New York Steak with Dried Cherry Balsamic Reduction and Bacon-Salted Frites

Nothing says "I love you" like steak. Well, maybe good scotch and a cigar. And a BJ. But still, steak ranks up there with the best public displays of affection conceived by mankind. And steak cooked properly, perfectly, keeping the center at 65°C while uniformly caramelizing the outside, seasoning it just right and serving it with a side of civilized potatoes can only be described as a little slice of Nirvana.

I am a Rib Eye man myself, but my family doesn't love fat as much as I do, so this time I cooked New York strip steak. New York steak comes from the short loin primal, and can often substitute for T-Bones, Porterhouses and Rib Steaks if the marbling is right.

The thing about New York steak is that it's really easy to fuck up, since it's often leaner that other cuts and will burn and dry to a rubbery piece of shit if overcooked. There is no way in Hell a self-respecting, red-blooded human can process a well-done New York steak. Seriously, if you like your steak well-done, don't eat steak. Have a rat burger at McD. Char yourself some hotdogs; after all, they're nothing but lips and assholes.

So let's start with as many steaks as there are people on your table. DO. NOT. TRIM. THE. FAT. Seriously. Don't do it, fucker. I'm watching you. Season the steaks liberally with sea salt and coarsely ground pepper and set aside for a while.

Preheat your oven to 375°F. Take some crumbled bacon and dehydrate it in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes. It should be crunchy but not chared. Let it cool and place in the food processor with at least 2x as much sea salt as bacon and a little paprika (for color). Pulse it to combine until any fat left in the bacon is indistinguishable. Set aside.

Take at least 1 potato per guest and cut into 8 regular wedges. Nuke'em for 5-6 minutes, covered, and let them rest in the microwave while you prepare the rest of the meal.

Put a couple of tablespoons of fig preserves in a sauce pan. Add some dried cherries, half a bottle of your favorite red wine (in this case, Shyraz) and a good dash of balsamic vinegar. Season with salt and pepper and simmer over a medium high flame until thickened. While you're at it, take a large pan (preferably cast-iron, and heat it over a very high flame.

Home-made, of course

As the sauce simmers, take the potato wedges out of the microwave and add a decent amount of olive oil, pepper and parmesan cheese. The heat and moisture from the potatoes will melt the cheese and make it stick to the wedges, giving you that all-natural MSG goodness that can only come from parmesan. Place them on a single layer on a cookie sheet and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until browned.

 Once the potatoes are nice and browned, take them out of the oven and sprinkle them with bacon salt.

SHELDON MOMENT ALERT

Glutamic acid is the most abundant non-essential aminoacid found in foods. Monosodium glutamate was first synthetized in 1908 by japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda, who patented it and sold at as Aji-no-Moto (Essence of flavor), Professor Ikeda also discovered the elusive 5th flavor, umami, elicited by the activation of glutamate receptors on the tongue mucosa. All aged, dry cheeses contain vast ammounts of glutamic acid, which makes them excellent flavor enhancers. The infamous "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" is nothing but the result of a single anecdotal report by a man called Robert Ho Man Kwok, and it has been extensively disproved.

END SHELDON MOMENT

Now add just a little olive oil to the heated pan and place the steaks (always laying them away from you, or risk grease splatter), never overcrowding the surface. Do not fucking touch them again for 5 minutes. Seriously, don't. You need them to char on the surface to develop maximum flavor. Use tongs and a large spatula to flip them. Puncturing them with a fork will only render the juices out, this creates steam and hinders  caramelization. Steaks should only be flipped once. And it's not some snobbish dick shit about knowing your meat. Steaks can be equally well cooked flipping them once or flipping them frequently. It's just more practical to leave them be and let residual heat work its magic.

Take the steaks out of the pan and add a dash of red wine to whatever browned bits were left in the pan, scrape them and add this liquid to the balsamic reduction.The steaks must rest for 5 to 10 minutes, loosely covered with aluminum foil, so that the protein relaxes and the juices are not forced out when you drive your knife through it.

Now plate, eat, and be happy!

This is my sister, a woman that despises adding fruit to anything other than a smoothie. She fucking loved it

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New York Steak with Dried Cherry Balsamic Reduction and Bacon-Salted Frites
Serves 6

6 New York Steaks, about 5Oz each

Balsamic reduction:
2 cups dry red wine
1 cup balsamic vinegar
1 cup dried cherries
3 Tbsps fig preserves
Salt and pepper

Bacon salt:
1/3 cup cooked bacon, dehydrated in the oven and cooled
1 cup coarse sea salt
1 Tbsp paprika

Civilized Frites
6 medium Idaho potatoes, cut in wedges
Olive oil
Pepper
Parmesan cheese

1. Season your steaks profusely with salt and pepper and set aside
2. Simmer all the sauce ingredients over a medium high flame until all of the alcohol has evaporated and the sauce thickens
3. Pulse the bacon, salt and paprika in a food processor until combined and set aside.
4. Parboil the potato wedges in the microwave, then toss with olive oil, parmesan cheese and pepper. Lay on a baking sheet and brown for 10 minutes in a 375°F oven
5. Heat a large skillet and sear the steaks for 5 to 8 minutes on each side, or until interior temperature reaches 65°C if you have a meat thermometer.
6. Deglaze the pan with a splash of red wine, then add the browned bits to the sauce.
7. Season the frites with bacon salt to taste, then plate with the steaks covered in sauce
8. Stay fucking awesome

Grilled Whole Prime Rib and Warm German Potato Salad

I'm making a parenthesis from the promised mexican recipes to go international. This kind of beef deserves it. Turns out I got my carnivore paws on 36 (yes, thirty-six) lbs of some premium quality Prime Rib. Sonoran beef is recognized worldwide as some of the best, with the US importing over 1.8 million heads in 2009 alone. We take our meat seriously.

So it is, technically, mexican food

So seriously, in fact, that I'm going full Sheldon mode on this post before actually getting to the cooking. Scroll down if you're the kind of ignorant slob that doesn't care about enlightment.

See there, where it conveniently says "rib"?

Prime rib is one of the 8 primal cuts of beef. It's name stems from the fact that a number of other cuts derive from it, not from its quality. Semantics notwithstanding, however, even the shittiest cow will give great meat from this area. Here's why: it has the perfect ratio of meat:fat:bone to impart flavor and texture. The muscles involved are not regularly excersized, so they then to be a lot more tender than other parts. And fuck it, it just looks fucking awesome to hold it, Fred Flintstone-style.

So we're starting with a primal cut. This particular portion comes with a section of another cut: the brisket. We'll cover brisket in future posts, but sufice it to say the flat of the brisket covers a part of the ribs, so that will need to come off, along with most of the fat., Save the fat for cleaning the grill.

Lok at the SIZE of these fuckers

See that EPIC MARBLING right there!? and it was slaughtered 24hrs prior. Carnivore Nirvana right there

This is the brisket flat. Pull it off slowly and carefully, then save it for some pot roast

 

The fat has been trimmed and saved. Some retouching is needed near the vertebral processes, though

Now take a cup of olive oil and blend the leaves form 4 fresh rosemary sprigs. Place 2 cups of kosher salt in a bowl and mix it with the rosemary oil. Now rub this on the meat and think sexy thoughts eating like a fucking man while your woman stares in awe.

Rosmarinus officinallis

Yeap, cheap-ass olive oil. No need to splurge the benjamins here

Sort of rosemary pesto

 

Place the meat in a big-ass bag and let it rest, refrigerated, for at least 2 hours. The salt will break up the collagen surrounding the ribs, tenderizing the meat further. The oil will help to infuse the rosemary into the meat. Kiss it good-bye and concentrate on the potato salad.

Alternatively, if you're about to cook, you can leave the meat to air-dry with the salt rub on for 30 minutes, unrefrigerated.

These are a mix of waxy and starchy potatoes, in this case, Round White and Yukon Gold. I like them because they hold their shape regardless of the application. I took 5 lbs of spuds and boiled them over a medium flame in salted water until tender. This can take about a whole hour. Don't test them for doneness with a knife, coz they're sharp and will mislead you. Instead, take one out and pinch the skin. If it comes off easily, you're all set.

You need to boil them slowly, otherwise they'll cook unevenly. This actually reminds me of a song:

Anyways, after you potatoes are peeled, cube them and place them in a big-ass bowl. While the potatoes boil, You need to get your hands on about 2 lbs of bacon. Chop it up into little pieces and fry it over a very low flame to get all of the fat from it. Drain the bacon and save as much fat as you can.

While the bacon fries (we're fucking multitasking, bro!!!), roughly chop 4 very large onions, then put them in a pot with 500 ml of white vinegar and 500 ml of chicken stock, 1 cup of sugar, and salt and pepper. No need to reduce it, just heat it until the onions are cooked through.

Now, as the onions cook, add enough vegetable oil to the bacon fat to measure 2 cups, reheat and dissolve a whole jar of dijon mustard in it. Add that to the simmering onions.

I like it french, sue me. I also like it "A L'Ancienne" because it's got whole mustard seeds and they pop in your mouth like little spheres of deliciousness

 

Once it's homogenous, dump it all (while still hot) on your potatoes. They will look soupy. It's ok. After a while, the spuds will absorb the dressing. Sprinkle chopped chives or scallions for garnish and let it sit for a few hours.

 

 

 

Now back to the meat. Start your grill and set the meat, bone side-down, about 3 inches from white-hot coals. Keep some water handy to put out the flames, coz the fat will catch fire like a motherfucker. Leave it like this for 40 minutes, then flip and cook for another 20.

 

See that? Like a Motherfucker

This will yield medium-rare to medium, provided you let the meat rest for 10 - 15 minutes before carving. Any more done, and you don't deserve it. You can slice it with the bone and get rib steaks, or dismantle the cap, tail and eye to make individual portions. Either way, you will fucking rule.

Pictured: a BITCHING Rib steak

You will forgive the shitty last pic. It was a halloween party and I was near-shitfaced

Pairing:
This is grass-fed beef, it has a very unique, strong flavor that needs something deep and assertive. Strong tanins and notes of wood and berries, like an Argentine or Mexican Merlot, should do the trick.

Blackbird Vineyards produces consistently excelent Merlots every year. If you got the $90, by all means, try it. If, like me, you depend on birthday gifts to drink like that, L. A. Cetto's Nebbiolo Reserva Privada is an excellent and affordable choice.

Printer-friendly version:
Grilled Whole Prime Rib and Warm German Potato Salad
Serves 14 - 18 (there's calculators in every cellphone if you need to trim it down, hater)

For the meat:
2 whole (18lbs each) Prime Ribs, trimmed. Anywhere from 6 to 8 bones in each one.
Fresh rosemary, olive oil and sea salt

For the Salad
5 lbs potatoes, boiled, peeled and cubed
2 lbs bacon, fried, fat reserved
4 large onions, chopped
1 cup sugar
1 jar (210g) Stone-ground Dijon mustard
500ml vinegar (white or cider)
500ml chicken stock
Vegetable oil
Salt and pepper
Chives or scallions, chopped

1. Blend the oil and rosemary, mix with sea salt to make a green paste and cover the meat. Let it rest for at least 1 hour.
2. Place the vinegar, chicken stock, sugar and onions in a pot and simmer until the onions are cooked through.
3. Reheat the bacon fat and add enough oil to measure 2 cups, then dissolve the mustard in this fat.
4. Mix the fat and mustard with the vinegar and onions, then dump that shit over your potatoes.
5. Sprinkle with chives and bacon and let rest
6. Grill the meat bone side down over white-hot coals for 40 mins, then flip and cook for another 20 mins for meduim-rare to medium. Let it rest 15 mins before carving. Keep the flames down or you'll fuck it up.
7. Carve, serve, stay fucking awesome
8. Prove your awesomeness even further and leave a fucking comment.