The Sexy MoFo

I've been on Keto for 5 weeks so far, and I've lost ruoghly 9 Kg (20lbs) already. Yesterday, I wanted to celebrate, so I bought a couple of 1lb New York Steaks and made these. This is, by far, the most decadent piece of dead cow I've eaten; and I assure you, it's a guaranteed ticket to rock star sex.

Start with your steaks. This is New York, my second favorite cut after Prime Rib. Thesse are about a pound each, no fat trimmed. Season them profusely with sea salt and pepper and let them rest for at least 15 minutes at room temperature.

SHELDON MOMENT ALERT

Fuck it, I don't want to lose that tradition. Resting your steaks while heavily salted does a number of things. First, sodium denatures and breaks colagen, so the meat will naturally tenderize. Second, it draws moisture from the steaks, which lets the surface caramelize better. Third, as it draws moisture from the meat, the liquid will dissolve some salt and allow it to be reabsorbed into the steaks, seasoning it evenly and ensuring an even distribution of juices. Also, NEVER use table salt. The iodine will turn everything bitter.

END SHELDON MOMENT

As your steaks rest, slice 1/2 an onion per person thinly across the grain, then caramelize them over a medium high flame with 2 Tbsps butter and 2 Tbsps olive oil per onion.

When your steaks reach room temperature, heat a large skillet over a very high flame and set your steaks fat-side-down to render some grease. You need to let it brown a little on the steaks, then set them flat on the skillet and cook for 10 minutes on each side (for medium), FLIPPING ONLY ONCE.

As I've said before, the flip-once phylosophy has nothing to do with being a fucking douchebag and proving your physchic meat-guessing abilities. It's actually much easier to develop an even crust by not moving your steaks around so much, and pinching or squeezing on your steaks constantly will only render more juices out of the meat. Also, it frees your hands.

Once the meat is cooked, transfer to a wire rack over a plate and cover losely with foil. Allow the steaks to rest for at least 5 minutes. This lets the colagen relax and distributes the juices evenly inside. Otherwise, you'll be left with a puddle of blood and a piece of leathery shit on your plate.

Now, while your steaks rest, return your attention to the onions. They should be nice and brown by now. Add 1/2 cup of half and half per onion, salt and pepper to taste and stir.

 Spoon the onions evenly on the steaks, then crumble 1 Oz of your favorite blue cheese on top. Now fucking melt that shit with a torch.

Serve with whatever greenery you have on hand to fill up the plate. Ignore that shit and focus on the meat.

Per serving: 1,300 kcal, 16g carbs, 55g fat, 143g protein. Not exactly low carb, but I can't imagine anyone eating more than this for a whole day, so we're cool.

The Sexy Motherfucker

Serves 2

2 New York steaks, 1 lb each

1 medium onion

2 Tbsps olive oil

2 Tbsps butter

125ml half and half

2 Oz blue cheese

Salt and pepper

1. Season your steaks profusely and let rest for at least 15 minutes at room temperature.
2. Slice the onion thinly and brown on oil and butter.
3. Render some fat from each side of the steaks, then cook for 10 minutes per side, flipping only once.
4. Let the steaks rest for 5 minutes, losely covered with foil.
5. Mix the cream into the onions, then top the steaks with this and 1 Oz of blue cheese
6. Scorch the fuck out of them with a torch
7. Serve and get laid, you glorious bastard

Pork Rind-Encrusted Shrimp and Green Salad

It's been a while and I was feeling adventurous and creative. I've also just started a keto diet, so I had to come up with something different. By the way, eating half a pound of bacon in the morning and still losing weight fucking kicks ass. Seriously, I've eaten so much pork lately I feel like I'm the one responsible for the dreaded bacon shortage expected for next year.

I'm still working on these moves, though

Anyway, as much as I love bacon and other assorted chunks of dead animals, I felt like I had to include a little more variety on the menu, so I came up with these little fuckers. After all, people wrap their shrimp in bacon all the time. Pork rinds seemed like the next logical step.

Straight to the point here:

Take 2 lbs of shrimp. Peel and de-vein, then keep in ice water. Mini-Sheldon moment: All toothless animals spoil quickly, because their gastric enzymes are much more potent. Consume immediately, keep them cold and keep your hands and surfaces clean.

Just in case you forgot: Make a shallow cut down the shrimp's back

Then scrape off the shrimp shit

Place about 4 Oz of mexican pork rinds (chicharrones) in the food processor and pulse to a fine powder. Set aside.

Now beat 3 eggs with 3 Tbsps water and a pinch of salt. This will denature their protein slightly and make them runnier and easier to handle. Treat your shrimp like any other breaded shrimp: Dust in flour and shake off excess, then pass them through an egg wash, then dredge in the chicharrones.

Fry them until golden brown at 375°F/170°C. Since chicharrones are much lighter than bread crumbs, they'll take as little as 45-60 seconds per batch.

The salad was simple, yet elegant. 1 large Romaine and 1 Oak lettuce, jícama, 1 green apple and 1 large cucumber, all julienned. The dressing was an emulsion of 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/2 cup white wine vinegar and 1/3 cup of Dijon mustard, salt and pepper. I sprinkled some crumbled feta on top and served along the shrimp with some chipotle mayo.

Who needs bread crumbs when you got pig crumbs?

This totals 1110 kcal, 111g of fat and 119g of protein.... and if you omit the green apple from the salad, 1 measly gram of carbs (otherwise it's about 4g). So full of Win!

Pork Rind-Encrusted Shrimp and Green Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette
Serves 4

2 lbs of shrimp, peeled and de-veined
4 oz of mexican pork rinds (chicharrones)
3 eggs, beaten with a little salt and water
flour
Vegetable oil

Salad
1 large Romaine lettuce, torn
1 Oak lettuce, torn
1 small jícama, julienned
1 small Granny smith apple, julienned
1 large cucumber, julienned
4 oz crumbled feta cheese

Dressing
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1/3 cup dijon mustard
Salt and pepper

1. Make sure the shrimp are cold and dry. Dunk them in flour, shake off the excess, then cover in egg and pork rinds. Fry in small batches at 375°F/170°C
2. Emulsify the vinaigrette ingredients
3. Toss the foliage around with the dressing, sprinkle with feta cheese
4. Fucking kill this
5. Eat like Homer

*Ok, I couldn't find this clip in english, but you get the point

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

Printer-Friandly version:
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