Never having had experience with ostrich in the kitchen, I read up a bit. Similar to beef in taste but significantly healthier; tough if overcooked, best in the rare to medium-rare range; extremely resilient and easy to raise, so usually ‘natural’ by default. This stuff sounds like a winner; time to fire it up!

A little salt and pepper is really all that is necessary to season the meat. Grab a pan, throw in a splash of olive oil to coat the bottom and get some heat under it. Standard, no? A couple of minutes on each side sealed the meat (which browned beautifully). Transfer the meat to a moderate oven for a few minutes to finish it off. I won’t offer you cooking times because I have no idea how thick a cut you’ll find, nor how red a meat you can handle. That said, my inch and a quarter thick steaks were just about right after about 7 minutes in the oven. That was just enough time to throw some red wine (I had a decent $5 bottle of Zinfandel), rosemary, pepper, garlic and a wee pinch of sugar into the pan for deglazing and reduction. A fast hand and a wooden spoon got the pan scrapings into the wine, which was then reduced to about 1/3 of its original volume. Together with the meat and a side of greens, I had an amazing 10 minute meal (and the deglazing of the pan cut a couple of minutes off of my cleanup time!).

The sale had a couple more days to it and I now have a freezer full of ostrich and a wicked new addiction.