsp. balsamic vinegar

DIRECTIONS: Crumble up the ostrich meat into a glass bowl. Add all ingredients and work it together with a fork or with your hands like you would for a meatloaf until all is well blended. Cover and refrigerate to allow the flavors to mingle for 1-2 hours before you plan to cook. When ready, form into two thick “steaks” pressing them firmly so they won’t fall apart on the grill. Prepare a hot steak/burger bed of coals and grill the ostrich “steaks” until just medium-med rare. Place “steaks” over coals and grill. Do not attempt to jiggle/shift them around lest these babies fall apart on you. When one side is nicely grilled, gently flip them over and finish cooking. I warn you if you cook them well done, they are definitely going to be dryer and you’ll end up being disappointed you wasted your money. Ours were medium (just pink inside) and they were NOT dry at all. We served ours with a piece of grilled bacon and grilled tomato and a spinach salad. But these would also be good with seasoned, oiled, grilled onion slices, yellow or zucchini squash or eggplant slices as well.

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes two 8-oz steaks, each containing:

517 calories

34.2 g fat

1.2 g carbs, 0.2 g fiber, 1.0 g NET CARBS

47.5 g protein

695 mg potassium

275 mg sodium