Cape Buffalo - What does it taste like?

[TOM]

I am in the final stages of booking a buffalo hunt. I have experienced a plains game bowhunt and we ate several of the animals in the evenings for dinner. I am wondering if the same thing will happen with buff.

What does it taste like?

Do you eat it fresh after the hunt?

 

[Mike70560]

We ate the buff I killed. It can be tough if not prepare properly.

It taste like.......cape buffalo, really like beef but lean.

We also ate oxtail soup (of course made from the tail). It was delicious.

 

[JBoutfishin]

We also ate the buff I killed. Camp chef cooked it in gravy until tender, served over rice. Found it very tasty. Also had it sliced thin, fried up with rice.

Taste? Reminded me of domestic buffalo or very lean beef.

 

[Frederik]

The tail and made into any oxtail recipe is just fabulous !!!

 

[Shallom]

Buffalo makes tasty eating if properly prepared. Preparation begins from the moment the animal is down. Gutting the animal asap is always a good thing. Get the backstraps and tenderloins out asap and hang or lay in the fridge once at camp. Leave to settle for at least 24 hours. Now you can begin the cooking preparation and make it any which way you prefer, but its best left to the bush cooks to handle. They know how to serve it nice and tender. The risk with buffalo meat is that it could be tough and it does not help that you are shooting old bulls and getting their adrenalin pumping.

Buff-Tail Soup is always great after a few drinks by the campfire the previous night or prior to a few drinks by the campfire Seasoned steaks, stew, skewered on the BBQ, it all makes for a great taste of buff. Tongue and Testicles is another specialty for the more adventurous. You can also make a great sausage out of the liver, kidney, heart and fat. Many options really. Must be cooked the right way to avoid clamp-jaw. Enjoy

 

[Karamojo Bill]

it tastes like CHICKEN:tongue:

Sorry I HAD to say that

 

[AfricaHunting.com]

Ryan, it's noon and I haven't had my lunch yet, your post makes me hungry... I must say that my favorite is tongue... haven't had Buffalo tongue but judging from the many other African plains game species that I've had (Kudu, Oryx, Eland), it's always excellent and usually very tender. I like it with a real tomato sauce (not ketchup) along with rice or served cold with a vinaigrette. :drooling: I gotta go eat...

 

[RayAtkinson]

Like most everyone I love oxtail soup made from Buffalo...

I also like the leg bones sawed an put on the brie with butter and toast and that marrow is awesome...

Buffalo like beef depends on diet and diet depends on rain and feed conditions, when fat they are awesome and I have grilled many T bones and fillets on the open grill..The best cut is the fillet from inside the body cavity as it will always be tender..backstrap is second best..

Buff is beef, but its old bulls and you would have to use your imagination to kill a 18 year old hereford and cook it, same with buff except an old buff is actually a bit better than an old Hereford, or beef cow...

I have eaten Buff testis (Mountain Oysters) and as expected due to age of animals shot they are simply too strong IMO, although I ate them. I love them from beef calves. Heart and Liver is about what one would expect from a beef cow....I would someday like to eat a buff calf just about weaning time...

One of my favorite recipes and not of African fame is to slice back strap up in thinn (1/4 inch) pieces and chicken fry it, eat with a dollop of Peco de Gallo. I always take a dozen cans of Herdez brand to Africa then doctor it with hot chili to keep everyone else out of it..They have some bad a$$ hot and good tasting chili in Tanzania btw. Also fry the flank meat as fajitas.

Bottom line is buffalo is excellent fair...

 

[DUGABOY1]

That Thar Buffler tastes like Chicken, but a mite tuff, Y'all!

I shot a Cape Buffalo in the Luangwa Valley, and because we already had a Cookson's wildebeest in the Bakki, we had to cut the buffalo in half to get it in the truck. Of course the entrails were saved, and the large stomach was opened and cleaned out , "BUT" the small stomach was filled with the green mush of grass, and was loaded into the truck with it's contents still in it. I wondered at the time why they didn't empty the small stomach as well.

At dinner that night we had Buffalo steaks, potatoes, and salad. The tea boy brought a sauce to the table that looked exactly like the contents of that small stomach. I passed, the sauce, and have never had anyone tell me what they used the contents of that small stomach for. It was evident that they wanted it for something! :thumbdown:

That is the only time I have seen the contents of the small stomach saved, and have asked this question many time, without even one answer!

 

[Shallom]

Dugaboy1... the small intestines are usually used for sausage, but the contents are emptied and the casing cleaned out properly. The reason they did not empty them in the field is probably because the best way of dealing with the cleaning is by having the entire stomach intact and using a hose to clean it out from one open-end and everything exiting the other open end. But why did you not ask about why they did not empty content?

The other great use for stomach content is for bait drags, but then they would have also saved the contents of the big stomach... Anyway, i doubt it was served as sauce.

 

[DUGABOY1]

Shalloumthank you sir! Would you believe that buffalo was shot seventeen years ago, and I have asked that question many times since, and your's is the first reply I've ever had to the question!

To answer your question as to why I didn't ask at the time, was because it never dawned on me. It didn't because from past experience, I knew that Africans do a lot of very strange things, and I also knew that everything on an animal is utilized, nothing wasted.

By the way the best meat I have ever eaten in Africa is impala liver and peppers, and onions cooked over Mopani coals! #2 was oxtail soup poured over a bed of rice!

We stopped one night on our way back to our camp, to have dinner with another camp where they had "PUFFADDER" (a long intestine filled with verous cuts of meat) on the minue, and I liked that! It had buffalo, and liver in that long sausage!

I find it is best to simply eat the food, and not ask what it is in Africa!

 

[Shallom]

Seems like you had a real old school experience... back in the day names such as 'puffadder', 'bladder roast', 'organ platter', 'gut pot' were used to bring food into a 'macho' and 'dark continent' appeal. Over the years, we have changed to more appropriate and culinary appealing terms. The cuisine at most camps today is top class and can match any 3-5 star lodge. When i serve a buff-tail soup, there is nothing buff about it - many a lady have come to appreciate it and even take back the recipe from the Chef.

But i get where you are coming from and do know that some folks really do things the good old fashioned way and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but the person consuming it has a right to know the contents When its a matter of hunger or survival, then do shut up and nourish yourself, but if its a matter of an evening under the stars with a fine wine on the table (or a cold beer), it is best to know what is being served and have no qualms asking bwana. Cheers,

 

[DUGABOY1]

As you say in the last few yrs the tables have looked more like a fine dinner club than a Safari camp. I miss some of the old tent camps I hunted from,but the one thing I do not miss is the "LONG DROP". the in-suit bathrooms of todays camps along the Luangwa River, and the thatched huts, with concrete floors are nice for an old man who has some aches and pains!

I used to love the roughing it, but Like the old German man said; "VEE GETTS TOO SOON OLT, UND TOO LATE SHMART!"

 

[RayAtkinson]

I have seen on many ocassions the indigenous of Africa take the fresh green contents of the stomach and squeeze the green water out of it into thier mouth and drink the fluid...That is why they can survive where we cannot perhaps.

One of my favorite dishes is vet derm... a piece of gut that is cooked over coals with Liver that is burned in an open fire until black on the outside..It is quite good...Texans love son of a gun, don't ask! Mexicans and myself really love Menudo, stomach, hominy, red chili soup with spices.

I have tried about every thing offered within reason including a bout with soured milk and blood out of a Masai gord as a young man, never again since I lived through it...I have drank blood from a stuck pig, eaten a half formed egg with salt on it, raw liver, raw fish, but the worst thing I have eaten was dried Talpia in a Masai camp after watching Pierre act like it was wonderfull fair, I was had that time. Once in Mexico I ate a wonderful dish of Liver, heart, kidneys, gut with lots of chopped chili, tomatoes onions,all cooked in a deer stomach buried in coals...

I am not a picky eater, and mostly food is a matter of acceptance and what you are used to and you can develope a taste for about anything if you try, hell I love lamb and domestic goat, that proves my point.

Remember as Americans we eat a egg that comes out of a chickens a$$, milk is a mamory gland excretion, ham is the butt of a pig, and so fourth, Many countries think that is some nasty stuff... How was your day!

 

[davidarizpe]

The key is to let it settle for at least 24 hrs, 36 to 48hrs being preferable, Same thing goes with all bovine, fresh is not the optimal grade, the bacteria needs to get their job done wich will not rot the meat but will tenderize it.
oxtail soup and tongue are trully exceptional, regardless to say I am Mexican and a Chef.

 

[harm]

chicken!

 

[Pancho]

One of the finest meals I ever ate - Buffalo liver served in brown gravy over rice. We got back to the camp at 10pm after an all day (successful) track, stalk. PH woke the cook and that's what he stirred up. Served at about 11pm with a cold Zambezi and some toasted bread.

 

[mrpoindexter]

I have had Cape buffalo filet three times. Two were the best two steaks I have had in my life (one I shot and another was shot by a client who was hunting just before my daughter and I went on our sable hunt). This last one was quite good but not in the top 10. The winner on my last trip was roan, which was incredibly good - even better than the sable I had previously.

I have found them to not be gamey at all and taste a lot like bison - very lean. I just grill them up with pepper and Morton's season all salt.

 

[Hunter-Habib]

The tenderloin is the best in my experience. Very tender, since this is the part of the Cape buffalo which does the least amount of work. Grilled rare over an open fire, served with mashed potato (and A LOT OF BUTTER) and a seasonal salad. And some dijon mustard on the side, with an ice cold Stout beer right out of the camp cooler.

But in my opinion, the most delicious African game animal will always be gemsbok. Matched almost equally by Zebra.

Least favorite meat will always be waterbuck. Absolutely vile. Except if ground up, seasoned strongly and made into sausage.

 

[autofire]

Burchell zebra backstaps were amazing. PH wouldn't tell us what it was until after we had eaten it, because some people get a mental block when told it was zebra and won't eat it. Blue Wildebeest "oxtail" stew was also amazing.