#24 | BEST Way to Cook a Steak at Home
The Hustle, the Loophole and the Apocalypse
Hello!
We’ve been flirting with converting to a macrobiotic diet, you know, brown rice porridge for breakfast and all that. Maybe pandemic induced anxiety was driving that urge to be a bit more healthy? Then we got some steaks in the mail and remembered we really do like meat. And french fries. And we have our eye on some sea bream because we’re craving a sashimi plate. We did in fact just order some sushi vinegar too and sharpened our knives so they pass the tomato slice test. Ready to go!
Btw, I'm Bruce Cole, Publisher of Edible San Francisco. You're getting this email because you subscribed. If you'd like to hop off at anytime, simply unsubscribe. I appreciate you reading this newsletter.
EAT
Pan-Seared Grass Fed Steaks
We go back and forth on whether a NY strip or ribeye steak would be on our desert island dinner list, but one thing is for certain, its absolutely steak, not pork, chicken or fish, and there is a big plate of shoestring fries along side. Plus chocolate pot d’creme for dessert.
Leaning towards NY strip steaks after Roam Butcher Shop (part of the Roam Artisan Burger group of restaurants) gifted us these glorious slabs of meat. Not only do they have a nice thick layer of fat along the edge, these steaks are richly marbled, which is an indicator of how intensely beefy they are going to taste. And did we mention these steaks are from pasture-raised 100% grass fed beef? Trust me it’s rare to see grass fed beef that is so beautifully marbled.
The thick strip of fat the butchers left intact is definitely appreciated. We started these steaks out in the pan, edge sides down to render the fat for cooking. We’ve been doing this technique forever, since we first read about it in a 2002 NY Times recipe from famed French chef Alain Ducasse:
Then I do something you will consider truly strange: I start by cooking the steak on its narrow side. I want to begin with the rim of fat on the edge, to render it so there is good, flavorful fat in the pan for the rest of the cooking. I'm also browning it so the finished steak will look immensely appetizing when it is served. —Alain Ducasse in THE CHEF: Steak With Style: Easy Does It for the NY Times
Note: grass fed beef fat has a high smoke point and as much as five times the amount of omega-3 fatty acids as grain-fed beef (in other words its good for you).
Ducasse also mentions that he’s cooking his steaks over moderate heat because he’s not trying to carbonize or char the surface. We’re cooking these steaks over medium high in a Hestan Nanobonded skillet, which has quickly become our go-to pan for cooking meat. It’s even replaced our cast iron pans, and since it browns meat perfectly and evenly, and we don’t have to blast the stove at high heat with the exhaust fans roaring away either.
A perfectly browned steak is the holy grail of meat eaters, and as Harold McGee says in his book On Food and Cooking, you can easily achieve this result (most commonly referred to as the Malliard reaction) by cooking with medium heat and flipping steaks frequently, about every 15-30 seconds. But what does the Malliard reaction actually produce?
“One of the most important flavor-producing reactions in cooking is the Maillard reaction. It is sometimes called the “browning reaction” in discussions of cooking, but that description is incomplete at best. The important thing about the Maillard reaction isn’t the color, it’s the flavors and aromas. Indeed, it should be called ‘the flavor reaction,’ not the ‘browning reaction.’” by Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young and Maxime Bilet in Modernist Cuisine
Flipping the steaks frequently is the other technique we religiously adhere to. Turning them every half minute or so means that the surface temperature of the steaks doesn’t cool down and not only will you get more evenly browned meat, it will cook more quickly. Says Kenji Lopez-Alt:
By flipping a steak multiple times—as often as once every 15 seconds or so—you not only end up with meat that's more evenly cooked, you also cut down on your cook time by as much as a third, and develop a great crust on top of that. This is because with multiple flips, neither side is exposed to intense heat for too long, nor does it lose much heat to the relatively cool air above. It's the equivalent of cooking it from both directions simultaneously. —Kenji Lopez-Alt in The Food Lab's Complete Guide to Pan-Seared Steaks for seriouseats.com
We finished these steaks by basting them with butter, and deglazing the pan by sautéing swiss chard to soak up all the browned and caramelized bits left behind. You can find the complete recipe here: Pan-Seared Grass Fed Steaks.
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DRINK
A Look Back at Some of the Wines We’ve Featured This Year
Most of the wines we open these days would qualify as natural. Our definition of natural wines begins with how the grapes are grown in the vineyard, whether they are farmed biodynamically, organically or sprayed with systemic pesticides and herbicides. How are the grapes treated in the winemaking process? Is intervention kept to a minimum and does fermentation occur naturally? These are factors we consider when purchasing a wine. However, it’s often difficult to find this kind of information because even winemakers who follow these guidelines don’t publish specifics for the curious consumer.
You might notice we didn’t mention scores. Could care less what Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast and the rest who measure the worthiness of a bottle on a 100 point scale have to say about a wine. Seriously, it’s a joke.
There’s also one vital piece of information we left out as it is simply unavailable. As an agricultural product, grapes are grown on vineyards that are typically managed by winery employees. How are those employees treated? Do they make a living wage? Do they have health benefits? Are there avenues to report harassment or mistreatment? These are issues we’re hoping to discover and share with you when we talk about wines in 2021, so stay tuned. After all, would you buy a wine if you knew the workers in the vineyards were treated essentially as slave labor? It happens on American farms and ranches and it is most likely occurring in vineyards as well.
THINK
Stop Making Sense
SF has shut down outdoor dining at restaurants without any evidence that outdoor dining actually contributes to the spread of Covid-19. We note that because an LA Judge Says the County “Acted Arbitrarily” In Closing Outdoor Restaurant Dining —Farley Elliot for Eater LA
Then again as Marcia Gagliardi mentions in this week’s Tablehopper newsletter:
Grant Ave. is like Covid Alley. And the Marina? Come on down for brunch in the Covid-19 Corral! Don’t even get me started on the sketchy operations of some places during our indoor dining blip—and how entitled customers weren’t even trying to keep their mask on while at their table. And yet, we act surprised that we’re here in this shutdown, once again.
•
The Hustle
Guy Fieri has raised $21.5 million for unemployed restaurant workers. In other words, he has done more for unemployed restaurant workers than Congress has in the last 8 months. Guy Fieri, the Fundraiser of Flavortown by Kate Krader for Bloomberg Businessweek
•
The Loophole
Fast food restaurants, including McDonalds, Taco Bell, Wendy’s and the like, exploited a loophole in the PPP Loan program and received over $1B in federal aid while many independent restaurants, those that truly make up the culinary diversity of communities everywhere, have closed in what can be only described as a total restaurant apocalypse. More than half of emergency small-business funds went to larger businesses, new data shows by Jonathan O'Connell, Andrew Van Dam, Aaron Gregg and Alyssa Fowers for The Washington Post
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Said Apocalypse
Here’s what I see ahead of us, in the likely event that the lockdowns will continue without no-strings-attached direct aid and commercial and residential rent relief: a huge wave of independent operator-owned restaurants closing in January and February, with “hibernating” businesses never waking up; further polarization of the dining scene as middle-end places drop out, with venture capitalist-backed fine dining establishments and chain restaurants proliferating; a worsening staffing crisis in the Bay Area, as workers seek more stable jobs in other industries; and undocumented and low-wage workers being driven to financial desperation, with their already-precarious food and housing security reaching even lower depths. —Soleil Ho in A total restaurant apocalypse is coming. But it’s not inevitable for the SF Chronicle
•
Maskual Harassment
A new study by One Fair Wage found that food service workers are having to endure “maskual harassment,” in which restaurant diners request the server remove their mask to gauge how much they should be tipped.
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Tastes Like Covid 19
If you’re shopping for chicken, maybe pass by the Foster Farms option and choose another brand.
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Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should
ONE MORE THING
Dear Santa
Yes it’s a $50,000 refrigerator, but it would look really nice in my kitchen.
That’s all for this week.
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We’re outta here. Be well and take care,
–Bruce
p.s.
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"Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end" –John Lennon