Best for: A frontier supper — lean, wild steaks cooked fast over a hot fire, expedition-style.
The record says the Lewis and Clark journals are practically a cookbook of the American West: page after page of game roasted, boiled, and broiled over campfires from St. Louis to the Pacific. When the hunting was good, the captains recorded their men eating meat on a heroic scale — as much as nine pounds a day by the journals’ own accounting, much of it buffalo, the expedition’s favorite when they could get it. Every night ended the same way: a fire, fresh game, hungry men.
Our grilled take is bison the expedition way — simply salted steaks seared fast over high heat, respecting how lean this meat is. No marinade, no sauce; the corps had neither, and needed neither.
Grill: Direct high heat. Equipment: Grill, instant-read thermometer, tongs. Course: Main dish.
Ingredients
Rest: 10 minutes Total: 30 minutes
- 4 bison ribeye or strip steaks, about 1 inch thick (8 ounces each)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon neutral oil or rendered bacon fat
- 2 tablespoons butter, for serving
Directions
Season and warm the steaks. Rub the bison with the salt and pepper and let the steaks stand at room temperature 30 minutes — lean meat put on the fire ice-cold cooks unevenly and toughens at the edges.
Oil the meat, not the grate. Brush the steaks lightly with the oil or bacon fat just before cooking. Bison carries almost no fat of its own; this thin coat is its only insurance against sticking.
Sear fast and hot. Grill over direct high heat 4 to 5 minutes per side, one flip only. Bison is done in a hurry compared to beef — this is a sprinter, not a marathoner.
Respect the number. Pull the steaks at 145°F and rest them — bison stays sweet and tender cooked through to a rested 145°F, though many wild-game cooks prefer the personal-preference range of 130 to 135°F for medium-rare; either way, do not push past medium or the lean meat will dry and turn livery.
Rest a full ten minutes. Tent the steaks and wait it out. With meat this lean, the rest isn’t a courtesy — it’s the difference between juicy and dry.
Serve with the butter. Set a knob of butter on each steak and serve at once with whatever the camp provides: beans, potatoes, or plain bread to catch the juices.
Grilling tip: Treat bison like venison, not beef: hotter, faster, and off the fire earlier than your instincts say. The journals’ cooks learned it over a thousand campfires — you get the lesson free.
