A pan-seared steak of Greenlandic reindeer, served rare with a sauce of tundra lingonberries and butter. Lean, dark, faintly sweet wild meat with the tart berry cutting its richness.
Reindeer — caribou — is the primary land game of Greenland, pan-fried or roasted and served with the lingonberries and crowberries foraged from the tundra. Where almost nothing is farmed, the herds are the meat of the land.
Slice the reindeer and it is deep red, lean, and tender, tasting of clean wild forest, the lingonberry sauce sharp and sweet-tart against it. Bite: the meat is dense and faintly sweet, far leaner than beef, almost no fat; the tart berries and butter lift and round it. The taste of the Arctic tundra on a plate.
Reindeer is extremely lean, so a hard quick sear and rare service keep it tender — overcooking dries it. The tart lingonberries provide the acid and fruit that the lean, faintly sweet meat needs, a pairing repeated across the reindeer-herding north.
Variations
With crowberry sauce. With juniper. With a cream sauce. With mushroom. Roasted whole. With mashed potato.
On the Palate
Where Greenlandic Reindeer Steak sits in the Greenlandic flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 2How it's made
7 steps · 25 min active + 5 min waiting
- 13 min
Pat 2 reindeer steaks dry and season well with salt.
- 23 min
Heat butter in a heavy pan until foaming.
Watch outWait for the butter to foam and then just start to smell nutty before the steaks go in — that's the pan hot enough to crust the lean meat fast.
- 36 min
Sear the steaks 2-3 min per side for rare to medium-rare.
Watch outTwo to three minutes a side and no more — reindeer is so lean that past medium-rare it goes dry and tough, so pull it while the center is still rosy.
- 45 min
Rest the meat on a warm plate.
Watch outRest it before slicing so the juices settle back in — cut it straight from the pan and they run out onto the board.
- 54 min
In the same pan, soften chopped onion in the juices.
- 66 min
Add lingonberries and a little water; simmer to a glossy sauce.
- 73 min
Slice the steak and spoon the lingonberry sauce over.
