Prep time 10 minutes
Cook time 40 to 50 minutes
Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter or extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 cup of green onions, roots removed and thinly sliced
3 Portobello mushroom caps, sliced
1/2 cup red wine
1 1/2 pounds of buffalo tenderloin, trimmed of fat and silver skin
Sea salt and ground black pepper
3 slices non-nitrate turkey bacon
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 300°. In a medium skillet over medium heat, melt the butter or heat the oil. Add the garlic and onion and sauté for one minute. Add the mushrooms and heat through for another 1 to 2 minutes. Add the wine and simmer until all of the liquid is dissolved. Butterfly the tenderloin and gently stuff it with the mushroom mixture. Secure with soaked toothpicks and place in a roasting pan, cut side down. (See kitchen notes) Sprinkle the outside with salt-and-pepper and wrap with the bacon. Cook for 30 to 45 minutes, or to desired degree of doneness, but do not let the internal temperature rise more than 160°F. The best practice for a slow cooked roast is to remove it at 3 to 5degrees lower than your desired temperature and let it rest for 10 to 15 minutes, because it will continue to cook for a short period of time.
Yield: six servings
Notes from the kitchen
Buffalo is best cooked medium rare to rare. The more well done it is the dryer the meat will become. The key to roasting buffalo well is to cook it slowly, at a slightly lower temperature than beef. Because buffalo meat’s high myoglobin content, it’s darker red than beef. When Buffalo is cooked to medium doneness, it looks like rare beef. Use a meat thermometer to determine relative doneness because while beef and buffalo look different when cooked, their internal temperatures should be the same.
Here’s how to butterfly and stuff tenderloin. Place the tenderloin on a piece of waxed paper or plastic wrap, holding a sharp chefs knife parallel to the cutting board, slice through the meat, leaving half of an inch connected to the opposite side. Open the tenderloin like a book. For thicker cuts of meat, you can cover it with more wax paper or plastic wrap and gently pound with a meat mallet or small skillet until it is about 1/2 inch thick. Spread the filler mixture in a thick ribbon down the center and roll the meat up to create a long cylinder. Secure with toothpicks soaked in water for 10 minutes or tie with kitchen string.
