Heck yah. Can’t wait to see the result!
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Not many around tonight so we went with steaks.
3" thick rib eyes.
Torched them briefly before searing and went with butter basting. Where in you spoon hot butter over the tops to improve the crust after initially searing in oil.
That’s about as close to a “during” shot as exists since it takes 2 hands and a gravy ladle to accomplish.
And complete steaks:
You get a deeply browned, thick crust on steaks this way that is best described as a meat cookie.
But you get more of a gradient/gray band under the surface, and it’s much easier to over cook things than with a reverse sear or sous vide. So it’s best done with thick cuts and things like rib eye that can stand up to more heat.
I have been practicing to perfect it for a couple years. At one point I was making steak this way once or twice a week.
Just about nailed it here.
It’s best to pull the steaks much earlier than you’d think. These were “done” at 100-110f in the center, after a full 15 minutes resting they coasted to a perfect medium rare. But you can see the thick gray band, and the cap tends to end up over done in spots. But rib eye cap holds up well to medium.
Had with a drizzle of good IGP balsamic to cut the richness. A baked spud, and the most basic garden salad we could muster. Romaine, cukes, cherry tomatoes and radishes.
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3” thick is sick!
I need your butcher.
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They were on sale cheap at the supermarket!
Presumably they’re the off cuts from breaking standing rib roasts down to smaller portions due to everyone’s reduced holiday guest lists. Sort of like how smaller turkeys were a hot commodity at Thanksgiving.
I think they were supermarket prime, I didn’t buy them and didn’t pay close attention to the tag when I seasoned them. The sort of prime you find at supermarkets tends to be the stuff that barely qualifies, tends to be about the same as choice Certified Angus Beef. And I’ve found the CAB is both more affordable and routinely better.
But they were on sale for around $10/lb, so my mother dug through the bin to find the two thickest steaks with the closest weights and sizes. Seems like a lot of the groceries committed to taking in a lot more rib primals then they ended up needing. And about a week before Christmas there was a flood of 2 and 3 rib roasts and very big steaks at good prices at a bunch of places.
We do have a couple of butchers nearby that will cut us CAB Choice or quality Prime to order, and we’ve gotten steaks this thick from them before. You just sometimes need to call ahead. You need a particular size of rib primal to get a steak that thick on a single bone. And it costs a good $30-40 a pound around here.
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Beef Wellington, roasted Brussels sprouts, paired with Montinore Estates 2013 Parson’s Ridge Pinot Noir.
The individual beef Wellington’s are from Chef John’s recipe:
I made one change. I had a lot of the mushroom duxelles left over, so instead of using the extra puff pastry as a base, I wrapped it around the extra duxelles with a tiny mozzeralla ball in the middle.This was a hit with my mushroom-loving kids.
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Beef Wellington! OMGlob!
You are more brave than I.
Looks fantastic.
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The individual ones were much easier to make than the full tenderloin. If you follow Chef John’s recipe, it’s pretty straightforward. The most effort was making the duxelles. That was a lot of work getting the mushrooms chopped fine enough then sweating all the moisture out.
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Is It preserved beet? I´ve seen it in the supermarket, but I never bought it.
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Red cabbage.
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Fondue. Beef, a pot of hot vegetable broth, fresh bread and whatever dip/spices/seasoning you fancy.
Keep the broth and drink it as it is, or throw in a handful of pasta and you’ll have a nice soup the next day.
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Fondue! San Francisco has the perfect weather for Fondue tonight!
Thanks for the idea.
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my first thought was “they’ve really caught the vibe of early 70s advertising.” my second thought as i read through the recipe with a slowly growing horror was “wow, they haven’t changed their packaging much over the last 40-50 years.”
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Yes, not much change over the years…but they did make a big change early this year:
It was discussed on BoingBoing thusly:
It was a mistake to remove the native American maiden from Land O’ Lakes packaging, says artist’s son
This has some additional background info, for the heck of it:
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Whoops, they accidentally missed the fifth of Smirnoff in their little recipe.
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Seems more like the sort of thing that gets 6 bouillon cubes, a box of gelatin and as much ice berg lettuce as you can huck in there.
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Hot buttered rum? Yes please! Hot buttered tomato juice? Er, maybe later…
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