The Number 37

So, presentation wasn't high on my list of priorities last night, and yeah, camera still won't focus right, and responds in no way whatsoever on a manual setting. Hrm... Perhaps I'll just try my phone next time.

So, Paul Newman Died. This makes me sad. He has for a long time been a favorite of mine. In mourning, I wanted to do something for him and as all I have going on right now is, well, this, then this it would have to be. I was set on having a peppercorn steak last night, but figured maybe the salad there's something I could do. It was suggested maybe just using his dressing...too easy and expected. top it with 50 eggs? Tempting, but I'll pass. So the salad newman ended up being the nothing, but more on that in a bit. First, the things I did cook. 

The Steak

Fantastic. Much better than the first attempt as I now know 120 degrees is a perfectly respectable internal temperature and there's no need to strive for 165. There was a technique to the peppercorn that I won't post all of here in fear of thwarting weeks of recipe testing by my mother and her crack team before it's published. But I will say it involved an extra hour and a half of prep time, and was delicious. I will tell you though that in the absence of a really small sauce pot, I had to get a little macgyver. Of the random things in my kitchen that really have no logic or reason to them, I had a muffin pan. So I just lay that on the burner and used one of the spaces in it for the prep.

After the exhaustive peppercorn prep (really about an hour and 25 minutes of that was just waiting) which included coarsely grinding in a mortar and pestle (I just had to throw in that while I did not until yesterday own a spatula, I did in fact own a mortar and pestle), I sear roasted one of the 8oz top sirloin, similar to the filet last time but at 350 instead of 425 and for longer and it came out just right. I didn't need to re-juice or anything this time. It was a little rarer than I expected, but I'll take rarer over...weller? None of the peppercorn tasted charred or burnt from the searing either. 

The Potato

So this thing I've been doing where I try to buy food nearly daily and really just what I'm eating that day is good in theory. I was warned a while ago by a friend of mine that while that sounds great, I need to keep some "go-to" food on hand. Sounded at the time like it made sense. Perhaps it was my malaise from Hud's sad death, over excitement about peppercorn and the determination to eat steak last night, or a lingering distraction from a show I was watching about house cats (this job can start any day now), but when I left to get the couple things I needed for the steak, I had a no point considered what I was making with it. I figured I must have some of that "go-to" food at home. Well, I had a single potato left over from the champ. Baked potato it was. It was easy and killed the time waiting on the peppercorn prep. I had some garlic I minced up, a couple left over green onion still also from the champ, and mixed it up with a little butter. Went well on the steak too. 

Salad Newman

Nothing. 

It may have been the same lack of foresight that ended up in my having a baked potato, but I like to think it was intentional. 

because, yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.

You'll be missed Paul.

What did I learn from this one? Well I learned that cats are the only domesticated animal that don't abide by, or understand the servant/master dynamic. They see their presence in our home as a favor and a partnership. They are also the only domesticated animal existing and bred with no purpose what-so-ever other than that we like them. And in England there are two women whose job it is to go around to the shelters and play with the kittens so they get used to a human presence making them better pets. Their job title is "kitten cuddler."

Zoo Day

So, some people will occasionally credit me with a modicum of intelligence. This is clearly a mistake. I only wear the skin of a smart person. Someone who actually possesses these smarts would obviously not walked around the zoo all day with a camera only to realize after taking 5 pictures that the memory card was still attached to the computer at home. So, you'll just have to take my word that Conrad the polar bear is nearly ten feet tall and 1200 pounds. I was there when they fed him though, but so were about 237,695 schools worth of children. At least they're short, but that doesn't make up for their noise. 

What does any of this have to do with steak? Nothing really. Except Polar Bears would produce either a horrible, or exquisitely delicious steak. And I did get to figure out that when I was young, one of the first steaks I ever loved was a whole black peppercorn steak from a place back in Cleveland. So, think I'll find a way to do one of those. Not sure, but I think a soup with it this time as it's been nice and cool here lately.

Meerkats are the most neurotic paranoid little rodents I've ever seen. 

The control group

Clearly, my cheap digital camera has issues. (Kerber, Deborah, help!?)

Ok, so, I did pretty good for the most part. First up, the Wedge Salad. 

The Salad

The croutons and dressing helped saved the fact that iceberg is a flavorless vegetable cracker stack. It was a blue cheese dressing. Since I've never made a dressing before, I went with cheap crumbly blue cheese though the cheese man at new seasons lectured me for 3 and a half hours about it. He was insistant enough that I use Bayley Hazen, that I believe commission fairies leave gold coins under his pillow at night. However, he was probably right. The flavor of the blue cheese in the dressing could have been more potent, and the recipe I used even states the end result is a thinner dressing where I like my blue cheese thick and chunky. Still pretty good.

The croutons did end up being good in spite of a few missteps. So, for those that have never done it, cutting half a loaf of day old sourdough into 1 inch cubes, and then realizing they should be without the crust, can be problematic. Most of them were fine, however I had already made the mixture in a skillet to coat them with then cook them in. What I did not compensate was the amount of liquid in the pan was meant for a whole successful half a loaf worth of bread, where my cubes were...less than that amount. So pulling them out of the oven, still soggy and floating on a mix of what looked like primordial ooze had me concerned. But they dried, and were toasty, and a quick reheating outside of their broth, delicious.

I don't have a picture of the finished salad. You see, as I was doing these, I was concerned with the individual components and not how they were fitting together. The salad was done before I did the steak even though I had more than enough time during the suggested ten minutes I let the steak sit after the over to do it. So...I kind of devoured most of the salad while I was doing the steak. It was just so crispy and delicious. Moving on...

The Champ

Champ is what this book I used called their mashed potato's. I don't know if that's an overall term or just what they call it. It's a thinner, lighter mashed to line a plate and put the steak on top of. It was easy, fast and delicious and I probably should know how to make my own mashed potato's, but now I do. Fantastic. So the problematic part of them for me, once again, was my timing. I had them done a good couple hours before the steak, so I stuck it in the fridge thinking it'll reheat just fine. Which it did, but it ended up more the consistency of regular mashed potato's and lost it's light creaminess. Still excellent though especially after soaking up the steak juices (what was left of them but more on that in a minute). They also browned a bit as to reheat them I just tossed them in one of the cast iron skillets at a low heat while I did the other stuff, but besides dusting up it's purity, no worries. Oh, and the green flecks in it are green onion, which I could have chopped up a little finer. 

The Steak

Ok, meat. The most successful part of this was defrosting the meat. Good work me. I let it thaw for 24 hours in the fridge, seasoned it with coarse ground black pepper and kosher salt, let it sit in the fridge for 24 more hours, and took it out 2-3 hours before cooking it to bring it up to room temp. This is one of the 7oz private reserve filets. Why did I choose one of those as a first experiment? Easy, the box was close to the top in the freezer. The problematic: I'll take some responsibility because as soon as I, who knows nothing, questioned something Omaha Steaks said about their own product, I shook it off figuring they knew better then I did. But for future reference, I should remember that 160 degree internal temperature is not "medium" according to a few sources who have delighted in making fun of me. 

I started with a bit of olive oil in the 10 inch cast iron (going to use the 8 inch next time) Seared both sides till nicely brown and crusted, put the pan in the oven at 450 (again, their temperature for the sear roasted filet). for about the suggested 5 minutes. When I checked the temp, it only barely pushed 110, so, back in the oven. after another check and back in, it had cooked for about ten minutes at that temp. Finally, the thermometer read 120, and up to 130 after continuing to self cook out of the oven for a few minutes. I thought, good enough.

but alas, I was sorely misinformed. But not to a total waste. The meat did retain some of it's moisture, and one spot in the middle almost looked a little lighter than brown. Plus while finding something easy to do for a sauce or with the juices, I came across one that said toss a half a glass of red wine in the pan you cooked in to mix with the juices, boil it down to half its volume and use. Hey! I had half a glass of red wine in my hand! Nice. This helped juice the meat up a bit and was great on the potato's as well.

All in all, not bad for having no idea what the hell I was doing. Now I'm going to the zoo to hang out with the polar bears and think about the next meal. May be a couple days, that was exhausting.

PS-That's a very miniature pat of butter I cut on the steak, a regular size one would have overwhelmed the top and hung off the sides. The steaks was 7oz, but mostly vertical.

PPS- I drank a quart of apple juice while cooking yesterday. It was thirsty work.

PPPS- Polar Bears fur is clear, not white. They can consume 100 pounds of blubber in one sitting, and their biggest worry is overheating, not freezing.

Things that would have made my life a little easier: A spatula, gotta look into one of those. 

Happy Birthday to me

So, I can't cook. And you should never assume that because it sounds like I know what I'm talking about that I do. This goes well beyond cooking, but back to the point. 2 weeks ago, it was my birthday. I'm at half life expectancy and twice as far as I thought I'd make it (this was more of a good line I didn't want to throw away than the spot on truth). To celebrate this, my father sent me steaks. By "steaks" of course I mean:

8/5oz Bacon Wrapped Filet Mignon

12/7oz Private Reserve Filet Mignon

8/6oz Filet Mignon

8/10oz Boneless Strips

8/8oz Private Reserve Top Sirloin

16/5oz Gourmet Burgers

60 glorious pieces of meat now frozen in a 2.1 cubic foot compact chest freezer in my...let's just call it a kitchen for the purposes of this. 

The grand experiment here is, after 60 trials, will I be able to properly cook a steak considering that until 2 months ago I hadn't had a running stove top or oven for about four years. Oh, but wait, there's more. I'm going to try to do everything from scratch, including sides, soups, salads and so on. 

Certainly feel free to comment, criticize, suggest, reminisce about the cheese covered steak you had in Belgium, etc, etc. Come on now, we all know I could use the help. Oh, a couple quick notes...

A Note About Blogging: I hate blogging and bloggers. The word itself tastes like week old kimchi and formaldehyde. But when Leslie Ruch said, "you should do a blog of it," I had to. My mother told me once to do what Leslie tells me. And I always do what my mother says. However, I am me and there's a likelihood I'll fall behind, get bored or just decide, eh, screw it. and the reporting on the experiment comes to an abrupt halt without warning or emergency row exits. This may occur after this post, or one meal, or thirty or fifty nine. That's just the way it goes. I'm tough to love. 

A Note About the Food: Don't ever take a reaction of mine to be a judge of the recipe itself, but rather my ability to cook it. As I've been trying to eat healthier and all that good stuff, it has been suggested to me to take this opportunity to do a low carb diet. 

no.

But cost prohibitively, living in Portland now, pretty much everything will be made with organic ingredients. So, you know, that's good.

A Note About "60 Days": Yes, I'm aware this is called "60 Days of Steak" when the truth is by my count there are only 44 steaks and 16 burgers. You better believe I'll be cooking up those burgers as well, but calling it "44 days of steak and 16 days of burgers" was too long, and "60 days of meat" lacks the word steak, which is a beautiful work and should be inscribed onto historical documents and put in national anthems. And no, sorry, as much fun as it would be to do this as 60 days in a row, I would need more preparation to figure out really what I need on a day to day basis, what to defrost ahead of time, maintained motivation and so on. Oh, and my heart would explode. 

So, tonight will be the first. It'll be an easy control group steak to see if I can even do that with minimal error. Check back for the full report. 

Oh, and feel free to email me directly at adamantonym@comcast.net

fancy, right?