the Alcoholian

Posted by johngl

Giving my new grill grate a test drive was of prime importance to me this weekend, so most glorious spousal unit and I headed out to Costco early to pick up some steaks for lunch. I like steak for lunch on weekends.  I also like steak for breakfast and dinner.

Lunch was a great success!

I went to Costco looking for pre-cut steaks, but found this instead:

We thought about cutting this into four steaks, but then hit upon the idea of just cutting it in half and splitting the steak after it was cooked.

Now that’s a steak!

I added salt and pepper and allowed it to warm up a little bit.

The new grate, custom sized by Lane at bobbercut.com,  worked marvelously.  I cranked the Big Green Egg to about 600°F and brushed the surface rust off the new steel.

Lovely marking, don’t you think?

The steak took a little longer to grill due to its increased thickness but still came out nice and juicy.

We enjoyed it with quinoa that was hydrated with home-made chicken stock.

Needless to say (well, almost) the grate worked great on its maiden outing.  We’re going to have a long and very happy relationship!

Of course, we needed to find a fitting wine strong enough to stand up to this mass of red meat.  Most glorious spousal unit fished a 2005 Liversan Bordeaux from the Haut-Médoc. It stood up just fine.

For a mere $12, this 50% Merlot, 49% Cabernet Sauvignon, 1% Cabernet Franc blend packs a big tannic punch and we had to decant it prior to consumption to allow those huge tannins to mellow a bit.

Even now, more than seven hours after the bottle was decanted, the tannins continue to mellow.  More fruit has come forward and its really quite good being redolent of blueberry and perhaps a little dark cherry. It finishes as dry as a desert. It would appear that this wine could easily stand a few more years in bottle and for the price, one can afford to load up on it.

Tags: beef, Equipment, meat, steak

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 17th, 2011 at 7:42 pm and is filed under Equipment, Meat, Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.