I have been working on cooking a good steak at home. I have mostly been cooking the steaks in a pan. I found that I could buy an expensive steak from the fancy Italian butcher, and have an incredibly delicious steak. Then, I found that if I carefully selected a good LOOKING inexpensive steak, I could get the same deliciousness for a much smaller price. I'm starting to notice that at the supermarket, you will find expensive bad steaks, and cheap good steaks, but you have to know what to look for. I don't know what to look for, but I'm working on it.
Important things:
- Bright red color indicates freshness
- Marbleization
Here are some types of steak that I have been playing with:
- Ribeye - on the expensive side ($11.00 per pound or so)
- see this recipe
- Otherwise known as the Delmonico steak
- This is a steak with a decent amount of fat on it, but when cooked properly, the fat is DELICIOUS and really makes the steak taste amazing. The fat lines the meat with an almost crispy candy.
- I bought another steak, I forget what kind, that had nice looking marbleization, but was more like $5.00/pound, and it was pretty much just as good as the fancy one, cooked the same way as the ribeye. The key here was looking for a good looking steak, and ignoring the price.
- bottom round swiss steaks ($2.89/lb, with good marbleization)
- Today, I didn't see any good looking steaks at Hannaford until i got to these steaks, which had great looking marbleization. It came with 2 half-sized 3/4 inch steaks for $2.20. VERY CHEAP.
- I cooked it sort of like above, and it came out pretty tough. By the end, each bit ended up like a piece of bubble gum that I had to spit out or swallow.
- This stuff probably should have been braised (seared then cooked long and slow in moisture):
- Sear first
- Perhaps brown some aromatic vegetables
- Add something acidic (beer, wine, or tomatoes) perhaps with stock, to not quite cover the meat
- Cover and cook at a very low simmer until the meat is fork tender (it took me just under 2 hours)
- Finish the liquid into a sauce or a gravy.
- (note: disolved collagens and gelatins from the meat enrich and add body to the liquid)
- I cooked it this way (without the vegetables), and with half wine and half chicken stock. I tasted the meat every half-hour or so. Even after an hour of simmering, even though it was cooked through (way cooked through) the meat was very tough and had chewy bits. After an hour and 45 minutes, it totally broke down the tough parts, and it chewed nicely. The meat ends up with a very different texture from a grilled steak, this ended up like the meals Grandma used to make. I boiled the remaining liquid on high and stirred until it reduced to a dark liquid. The liquid tasted absolutely incredible and there was a good amount of it. I should have just eaten the sauce by itself, because once I poured it on the meat, it just tasted like overcooked meat - not bad, but it didn't taste as good as it did with just the sauce in a spoon. I think the next thing to make is boeuf bourginion, or beef stew, with this same method. Yeah - that would definitely be delicious.
- These can also be tenderized with a mallet - bash them into cube steaks
- Red wine braised beef stew - see also boeuf bourginion recipes.
- Beef Chuck Shoulder for London Broil (on sale for $1.99/lb)
- Marinate 6-8 hours or overnight. Place steak on rack in broiler pan so surface of meat is 3 to 4 inches from heat. Broil 16 to 18 minutes to desired doneness (rare to medium rare), turning once. Carve steak into thin slices to serve.
- The steak came out great! I didn't cook that way exactly, I was probably 5 inches away and cooked it for 16 minutes. I cut the steak against the grain. It was very rare in the thickest spots. The steak had a bit of easily-avoidable grisle, and a bit of delicious fat.
