Beer and Coffee Steak

OK after this one I promise to stop the complaining about my work week but I have to get it behind my in order to move on...

My God! I had no idea what a fight my body would give me as the week went on. On Thursday morning when I rolled out of bed I had pains in places that I didn't know could hurt, sure all of the usual suspects were complaining (you know them: feet, knees, head, neck) I also had calves, fingers and I swear to God my hair hurt when I put my hat on. The next week was a little easier and I had a couple of days off on Thursday and Friday.

That is where this recipe comes in, I am going to admit that I took a moment to partake in as many indulgences as I could in this one meal. So on Friday I got Miss Lu off to school and Mr. Man off to daycare then came home and made this..

Beer and Coffee Steak and Eggs

Ok let’s talk about indulgence, you got:
Beer
Coffee
Spicy stuff
Steak
Eggs

Yes, if you look closely at the picture at the bottom of this post, that is "Monty Pyhton's Holy GrAle, it is tempered over real witches, says so on the bottle. This recipe is for two, I only made the one though nobody else was going to try this one, Kris HATES coffee and she was the only adult human that I could stand to be around by this time. Please other adult humans I know don't be offended, I was getting a little crabby and the voices in my head were getting a little loud.  My wife, though annoyed with me, can put up with this and even enjoys teasing me about it a little when my senses return.

Ingredients
12 ounces beer, one that makes you laugh helps
2 TBS Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp Tabasco
2 boneless skirt steaks
1 1/2 TBS finely ground coffee
1 tsp chipotle chile powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp cayenne
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Anyway this one you have to start the day before by marinating the meat (I like the flavor of skirt but it is a pain in the butt to trim so you decide) in a zipper bag put half your bottle of beer (drink the other half, and then maybe another) the Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco add your steaks and put in the fridge overnight. The next morning mix the rest of your ingredients together for a rub. Rub the steaks on both sides and set aside until it gets to about room temperature. While the steaks are tempering get the rest of your breakfast together. Throw some polenta on (I was out of grits) when that was done put the steak on the grill for a couple of minutes on each side when it is all done fry up an egg the way you like in and there you have it. Grab a cup of coffee, open a beer and turn on a Star Wars movie... and there you have the most self indulgent breakfast ever.

The rest of the day was the kind of day that helps me put things in perspective I took Miss Lu to Dance, she is so tickled with the penguin tap song (We get to dance with CANES!) here is her song. No that isn’t her dancing, it was the only recording I could find without paying, but it is such a happy song I had to share.

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DuLi8_VJzX8U&v=uLi8_VJzX8U&gl=US

That night Mr. Man and I went to the Monster Truck Show! Ok I never thought I would say it but a monster truck show is a lot of fun... and look at that face!  We had a great time, and maybe I can remember to keep things in balance, sometimes it is nice to have a litter reminder.

Beer Marinated Flank Steak

Miss Lu's recital was this weekend so my mom and my in-laws were coming to town to see my youngest starlet dance in her Saturday afternoon show.  Typically when Kris' parents come to see us they arrive the night before they have to get here, call us, and say that they just had dinner at IHop and will see us in the morning.  We were kind of expecting that when I was making out my shopping list.

While I was at the store shopping for the weekend Kris called me... now, I know this is strange but this is the kind of call that I enjoy.  "My parents are almost here and they haven't eaten."  The reason that I enjoy that call is I get to run loose in the store like I am on The Next Food Network Star  picking ingredients trying to figure out an extra meal or two and how to prepare it in a time frame that I didn't expect.

Ok it may be little juvenile but admit it... you have done it too.  Opened the pantry and picked your ingredients to make dinner a fun challenge... The meal for after the show was Flank Steak with Potatoes and Asparagus and it ROCKED!  It may seem like a few steps but it was really easy and worked well for a busy day.

Flank Steak
1 flank steak (about a pound and a half)
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp ground cumin
Coarse kosher salt
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
5 or 6 green onions sliced thin
1 12-ounce bottle of beer
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

Take flank steak and score in a criss cross pattern about 1/8 of an inch deep.  Put it in a non reactive dish and rub with the oregano, cumin, salt and olive oil.  Then add the rest of the ingredients and refrigerate for several hours or over night (soaked for about 6 hours).

While this is marinading make the dipping sauce and guacamole...

The Sauce

1 jalapeno pepper chopped
3 green onion chopped
1/3 cup chopped Vidalia onion (about half of one)

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Juice from 2 limes
Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

Put the first 4 ingredients into a chopper and grind into a paste (it took a couple of minutes in mine) you want it to be well mixed but still have texture.  Then add the lime juice, salt and pepper and mix quickly and set aside.  Let it sit for at least a couple of hours so the flavors bloom.

Guacamole

1 avocado peeled and pitted
3 TBS chopped fresh cilantro
3 TBS chopped Vidalia onion (that is the other half of the one I used in the sauce above)
Juice from 1 lime
Coarse kosher salt (to taste)

Slice the avocado and mash it up with a fork then add the cilantro and Vidalia onion mix well then add the lime juice and salt.  Mix well and set refrigerate until dinner.

When it is time to go put the Flank Steak on a hot grill and cook for about 4-5 minutes on each side for medium rare.  Remove from the heat and let stand covered while you set everything else up.  I Served with roasted potatoes (recipe coming up, they were really good) and grilled asparagus).  Once everything was ready I sliced the flank steak across the grain about a quarter of an inch thick and served.  Add a little of the sauce then a touch of guacamole and serve.  The Sauce was great, fresh and bright with just a little bit of a spicy zing to it.  Next time I may add a little more Jalapino, the guacamole did quite a bit to take off the spicy edge.

Our Thanksgiving Leftovers

I am sitting at our new keyboard now... if you read my last post you will know why. This time we decided to go wireless, the thinking is when Mr. Man just has to watch "Batman with Batgirl on the computer" (let's hear it for YouTube) while he has his lemonade and nachos then I can set the keyboard on top of the printer or somewhere else that is safe.  Then we can avoid the sticky key issue.


Thanksgiving dinner in our house gave me a strange list of leftovers. The Tenderloin that I bought was bigger than I wanted but I haggled the price down by a couple of bucks a pound by getting it untrimmed.

"Ok sir, that is $17.99 per pound"

"Are you kidding me? the cut filets are that price, and they are trimmed and ready to cook!"

"I can give you a dollar off per pound"

"Seriously, you are about to offer me $4.00 off of a $60.00 cut of meat to do all of your work?"

"How about $2.00?"

Ok, I agreed to that, so maybe I am not the best negotiator out there but I saved a few dollars anyway. So I brought it home and trimmed it myself which is pretty easy, take the silverskin off then trim the butt pieces and tip.  I still had plenty of extra and cut two good sized filets off for Kris and me to have later and a couple of pieces from between the fillet and the tip called tournedos. I had to look that up in one of my old culinary textbooks by the way . The cuts were about an inch thick and maybe an inch and a half around. Right after Thanksgiving I was making dinner and watching Good Eats on Food Network. This is one of my favorite shows, Alton Brown is such a foodie nerd, really he has my dream job, talking about food all day... Anyway I think the title of the episode that was halfway over when I turned it on was "Pounded Meats" he was making a variety of Pillards one of them was with Beef Tenderloin.

 What I saw was taking the Tenderloin and pounding it into pillards then his method of cooking them, you will see that in a sec, then he suggested adding a salad to them. Good idea I thought how about I make my own dressing...

So I diced up and cooked three strips of bacon to make my dressing

Bacon Vinaigrette
3 strips of bacon cooked, rendered fat reserved
1 TBS Canola Oil
1 clove Garlic minced
1 TBS Balsamic Vinegar
1 tsp Mustard (I used stone ground)
a little pepper

blend and set aside



Before... this one is about an inch thick



After... this is pounded to a little more than 1/4 of an inch thick

The Steaks were the fun part I took the three pieces of steak and pounded them to about 1/4 inch thick with the flat side of my mallet (the spiky side is for flank or skirt steak not tenderloin) then I heated up my favorite pan... the Iron Skillet. When it was hot I turned it over so the meat would be easier to work with and cooked them for about a minute or so on each side until medium rare then made up my plates.







Set the steaks on your plates then top with a few sautéed mushrooms, salad mix and warm Bacon Vinaigrette. Damn Hell this was good! Do I feel a little guilty? well yes well a little, and the scale and I have had a few words since to but... Wow.



Dinner for Two

My beautiful wife Kris and I agree on most things, or are close enough that our difference makes more for a conversation than a disagreement.  As politics go we are extremely close on the spectrum, religion I happily walked into the folds of the church she was raised in.  When it comes to food... well sometimes we have our differences.  Steaks are one of those differences, the difference being I like Strip Steak, Ribeye Steaks, Skirt Steaks, Flank Steak, Lamb Chops, Tri tip, Flat Iron Steaks basically every cut of meat from every animal that ever set foot on a farm.  Kris likes the Tenderloin it is a texture thing, Tenderloin is well... tender, where I don't mind the fight that Skirt Steaks give me (admittedly they have a bit of texture to them but I just love the flavor)  Kris isn't always up to the battle that dinner could be.

Anyway, I wanted steak for dinner on my last day off so I was at the store considering my options, I saw a bunch of good ideas but just couldn't come up with a good "sell" really how many ways can you try to talk someone into a skirt steak?  Then I looked at the tenderloin... $20.99 a pound, that was just out of the question, for God's sake I am a Chef, I can't pay $30.00 for a dinner that I cook!  Then I saw it at the edge of the meat case looking kind of lonely... it was a Porterhouse Steak about an inch and a half thick and I thought "God was really thinking here..." Strip Steak on one side, Tenderloin on the other, a bone to carry the heat through for even cooking and a full bodied flavor.  That was it! get the bigger Porterhouse ($6.70 by the way) and split it.

When I got home I put a little salt and pepper on the steak and put it into the fridge while I did the rest.  I topped the steak with a Roasted Garlic Gorgonzola Butter... Ooh this is good and it can be made several days ahead

The Butter
Take one clove of garlic and cut the top off, drizzle with a little olive oil and loosely wrap with foil and put it into a 350 degree oven for about an hour.  When that is done squeeze that out into a bowl with one stick of softened butter and about 1/2 cup of bleu cheese.  Mix these ingredients together until soft then wrap in plastic wrap and freeze.

The Steak
Couldn't be simpler let it temper for about an hour at room temperature sprinkled with a little bit of salt and pepper then toss on the grill until done to your liking (medium rare for me).  Take the steak off the grill and set aside tented with foil (with some of your butter on top) until you finish up any of your side dishes, at least 5 minutes,

For us I cut along one side of the bone and gave Kris the Tenderloin then along the other to get my full bodied strip.  The flavored butter melts through the steak and soaks into the meat so every bite has the garlicy buttery goodness.  It is pictured above with the last of my Rainbow Chard before I cut it up.

Smothered Ribeyes

Several years ago I was the Executive Chef/Manager of a small upscale Southwest style Restaurant. The owner would tell me that a sure fire way to sell more of a special was with the menu title... Duh, we all know to make things sound better to sell better, but one of the key words for my demographic was "smothered" you know "Chili Rellanos stuffed with Chicken and Chihuahua Cheese Smothered in a Fire Roasted Tomitillo Sauce." An easier use was something like "Smothered Ribeye Steak... Lightly Seasoned, Grilled to Perfection and Smothered in Seasoned Chutney with Tomatoes, Onions, Fresh Bell Peppers and our Southwest Spice Blend." For some reason the owner thought that sounded better than "Ribeye Steaks that nobody wanted three days ago with a bunch of leftover vegetables dumped on top."

He could be uptight sometimes, since then every time I see smothered anything on a menu or especially as a "Special" I think of that and kind of laugh. Anyway, as funny as it can sound in the restaurant setting it is a reality that most of the time when we cook we have items left over that don't go into the dish and we have to use them somewhere or they will end up in the back of the fridge moldy and unrecognisable in a while. My family, like most of yours, has felt the current economic issues, so throwing away food that can be used just isn't something I want to do. I used some ingredients from past posts to top my steaks. Ribeyes are one of my favorite cuts of beef, they are tender and have a flavor that holds up well with other food on a plate. Also it is usually well marbled so it stays moist when cooked with dry heat.

The toppings on this Ribeye are:

1 TBS Olive Oil

1/2 Can of Tomatoes (the first half I used in the black beans)

1 Red Bell pepper Julienned (for the Julienne post a few days ago)

2 cloves Minced Garlic (made for a post yet to be published)

1 small Onion Julienned

1/2 tsp Cayenne Pepper

I put the Olive Oil in a Sauce pan (not one of my favorite pans because I just cooked it all on the grill) then added the Garlic and Onions and cooked those until transparent. Then I added the Bell Pepper and Sauteed until it was all tender, moved the pan to a cooler spot on the grill and added the Tomatoes and Cayenne Pepper. I let this set on the grill top for about 20 minuted before I put the steaks on. Once the Steaks came off the grill I topped them with the... I will call it Southwest Tomato Chutney. Really it tasted bright and fresh and I can have the slightly smug feeling of being frugal.