Posts Tagged ‘beef’
Sunday, August 22nd, 2010
Posted by johngl
It’s not often when you can find choice grade T-Bone steaks at $4.99 a pound, so when I saw them this morning at Costco, I went for it.
In fact, normally I don’t go for these kinds of steaks since there’s a lot of bone with a tiny tenderloin on one side and a large NY Strip on the other side. These both had a nice tenderloin and a well-marbled strip.
In the usual fashion, I fired up the Weber Kettle a half hour in advance. I also got the mix of brown and wild rice going on the stove top. It takes about 40 minutes to get the rice perfect so getting it started at the same time as the charcoal makes the timing come out just right.
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Tags: beef, rice, steak, wine
Posted in Meat, Recipes: Eats, Techniques, wine | 2 Comments »
Sunday, July 4th, 2010
Posted by johngl
My good friend and fellow wine and food lover, BigDMcC, was coming over to join in on the second annual July 4 Paella Fest (stay tuned for tomorrow’s post) and, since we were going to have a big day of cooking ahead of us, I thought it best we start the day with a hearty breakfast of bone-in, grilled dry-aged ribeye, farm fresh eggs cooked in duck fat, and some duck bacon. Oh, and an English muffin. Sorry, I didn’t have any Texas Toast available.
Not a bad way to start the day.
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Tags: beef, dry-aged, meat, ribeye
Posted in Meat | No Comments »
Sunday, June 20th, 2010
Posted by johngl
The most glorious spousal unit and I had some sous vide tenderloin packed away from a previous cooking engagement and, since I hadn’t fired up my good old Lodge cast iron hibachi in a while, it seemed like a good fit.
First though, I had to reheat the center cut tenderloin.
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Tags: beef, meat, potato, tenderloin
Posted in Equipment, Meat, Techniques, wine | 1 Comment »
Sunday, June 13th, 2010
Posted by johngl
Earlier this week, I was contacted by my most glorious spousal unit who was asking (by email) if I wanted to join a few folks for dinner on Saturday evening. It seems the host had purchased some wine while visiting out West and needed to make room in his wine fridge for his new bottles. Since our hosts were supplying the wine I naturally felt compelled to supply meat. It’s what I do.
Could it be that I just now accidentally created a new tag line? Meat: It’s what I do. Hmmmm.
Anyway, I started out thinking: I know, I’ll do a ribeye primal! That can feed a lot of people!
But when I got to the actually buying the thing, I got dissatisfied with the selection and wandered over to the whole, unpeeled tenderloins. Perfect. I can do two of them! After doing the “this one is two little, this one is too big…this one…ahhh…just right!” a couple of times, I was good to go.
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Tags: beef, meat, sous vide, tenderloin, wine
Posted in Meat, Techniques, wine | 13 Comments »
Monday, May 31st, 2010
Posted by johngl
As many of you know, most glorious mother-in-law was visiting from the rain-soaked North for over a week (I counted the days). She really likes ribs, so a whipped up a batch sous vide style, which spent over 20 hours in the the sous-vide rig. While I was at it I thought I might run an experiment, so I cut off a 9 ounce chunk of some nicely marbled chuck and let it join the ribs for the 20 hour bath.
The results were pretty incredible.
Chuck comes from the shoulder of the cow and isn’t noted for being a particularly tender cut of meat and is usually relegated to use in multi-hour braises or being ground up for some really tasty burgers.
Not any more.
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Tags: beef, meat, sous vide
Posted in Meat, Techniques | 2 Comments »
Sunday, May 9th, 2010
Posted by johngl
In one of her forays into the wonders of our freezer, the most glorious spousal unit made a brilliant discovery: a very large bone-in 2″ thick sous vide ribeye that was leftover (unopened) from a dinner gathering that took place a few months ago.
Since all I had to do was thaw and sear-off the steak, I could focus on some more unusual side dishes like carrots braised in beer and gnocchi “tater tots.”
It was quite a lot of fun not having to focus on the meat…
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Tags: beef, carrots, potato
Posted in Meat, Recipes: Eats, Roots, Techniques, veggies, wine | 3 Comments »
Saturday, January 16th, 2010
Posted by johngl
Since the release of Julie & Julia, Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, has come back as a best seller. Beyond that, lots of food bloggers have now taken up following the pattern: cook every recipe in a cookbook and hope for a movie deal. Maybe I should try that with a Thomas Keller cookbook.
Not. A. Chance. We don’t operate like that here at the Alcoholian campus.
Julia’s Boeuf à la Bourguignonne is simply a classic and when I was asked to attend a Burgundy Wine Salon (a future post to be sure), it seemed like a natural especially since I would be cooking for over 30 people. So I fished out my very old 1983 paperback edition of Julia’s most famous work and got to it. Sorta. I’m not very good at following recipes. They are like stop lights: suggestions.
Mine is deconstructed:
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Tags: beef, meat
Posted in Meat, Recipes: Eats, Techniques | 3 Comments »
Sunday, November 1st, 2009
Posted by johngl
Sometimes referred to as chicken fried steak, this crispy-fried beef cut is very similar in composition to the breaded pork tenderloin we visited a couple of weeks ago. You could use a beef tenderloin, or a ribeye, or a New York Strip. I just happened to use top sirloin because it is relatively cheap.
Panko Breaded Southern-Fried Sirloin, Sausage Gravy, Whipped Potatoes, and Cole Slaw
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Tags: beef, pork, sirloin
Posted in Meat, Recipes: Eats | 7 Comments »
Sunday, October 4th, 2009
Posted by johngl
It’s gets pretty bad when I had to use the Alcoholian’s search feature to find out if I’d ever done a post on lamburgers. It turns out that we made them at BigDMcC’s one and only monthly party. So, now that I know I haven’t done a post on them, you’re gonna get one.
And no, I am not burgering my way anywhere; the lamb thing was spontaneous.
From the bottom up, that is Beecher’s Flagship Cheddar from Seattle, a 50% lamb-50% beef burger, a ripe avocado, Clausen Kosher Baby Dills, and just a schmear of whole grain mustard and a sploot of ketchup.
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Tags: beef, burger, lamb, meat
Posted in Meat, Recipes: Eats | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
Posted by johngl
The other day a friend of mine told me about a new burger joint in town called, of all things, Elevation Burger. He said the meat tasted like cardboard.
They are taking commercialism to new heights whilst jumping on the organic free-range bandwagon. If you click on the “burgers” graphic below, you can read the the Vertigo Burger that can be stacked three to ten patties high. Oh, come on.
I stacked seven of my patties — that’s 42 ounces of pure beef — just to see what it might look like.
Where that silly “elevation” thing came from I’ll never know. Those ad-men should be flogged.
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Tags: beef, burgers, meat
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Sunday, May 31st, 2009
Posted by johngl
A few weeks ago, I was contacted by the good folks over at the Texas Beef Council. They asked me if I wanted to cook some meat.
Twist. My. Arm.
Grilled Top Round Steak with Mango Salsa, Couscous, and Sugar Snap Peas
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Tags: beef, meat
Posted in Land, Meat, Recipes: Eats, Techniques, veggies, wine | 6 Comments »
Sunday, May 17th, 2009
Posted by johngl
I had some left-over flank steak. I had a lot of beef stock in the fridge. I had some habanero cheddar cheese. I had one bottle of beer on the wall. The most glorious spousal unit had her Cheez Whiz. Oddly, we even had some buns.
Grilled Flank Steak Sandwich. That stuff up front is the beer-delaise sauce
So what’s all this hooey about beer-delaise?
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Tags: beef, flank steak, wine
Posted in Land, Meat, Recipes: Eats, Techniques, wine | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
Posted by johngl
Back in the old days, the flank was disrespected and ground up into hamburger. Either that, or butchers just kept the beefy goodness to themselves. Recently, there has been a great resurgence (or should that be surgence since the cuts weren’t popular before?) in their popularity thanks to some marketing dude who visited a bistro in France.
The French are quite partial to this cut, known as bavette to the locals. It’s quickly pan-seared to maintain what tenderness it has, which ain’t much. I don’t mean to imply that it doesn’t taste good. In Parisian bistros, flank steak is frequently served with shallots in a dish called bavette a l’échalotte.
Flank Steak with Shallots. Bavette a l’échalotte sounds a lot classier!
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Tags: beef, flank steak, meat
Posted in Meat, Recipes: Eats | 4 Comments »
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009
Posted by johngl
It prime grilling season here in Central Texas — the temps are still down in the low 80s making the weather simply perfect. For you folks above the Mason-Dixon line, use this information to prepare for your 4th of July parties. If you get some Swiss Chard growing in a starter pot, you’ll have some to harvest by then.
Grilled USDA Prime Beef Ribeye Steak, Garden-Fresh Sautéed Swiss Chard and Shallots with a Baked Potato
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Tags: beef, grilled, meat, ribeye, wine
Posted in Greens, Land, Meat, Recipes: Eats, Techniques, veggies, wine | 7 Comments »
Sunday, April 26th, 2009
Posted by johngl
About three weeks ago, another aging experiment was hatched. I left a whole, unpeeled tenderloin in its cryovac packaging for two weeks. Then I made the steaks found in the Grilled Beef Tournedos post. Those steaks were center cut and came out pretty darned good.
I should have just stopped there, but I wanted to find out what would happen if I dry-aged the remaining pieces — a tail end, a head end, and the petites.
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Tags: beef, dry-aged
Posted in Failures, Techniques | 5 Comments »
