Hey, Internets. Miss me?
Things have been a little madcap around the Stone household, and so I apologize for my absence from these pages ‘lo this past week and change.
But it’s time to get back to it. My wife’s brother is in town to hit a Phish show, and he’s a great guy. So despite his (completely understandable) desire to rock some In-N-Out while he’s in town, we gotta do a celebratory steak while he’s under our roof. We are not barbarians.
Prep School Hippie.
I settle on New York Strip, which is well-represented on these pages. It’s off the short loin of the beast, which doesn’t do a lot of work moving the critter around. For more, see this entry.
However, steak is two things: Lovely to the bite, and boring to the site. Who wants to read about steak again? I’ve done it.
So the trick is to make this one a little special. Let’s head to the Larousse.
The Larousse Gastronomique lists eighteen sauces and four butters appropriate for grilled steak. I’m not really interested in serving this particular steak with a butter, so I peruse the sauces.
Bearnaise? Lovely, but time consuming. This is a weeknight.
Bordelaise? Not tonight, dear.
Barbecue? Really, Larousse? Not on a grilled steak. Philistines.
That rules out the B’s.
I settle on Sauce Robert. It’s one of the oldest sauces in the classical French repertoire – a version of it appears in French cookbooks as early as 1651. Escoffier was a big fan.
Who’s Robert? No one knows. Theories abound. Various Roberts have been proposed and discredited.
Likewise, no one seem to agree on how to make this sauce. I’ve found three different recipes in my research. Some with vinegar, some without. Some finished with a demiglace, some without. Since the Larousse Gastronomique is the culinary reference of record, I’m using theirs.
The mise:
Most of this is for the sauce. Let’s get to it.
I finely dice two onions, and deposit them in a saucepan with a little butter and a pinch o’ salt. When they start to take on some color, I add a tablespoon of flour to the mixture. Soon, the onions are brown and lovely.
My wife and brother-in-law comment that whatever I’m cooking smells amazing. That’s onions in butter, baby. Jump back.
My kung fu is the best.
Once those are a satisfying degree of brown, I add 300 ml white wine and 200 ml beef stock. (Yay, metric!)
Wine and stock and base ten measurements.
No call for demiglace, and vinegar is listed as an alternate. I cast a wary eye, Larousse.
Simmer, simmer. Reduce, reduce. At the end, I add a little mustard.
Steaks are thawed. A canola oil massage, salt, pepper. To the grill.
The cold, cold grill.
I am an idiot.
Elsewhere on these pages, I’ve confidently cackled “That’s why I keep a tank in reserve!” Well, that’s the one I just kicked.
There’s no pain like propane.
Time to turn this meal on its head.
Plan B
Back inside with the meat – on with the broiler.
When the mercury’s north of 450, I put the meat beneath the heat.
Last time I did NY Strip, I was looking at medium at two minutes. (Go go gadget blog. It’s one of the joys of having a record of previous meals that I can look that up.) For medium-rare, I’ll shoot for 1:30 per side.
Tick tick tick, flip. Tick tick tick, done. Five minutes to rest.
Check the sauce… simmering nicely on a back burner. Good to go.
Call me Bob.
The sauce goes in small compotes on the side, in case people dislike my sauceperimentation.
My wife knocks together a quick vinaigrette over a simple salad, and we pair with some good bread and a nice syrah.
Verdict?
Well, there’s nothing like a grilled steak. And sadly, this was nothing like a grilled steak. It may be my particular oven, but the hard crust of maillard-y goodness never fully materialized. The center was spot-on medium rare, however, so all was not lost.
The sauce Robert turned out well. Tangy and slightly acidic. It’s traditionally a sauce for grilled pork, and I can definitely see how it’d shine in a porcine environment. It was not out of place on our steaks, however.
In all, a slightly suboptimal NY Strip with a tasty sauce and fresh veggies is still a pretty darn good meal.
The Wife Says: Meh. She didn’t giggle and clap like when I do these on the grill, but nor did she clasp her throat and slip beneath the table. Either my broiler is terrible, or broiling steaks in general is suboptimal. I have a hunch it’s the former. In either case, I won’t be broiling steaks in the future.
Now I’m off to buy some propane.
Broiling steaks is actually how most steakhouses get it done, you just need a 1500 degree broiler.
Next time, just sear the basterds in a glowing-hot cast iron skillet before finishing them in a relatively gentle oven.
Yeah, good call. Had I known my sear would be horrid, I would have done exactly that.
It’s crazy, though – 450 on the grill gives me a beautiful sear. Yet 450 under the broiler gives me warm meat. I think it may be a combination of 1) distance-from-heat-source and 2) grill has cast iron grates, while broiler has some ridiculous tin tray which doesn’t conduct heat as well. Also, gremlins.
So lesson learned. Next time: meat on hot iron by any means necessary.
I 2nd eben. Consult Good Eats on that method. I’ve done it before and while it’s not grilled, it’s the closest you’ll get.
Here’s the YouTube clip of it.
Yeah, I think you guys hit the nail on the head. I underestimated the impact blazing-hot iron in contact with the meat has on my Maillard reaction. I figured my broiler pan would heat enough to do the job. It did not.
And thanks for posting that video! I’m a big fan of AB. Are you familiar with the Good Eats Fan Page? If not, you should definitely check it out. Complete transcripts of every episode. It really freed up a lot of space on my DVR.
You can find it here.