Yesterday I did a quick little sampling of the water buffalo meat.
It paid off.
For dinner, Wife sliced the loin meat into maybe 1/4″ or at most 1/3″ slices against the grain. That is key — going against the grain. She then also pounded the meat with one of those tenderizing hammers, and sprinkled some meat tenderizer (the salty stuff) on it. Let it sit for a couple hours.
That made a difference for sure. Eating that meat for dinner and the meat was far “softer”. It’s still got a little bit of chew to it, that’s just gotta be the characteristic of the meat. But it made for a positive difference.
So that seems key in preparation: do things to help tenderness.
Again don’t get me wrong, it’s not a tough meat, but there is more “chew” than beef. Once I get the rest of the meat back from the butcher, we’ll see how that goes. That meat is aging at least a week. And then we’ll see how other preparation techniques work out on other cuts.
Stuff From Hsoi 
Most “wild” meat will be a bit more chewy; there is not as much fat, and they are using the muscles more than some steer standing around in a stall. You might try braising some of it, also.
It’s hard to describe… I mean, I don’t get this sort of chew out of venison or the feral hog meat. But I know what you mean.
Once we get it all back from the butcher, then yes… most of it will get “low and slow” cooking techniques. I’m actually thinking about smoking some too. Just have to come up with a good baste for it because with so little fat it’s going to dry out otherwise.
You might want to look into some of the Korean recipes; water buffalo is commonly eaten over there and is the actual meat used in a lot of the Korean recipes for beef.
Oh yes. Kalbi and such will be made. 🙂
Did that cost you “buffalo” rates listed on the ranch’s web site? :-0
No.
Just wondering.
I was going to be shocked, stunned, and amazed if it did.
If it cost anywhere near that listed amount, I wouldn’t have done it.
As you know with ground venison, add a little ground beef to any ground buffalo you get back when you cook it for like hamburgers and such. It adds fat without ruining the flavors of the base meat.
In general, Wife likes to get things back as “pure” as possible, then she’ll do the mixing herself. Gives her more options, vs. if things were “pre-mixed”. But oh yes, ground has to have some fat added to it else well.. it’ll just be dry and fall apart.