USDA Choice Prime Rib
Fri, 20 Jun 2008.
There’s steak to be cooked! Prime Rib, USDA Choice, sitting in the fridge. It’s come out of the freezer, she says, it’s defrosting. She doesn’t want to cook it because the idea of a slab of meat bleeding, cooking in its own juices, fat rendering, pink and squishy in the middle. She’s ok with eating it if it’s well-done and she sees none of the process.
I’m more than happy to cook steak. Mind you, I’m no genius at it. My process usually involves keeping as much of the flavor of the meat as possible. I season it heavily, let it sit to room temperature, throw it on a hot pan, render the fat, crisp up the sides and then focus on getting the insides right. I personally love it somewhere between medium rare and rare depending on the cut of the steak. I didn’t have the patience nor the lack of conscience to cook hers to well-done; she got medium (just pink in the centre). I make steaks, not shoes.
I’m not sure why but when you have steak in restaurants, they tend to keep the sides very simple. Mash or steamed vegetables. Blah. I personally prefer a salad to take the edge off the heaviness whilst complimenting it at the same time. This time around though, I decided to use what I had. I mashed up some Yukon Gold potatoes, boiled up some asparagus and made a sauce out of the pan juices, vegetable stock and mushrooms. It all worked out beautifully but could have used a lot of refinement. Tasted good too.
Anyway, this is just me navel-gazing about being in the kitchen. How much it excites me. How it tickles all those delicious multitasking centers in your brain. How the patterns begin to emerge. How subjective taste can be. How much fun it is to cook for others when it’s not a chore.
It’s almost an insult to the cow when you eat (well, when you eat it at all, really, but that’s not the point here) it cooked well-done. I’ve come from the well-done family, then to the medium, and now I’m sitting at the medium rare, and honestly? That’s how it’s meant to taste. Yum. It’s only 8:30 am, and already, I’d like a good steak to eat.
My favorite sides to eat with the steak of a lifetime are cheesy mashed potatoes, which are, indeed, mashed, but they’re cheesy. And anything cheesy is good. Also, green beans sauteed in some olive oil and maybe with some almonds or some other nuts thrown in.
Ok, I don’t know why I spent two paragraphs talking about food, but yeah. Hope you have a great weekend!
I refuse to eat steak if it’s pink in the middle. Re.Fuse. Haha
I’m with you on the rare to medium rare thing. I can’t deal with steak if it’s overcooked.
At one of the restaurants my housemate worked at, they would simply refuse to cook their expensive steaks any more than medium.
They saw it as an insult.. ouch!
Well done steaks are for for plebs.
Good call Jack, your making a good steak not a shoe.
poodlegoose: I don’t think I’ve ever had really cheesy potatoes before. I’ll need to try some.
deutlich: Aww, you’re missing out. Each to their own, I guess. If you want things totally cooked but you don’t want the outside overcooked, you can ask to butterfly the steak (i.e. cut it through the middle and half the thickness of it).
Maxie: Yeah… waste of a perfectly good hunk of meat. I love the texture of medium rare meat.
Dennis: I can understand the hardline stance but some people just can’t digest raw meat. I’d just take the worst steak in the fridge and serve it to them. After overcooking, it’s hard to tell a bad cut of steak from a good one.
Michael: Roar! We’re manly. :D