Ostrich Medallions - Sous Vide and Fried

The ostrich medallion comes from the tenderloin or fan fillet. I got these two medallions from Exotic Meat Market. Anshu Pathak, the proprietor, raises ostriches but he is still trying to increase his herd, so this particular ostrich meat came from an outside source. 

Two ostrich medallions.

Ostriches in Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

Ostrich cuts of meat from clovegarden.com. Note that the tenderloin and fan are toward the back and top side of the ostrich.

I've eaten ostrich egg and ostrich sausage, but never a nice cut of ostrich meat. I recently ate an emu tenderloin and was surprised how dark the meat was. This ostrich was equally dark, if not darker. Learning from my emu, I decided to both brine (1 tablespoon of sea salt per cup of water) and marinade (a large lime, a large mandarin orange and two small Meyer lemons) the meat for an hour to both moisten it up and break down any tough spots. 

In the brine/marinade.

Post brine/marinade. Note that the meat is less red, more purple or gray. 

After washing off the brine/marinade and patting it dry, I put it in a sous vide vacuum sealed packet with olive oil, salt and pepper and cooked it in a water bath at 56 degrees Centigrade for an hour and 20 minutes. 

After the sous vide, the meat has turned even more gray or brown. 

I then browned it in a hot skillet with butter on both sides and on the edges. The resultant meat was very moist, very tender and earthy. Andrew described it as tasting like a bolete mushroom (a mighty compliment from the mushroom hunter). Judy described it has having a slight liver taste. I found it a taste hard to describe. Definitely earthy, perhaps a bit gamy, strong, but not in a negative way.  I agree with Andrew that it would go very well with some king bolete mushrooms. 

The sous vide meat frying in a hot skillet with butter.

The beautifully finished ostrich is a deep red or purple.