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    Affichage des articles dont le libellé est rib-eye. Afficher tous les articles
    Affichage des articles dont le libellé est rib-eye. Afficher tous les articles

    mardi 27 novembre 2012

    Ménage à beef:Rib-eye Three Ways


    There’s more than one way to skin a cat, the saying goes. The same is true for cooking a steak. Most of the time the way we cook at home is dictated by circumstance: grill when the weather permits; pan fry if it doesn’t (or if we live in an apartment); broil, uh, when the oven’s looking appealing; and cook sous-vide during wet dreams.
    The cooking medium plays an important role in the end product: the texture, the way it tastes and the ease with which it arrives at the desired done-ness. So while weather and your kitchen gear may often dictate your dinner plans, it’s a good idea to know your cooking options — remember, you are the master of your own beefy destiny.
    With the GP crew assembled and hungry, we cooked three ribeyes available from Heritage Foods USA — two Wagyu steaks (Akaushi-Angus cross) and one from a White Oak Pastures grass-fed Angus cow — to see how three different methods stacked up.
    Month of Beef three-way, after the jump.
    Rib-eye is a well-marbled steak, cut from the center of the rib roast that sits on top of the rib primal. With Wagyu the marbling is even more pronounced. Because it has such great fat content, our goal was to cook it to medium-rare, further along the done-ness scale than we might cook a super lean strip steak or tenderloin. The idea is to melt down the fat, which won’t happen if the steak is still cool in the middle.
    Beef science lesson of the day: fat is also less conductive than muscle fibers. This means that the steak will cook marginally slower than a very lean cut and give us a little more room for error. However, the internal temperature of any steak moves quickly over fire, so in all cases we’d prefer to undercook and return to heat if needed (a wise lesson), rather than overcooking and returning to the table with piece of meat resembling charcoal.

    Grilled

    The ideal steak will be brown and crispy on the outside, pink and juicy on the inside. We grilled the steak over an open gas flame, which is hot enough to brown the meat (also called the Maillard reaction) very quickly. The point here is to develop a char and not, as is dubiously claimed, to seal in the juices. The browning reaction gives the nutty, savory, earthy and complex flavors that we identify with a classically great steak. After searing the steak on both sides, we moved it away from the direct flame and closed the grill. This second step is key to giving yourself a longer window in which to hit the medium-rare mark. Cooking the steak over high heat the entire time it’s on the grill can result in an overcooked outside and undercooked inside.
    Note: Some cooks will suggest reversing the order of the two-step process, which is to say cooking the steak over low heat first and then searing at the end. The logic is that the steak is already hot and will sear much more quickly. This is a good idea; but our concern is that it leaves no room for error. If the steak is near medium-rare by the time it hits a super hot flame, the likelihood of overcooking seems high.
    Pros: Nice grill marks, smokey flavor, man credit, possibility of cigar smoking while cooking high.
    Cons: Easy to overcook if you don’t observe the two-step process.

    Broiled

    Broiling is essentially reverse-grilling: cooking the steak in the oven on high heat, on a pan near the heat source at the top of the oven with the oven door ajar, and flipping half-way through cooking. In theory, this makes sense, but in practice it’s a little more difficult. We were able to achieve the desired level of doneness, but we didn’t get the char we had hoped for.
    Pros: Simplest method to execute.
    Cons: Hard to get desired char.

    Cast Iron’d

    Next to grilling, this was our favorite method for cooking a ribeye. The method is simple: heat a cast iron pan or griddle over high heat, add a thin layer of oil (it should smoke), sear steak on both sides. Like grilling, this is a two-step process. After flipping the steak, we put the whole pan in the oven set to 350 degrees. The bottom of the steak browns, plus the radiant heat of the oven gives us the ability to cook the steak evenly and more slowly than over a flame.
    Pros: Nice crust, with a very rich flavor from cooking in its own fat. Two-step process helps prevent overcooking.
    Cons: Smokey kitchen (and not in the good way, like the grill).

    Thoughts on Done-ness

    These methods are only as good as the cook employing them, and in the end, the most important thing about a steak is that it’s cooked to the desired level of done-ness. Some people use a meat thermometer, but the accuracy on a relatively thin cut of meat (as opposed to a roast) is questionable: it’s hard to match exactly where the thermometer is measuring to the center of the steak. A better method is to touch it, poke it and sniff it. Rare meat is said to feel like the muscle between thumb and forefinger then the fingers are stretched apart. Another way is to cut into it, which will leak some juices, but only locally. Remember: You can always throw a steak back on the grill — our pan-fried steak went back in the oven — but overdone is game over.





    mercredi 7 novembre 2012

    MoB | Dining at America’s Steakhouses !!!!


    Every kind of meal has its own purpose, its particular ritual and significance. Burgers are meant for tailgating; road trips run on fast food; French restaurants seem fit for special occasions like anniversaries and third dates where you’re really trying to get some. Chief among dining rituals is the steakhouse dinner, when friends and colleagues gather around a generously-sized table to eat charred flesh and drink wine the color of blood. It’s not just a meal. It’s a beef séance.
    So it’s only fitting that we bring the Month of Beef in for a delectable landing at five great American steakhouses. We specifically chose tier-1 and tier-2 national restaurant chains (sorry Applebee’s), where we ordered our favorite steakhouse cut: the bone-in rib-eye, cooked medium-rare.
    Don’t see this cut on the menu? Pro tip: order it anyway. Most restaurants carry bone-in rib-eye in limited supply, leaving it off the menu because they’d run out so quickly if it were advertised.
    See our steakhouse meals after the break.

    The Palm

    Take Note:
    WISDOM FROM A PALM GM

    “The Palm has been in business for 85 years and we have an extremely loyal fan base… We have this group of lawyers that comes in almost every day, and if they asked for Chinese food, we’re going to figure out how to make Chinese food for them”. — Alex Hasbany, General Manager
    250 West 50th Street, New Yorkthepalm.com
    When The Palm opened in New York City in 1926, it was an Italian restaurant that served steaks on request. You can still get classic Italian-American dishes like veal marsala and chicken parmigiana there, but the restaurant is best known today for its decor — caricatures of celebrities, politicians and otherwise famous patrons — and its Prime grade steaks. The Palm’s signature cut is a New York strip, but the rib-eye we had at their Theater District location, one of four locations in the city (and where Liam Neeson is known to dine), was seasoned and cooked perfectly. You could even say that they have a very particular set of skills… skills they have acquired over a very long career.

    Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse

    Take Note:
    A DEL FRISCO’S GM ON $$$

    “I always say to our staff, ‘Never apologize for our prices’. When I read reviews on Open Table and Yelp, and people say that we’re expensive — I agree that we’re expensive. But I also know that you got the best that money pays for, the quality was there, the hospitality we provided was second to none. That’s what you’re paying for. I stop at nothing to make sure everybody who walks out of here wants to come back”. — Scott Gould, General Manager
    1121 6th Avenue, New York |delfriscos.com
    Unlike The Palm, which is intimate and borderline genteel as steakhouses go, Del Frisco’s in midtown is a big raucous cathedral of beef. It fills out 18,000 square feet and three floors, each with its own martini-slinging bar and a floor-to-ceiling view of 6th Avenue. The food goes pound for pound with the environs. What you get is an almost comically large rib-eye that’s been neatly trimmed and nuked under a 1,500º broiler, giving it a crust that looks like polished lava rock. It’s one of the best steaks we’ve ever tasted.
    The presentation at Del Frisco’s is on the elegant side, which stands out among steakhouses that traditionally just put steak to plate to table. It’s a nice touch if you’re going to spend top dollar on a meal.

    Ted’s Montana Grill

    Take Note:
    THE TED’S PROPRIETOR SAYS…

    “I love food food and I love wine. Simple food is better. People love side dishes, they love potatoes, they love steak — and they want just that, not all this other stuff they can’t pronounce or that’s made to look pretty. That’s what we do here: it’s to the point, good wine, and the best service we can provide”. — Brianne Demmler, Proprietor
    110 West 51st Street, New Yorktedsmontanagrill.com
    Ted’s Montana is really more of an American restaurant and grill than what we might traditionally consider a steakhouse. The focus there is meat, though, and there’s a buffalo head mounted on the wall at the New York location in case there’s any question. Ted Turner, who owns the chain, supplies the bison from his 15 ranches in the western plain states. (Interesting fact: Turner is the second largest individual landowner in North America, with two million acres.) What you’re looking at steak-wise varies based on location; it’s a combination of beef and bison, with cuts ranging from bison strip steaks to beef prime rib — all of it butchered in-house.
    We tried the bone-in cowboy bison rib-eye (a slight departure for the Month of Beef, but when in Rome…), which gets seasoned and seared on the griddle in olive oil rather than broiled. It’s noticeably leaner than beef, and the flavor is light and a little sweet compared to the round richness of a beef rib-eye. A damn fine steak.

    The Capital Grille

    Take Note:
    BEEF FACT

    The Capital Grille is owned by Darden Restaurants, the same company that owns Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse and Red Lobster.
    155 East 42nd Street, New Yorkthecapitalgrille.com
    The Capital Grille may not have a storied history like The Palm or a famous owner like Ted’s Montana, but what it lacks in lore it makes up for in damn good beef and perfect service. The steaks at Capital Grille are all dry-aged at the restaurants and cooked in infrared broilers. Even with a bad case of beeftigue, we crushed an entire bone-in rib-eye and a side of sauteed spinach for lunch. After the steak, the best part of the meal was our waiter, a Peter Sarsgaard ringer who was so gravely attentive it felt like he was repaying us some ancient debt with his service. Give this guy a promotion.

    Morton’s The Steakhouse

    Take Note:
    BEEF FACT

    The founders of Morton’s, Arnie Morton and Klaus Fritsch, met when they worked together at the Playboy Club in Montreal. Respect.
    551 5th Avenue, New York
    mortons.com
    You couldn’t talk steakhouses without a nod to Chicago, America’s meatpacking capital from the Civil War through the 1920s. Morton’s was founded in Chicago in 1978, and today all of its 69+ locations still get their Prime-aged beef cut and shipped from the Windy City. We think of Morton’s as a businessman’s steakhouse: old timey decor, dim lighting and plenty of room to spread out in a comfortable booth. Our experience there was mixed. Our Americanos were weak (“like one espresso shot had been split between both cups”, according to one dining companion) and our waitress was a little glum (she shrugged and said “Eh, look at my life”, when we asked how she was doing).
    Perhaps we caught them at a bad time (between lunch and dinner). But the rib-eye was good, and this wasn’t the Month of Coffee, so we’ll give them a pass.