Tonight's steaks. Prime New York strips

[fracmeister]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n99886[/ATTACH] At 14.99 a pound these better be good. Lightly salted this AM before I left for work. Early dinner at 5.

[DeusDingo]

they look pretty. nice marbling. i bet they will be great

[David Parrish]

I've got this bad boy dry brining in the fridge. Friday Night Steak Night! On the SnS of course

[DWCowles]

You all sure know how to make a man suffer. Ribeyes tomorrow for sure.

[richinlbrg]

It looks like the Fracmeisters and Pit Bosses are eating VERY well tonight.

#1 just went to whole foods and got us wild caught silver salmon for tonight and organic grass fed beef for Saturday night.

[fracmeister]

OK, everybody thinks they can cook a steak.

I like thick steaks. I use prime beef. In today's case I am cooking New York Strips.

Here are the steaks. In the morning before I left for work I lightly salted them to "dry brine". Salt is basically the only thing that penetrates into meat. Anything else is for the surface. You can see the thickness in the top steak I hold on edge.The marbling is also very clear in these steaks.


I cook the steaks at 225F until they reach an internal temperature corresponding to a very rare steak. Then I take them off the grill, pat the surfaces dry with a paper towel, coat the surfaces lightly with canola oil and put them over the hottest thing I can make. In the ususal case, the charcoal afterburner.

I use this charcoal device to light my coals without any lighter fluid (never use that stuff!). Normally, I get the coals going and then dump them into my grill or into my "slow-n-sear" for the grill. I usually leave the burning canister of coals in a chimney that is REALLY hot but today I will use the slow-n-sear.

The Slow-n-sear has a water baffle between the coals and the rest of the grill for two zone cooking.

I sear the very rare steaks on the grate over the sns for a few minutes, moving them around. I DO NOT want "grill marks"--- I want a uniform brown with the Maillard(1) reaction doing it's thing everywhere.

Searing
End product



Hard to see but the steak is uniform color throughout and dark brown just on the exterior.

Grilling red onions

Grilled the corn for the salad

Finishing Zucchini

We had to keep the peppers seperate from the rest as one of our guests has a lot of allergies.

Garden peppers

The salad

After I turn them over I add a tiny dollop of beurre maitre d'hotel (2) and some pepper. I dont want to burn the pepper. I serve promptly and add a tiny amount of coarse salt just before serving.

This is the "reverse sear" method. I use to sear at the beginning suffering under the delusion that it sealed in the juices. Hah. All it managed to do was give me a rainbow of brown to grey to pink to red. Now I get a uniform color throughout AND a nice brown surface.

I used to rotate steaks once over grills to get these 90 degree "grill marks." The Maillard reaction is why you get those marks and it is one of the great reasons for the amazing flavor.

I used to use Montreal steak seasoning and similar. Now I use salt and pepper. Great steaks don't need thyme, coriander and dried onions/garlic. The beurre maitre d'hotel is my only touch. I occasionally serve it at the table.

And don't ask for Heinz 57 or Worcestershire sauce at my table. That is if you want to get invited back for another steak.


(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction
(2) http://www.chefs.edu/student-life/cu...d-hotel-butter

[fracmeister]

That was a cut and paste for the blog. Obviously YOU GUYS know how to cook a steak! They were so tender and tasted so good.

[Ray]

fracmeister the steaks look fantastic; great job! What cooker did you use for the initial 225F?

[fracmeister]

fracmeister the steaks look fantastic; great job! What cooker did you use for the initial 225F?

The Yoder. Could obviously have done it all on the Weber but it is so easy to hold temps on the Yoder that I can parallel process. Also had some other stuff cooking so I (almost) needed the space.

[Jerod Broussard]

You definitely cooked some serious stuff!!!

I never cared for New York Strip, too fibrous for me, LOVE me some ribeye.

[David Parrish]

Nice cook!

[fracmeister]

These strips weren't fibrous at all. Prime NY strips have plenty of marbling. While I love ribeyes, they do have large pockets of fat. The NY strips really benefit from the reverse searing. I like the sizes of the NY strips as individual cuts when I am doing 2" steaks or even 1.5". A 2" ribeye might weigh 2 pounds and cost me (prime) close to 40$... they just don't put usda prime ribeyes on sale, especially the dry aged ones (my real favorites!)