Tag Archives: cooking

Some Notes on Steak

Buy your beef from a local rancher and have the cow slaughtered in late spring. Keep it in the deep freeze, do not buy beef out of season.

Buy a young cow that has gotten lean from winter, and now fattened a bit on tender spring grasses and wildflowers. This combines young tender muscle with a sweet fats. Have you ever smelled a feedlot, why would you want to eat anything from there. I go in with neighbors and find a quarter cow lasts us most of the year.

Get your cow butchered properly. None of these industrial meat packing plants.

Prepare the steak with a little salt. Chop up some mushrooms and red peppers, and other vegetables such as cucumber, broccoli or asparagus. Whatever is in season. Put olive oil on the vegetables.

Close up the grill and heat it up to about 500 degrees. Get the cast iron hot. Now open then grill and either move the coals away to indirect heat or turn the gas down low. Put the steak on it and let the hot cast iron mark your beef. Put the vegetables on some foil or a basket and close up the grill with the steak and vegetables together.

Close the grill and wait a bit. Your grill should be between 250 and 300 degrees. I find that cooking at a lower temperature allows the fat to melt into the beef instead of getting tough and gristly. Melting the fat is the key to the whole process. That delicious flower and spring grass fed fat will melt into the muscle and create a tender, moist and delicious steak. The aroma of the vegetables and added humidity as they grill alongside the beef will keep your steak from drying out.

Check periodically you will know when to turn the steak when the fat on the streak looks like melting butter. After you turn the steak put the vegetables on top the steak and cook until you have it medium rare to medium.

Now remove the steak. Now wait. You must let the steak cool. If you cut the steak too soon the fat will be pushed out and the steak will lose its flavor. You must let the temperature drop to about 120 degrees F before you serve.

I find that steak prepared thusly is quite flavorful. The meat requires no aging or marinade in my opinion. Eat the vegetables and meat together and drink some hearty red wine or an stout beer.

Pizza Making Tips

Homade pizza is easy to make, but often people give up after a try or two because it is easier to call The local pizza place. I’ll admit I’m just as guilty as ordering delivery, especially since Lost Dog’s newest location in South Arlington opened up near us. Homemade is a lot cheaper. Here are a few tips to make it yummy.

Tip 1. Hot oven. Some recipes set the oven to 375 or 400. I find though that a really good pizza needs 500 degrees. Also you need a pizza stone or a special pan so you get a crisp crust.

Tip 2 Kneed More — you should be able to stretch the dough thin enough to see though it. This often requires kneeding for longer than you’d like. Of you’ve got it lined up the bread will e like a soft pillow when it has risen and will easily stretch out with gravity and tossing it by hand. If bug holes show up when you try to stretch it out you didn’t kneed it long enough.

Tip 3 Flour combination. I use 7/8 bread flour to 1/8 whole wheat or other more flavorful flour to give some texture and complexity.

Tip 4 Cheese and Topping fun — you can really go crazy with mixes of cheeses and toppings. Try making a small salad out of your proposed cheeses, topping combo and sauce. If it works for the salad, it wil work on pizza.

Finally here’s a base recipe I use.. Though I switch out a quarter cup of whole wheat flour, and add a little more sugar. The recipe says to cook at 350 for 20 minutes, ignore that, try 500 for about 10 minutes or so. It is done when it is golden brown.

Offer your rebuttals, additional tips and comments in the space provided below.

Baking Bread

Here is the result of my latest breadmaking expeirement. I’m exiting crusts and various flours and substitutes. Today we have 3 cups bread flour, 3/4 cup yogurht, 3/4 cup water, 2tsp yeast, 1 tsp salt, 2 tblspn olive oil, 3 tblspn honey and 1 cup of rolled oats. Kneed with whole wheat flour, let rise, form, rise again. Preheat to 500 degrees. Put in Dutch oven for 15 minutes and then put in the dough. Turn oven to 375 and cover for 20 minutes. Remove cover and cook until temp is 200 degrees internally.