On cooking

September 2, 2010 by
Filed under: Cooking, Food 

I love to cook.  This should come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog regularly.  (Hi, Mom.)

Now, here is the secret that I need to share with  y’all.  Cooking is easy.  Martha Stewart and Williams-Sonoma have done their best to convince us that cooking is very difficult, involving elaborate gear and contraptions and recipes that take several days and require an advanced degree in chemistry.  (Seriously…have you ever checked out one of her recipes?  The start with instructions like: “Raise a veal calf for four weeks…” Bah!)

Cooking is really, really easy.  The simple fact is that most of the food we eat is just garbage.  Tasteless garbage.  To paraphrase Mule Breath, the food that people eat is generally so crappy that making a fresh meal for them will knock their socks off.  This includes restaurant food.  Since I have been cooking regularly, the family and I rarely eat in restaurants anymore.  It drives my wife nuts to pay for food that isn’t as good as we could make at home.

Don’t believe me?  Let me teach you one of my favorite meals.  Here is how you make a mouth-watering steak.  Seriously, the steak I make at home is better than you can get in almost any steakhouse.  (Except that one time I made steak for American Manifesto.  I got a little too rare on that one.)

Ingredients:

  • Steak (I like fillet, but a nice NY strip works, too.)
  • Olive oil
  • Kosher salt
  • Pepper

Yep, that’s it.  Now for some notes:

  • Fresh ingredients are key no matter what you are cooking.  It’s like a computer: garbage in, garbage out.
  • I usually get choice grade steaks.  Prime is nice if you can get it, but IMHO it’s not worth the price difference.  Costco is my butcher…they have enough turnover that you are always getting fresh meat. If you go to your local supermarket, try to get them to cut fresh steaks for you.  *UPDATE* Sailorcurt pointed this out to me.  I’ll update my suggestion to the Meat House.
  • Contrary to some, I’ve got no problem using frozen meat.  Unless you have a family of 8, if you shop at Costco you are going to be buying more than one portion.  Buy a vacuum sealer, and you will get pretty good results with frozen meat.  I’ll explain why in another post.  If you handle frozen foods properly, you will get good results.
  • Kosher salt is not table salt.  Yes, there is a difference.  Kosher salt is flat, not square, and it sticks to foods.  Buy some kosher salt, and use it.  Once you switch, you won’t go back.

Hardware:

  • Kitchen timer
  • Instant read thermometer
  • Grill — I use propane.  What’s that, you say?  You live in an apartment and don’t have a grill?  A broiler is an upside down grill, and will provide good results, with somewhat more mess.  Don’t use aluminum foil…you need the juices from the meat to drain.

OK, on to the prep.  This is brain dead simple, but each step is important.

  1. Steaks come out of the fridge about 30 minutes before you are going to cook them.  They need to get to room temperature.  Skip this step and you will have burned exteriors long before the center cooks.
  2. About 5 minutes before you are ready to grill, rub each steak in olive oil.  They shouldn’t be dripping, but you want to get a nice even coat. I just pour oil into my hands, rub each steak, and put it back.
  3. Season each steak on both sides with salt and pepper.  Be generous.
  4. Let the grill warm up.  Grill each steak on direct medium heat.

Here is where things get a little tricky.  How long do you grill your meat?  This depends on a couple of variables, but if you did what I told you and took out the meat ahead of time, then the only two we need to worry about are steak thickness and desired doneness.  I like my steak medium.  My wife will only eat well done meat.  (It’s a glaring point of shame in an otherwise splendid marriage.)  What do we do?

Simple: we vary the thickness.  A one inch thick steak takes about 8-10 minutes to reach medium.  Before hers goes on the grill, I butterfly it.  That is to say, I cut it lengthwise, leaving a little bit of meat connected to each piece.  The steak now opens like a book, or like a butterfly.  We cook hers using the exact same timings, but because it is now half as thick, it cooks to well done.

Back to the grill.  8-10 minutes on direct medium heat.  What I do is set the kitchen timer for two minutes.  Steak goes on.  After two minutes, turn the steaks 90 degrees without flipping them.  Two more minutes, flip the steaks.  At this point, you will notice that you have made a nice hatch pattern with your grill marks, just like the fancy steak houses.  Two more minutes, and turn another 90 degrees.  Then off the grill.

Now, if you want another level of doneness…that is where the thermometer comes in.  Keep an eye on your temperature, and you can get whatever level of doneness you want.

By now, the scent of mouth watering charred meat is filling the house, and you are going to want to chow down.  WAIT!  The last secret of great steak…you have to let it rest for 5 minutes or so.  Resting lets the juices in the meat settle down and redistribute.  This keeps them in the meat, instead of on your plate.

Serve with a little salad, perhaps, and a nice, full-bodied red wine like a Cabernet.  Heaven on a plate.

That’s it.  For maybe $20 worth of ingredients, you have prepared a meal that would cost you $75 in a restaurant.  Total time investment: maybe 30 minutes?

Some final thoughts:

  • Don’t be afraid to experiment.  I’ve had a few meals that I have had to admit defeat with and feed to the garbage disposal.
  • Don’t get suckered in with all the fancy kitchen crap.  I love gadgets as much as the next guy, but you can get most of what you need to get done without ever sitting foot into a kitchen gadget store.
  • Don’t worry about fussy, fancy recipes.  Good food is simple food, well prepared with fresh ingredients.

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Comments

5 Comments on On cooking

  1. Sailorcurt on Fri, 3rd Sep 2010 11:34 am

    2. You mentioned “Costco is your butcher”. I was just wondering if you were aware of this?

  2. George on Fri, 3rd Sep 2010 12:20 pm

    3. *Sigh*. See, Curt, this is why we can’t have nice things.

    I wasn’t aware of this. In NC, they don’t post any “no guns” signs, and I can tell you that *this* member carried in Costco every week.

    This kind of sucks. I really liked their produce, and their meat. :(

  3. Sailorcurt on Fri, 3rd Sep 2010 12:44 pm

    4. It doesn’t surprise me that you didn’t know, considering how hard they try to hide it.

    I was really disgusted by them when I first found out about this a few years ago.

    I joined BJ’s for a while, but their meat simply couldn’t hold a candle to that offered by Costco.

    I can’t speak to Sam’s club’s meat or produce because there aren’t any around here that are close enough to justify me joining…but I can say that Walmart’s corporate policy (Sams is a division of Walmart) is to honor the laws of the state in which the store is located…as is the corporate policy of most national chains…so they may be worth a try if you’ve got one convenient to you.

    In the meantime, I just shop around for meats and produce and buy whereever I can find anything decent. Walmart actually seems to have decent produce most consistently, but meat can be a pretty hit or miss proposition.

    Anyway, I’m not asking anyone to to anything other than spread the word and, if you’re so inclined, contact them to express your displeasure with their policy and lack of disclosure.

    If enough people contact them, perhaps they’ll change their tune.

  4. Mule Breath on Wed, 8th Sep 2010 11:05 pm

    5. Obviously I don’t get around to reading with regularity, but I am enjoying your writing so I’ll make you a regular stop. Others who read mine will likely enjoy you too, so you’ve been blogrolled.

    Your take on cooking is one with which I can agree. Cooking is easy and fun, and when folks brag about your output it makes it worthwhile. Your steak cooking fits mine pretty closely, except that I like to dust a little cayenne on them, and use bacon grease instead of olive oil. Everything is better with bacon.

  5. George on Thu, 9th Sep 2010 6:44 am

    6. Thanks, Mule Breath. I’ve added you, as well.

    No arguments with the additions. Everything IS better with bacon. The intent with this one was to keep it simple. Cayenne would be a nice touch, too.

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