“Meat: A Kitchen Education
” by James Petersen
Review by Dappered Arts and Culture Correspondent Ben Madeska. Above pic sourced from the photo, “Boneless Chuck Roast” also by Ben Madeska. You can see more of his work here.
You should know how to cook, and learning to cook meat well is a good place to start.
It’s not hard to cook meat at home, but not all cuts of meat are the same and different cuts call for different methods. If your cooking begins and ends with throwing a t-bone on the grill, it’s time to expand your repertoire.
Some recent books about meat seem more interested in trying to teach people home-butchery more than giving you simple, practical advice. “Meat: A Kitchen Education
There are books that cover more ground and go more in-depth (like “how to prepare a pancreas” in-depth) but this is one of the best basic meat cookbooks you’ll find. And in all fairness, it does tell you how to prepare calf brains too (they are “hard to dislike,” apparently).
This book covers basic cooking techniques such as sauteing, braising, and roasting with straightforward tips – the meat turns gray while roasting because the broiler isn’t hot enough, for instance. Petersen explains why certain techniques work better for certain meats. He also gets into slightly more advanced techniques such as larding, preparing a confit, and making your own sausage, giving simple to follow instructions.
The best advice? Buy cheaper meat from an expensive butcher rather than expensive meat from a supermarket.
The best way I’ve found to cook steak: Don’t grill. Rub the steak with salt and cracked pepper and let it come to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 450. Heat a cast iron skillet until it starts to smoke. Throw on the steak and let it sear for about 2 minutes on each side. Transfer the skillet with the steak into the preheated oven for about 4 minutes. Transfer the steak to a plate and let sit for 10 minutes before cutting. Try it with a squeeze of lime.
me gusta
ordered, thanks for the ‘rec!
Good god, how cooked do you like your steak?
You’d be surprised. The searing doesn’t cook the center, so the process that he described gets you a solid medium. I’d add that I usually slather olive oil on the steak before the salt and pepper. It’s how I do steak in the winter time.
It should probably be mentioned that this method works best on steaks that are at least 1 inch thick.
Steak that is less than an inch thick isn’t steak, IMO.
Yep, I agree. I’ve found this to be a good technique that is easy to tweak depending on the thickness of the steak and doneness preferences of the guests. I go back and forth with olive oil with beef, but for venison I think it really helps, along with a handful of dried herbs with the salt and pepper.
Regarding olive oil… Won’t it smoke a lot at those temperatures? I generally use canola for pan-searing steaks. Might not have the flavor olive does, but I’d rather avoid setting off my smoke detector if possible…
Gentlemen,
As a transplant to Minnesota, You’ll NEVER find me with the oven on between May and September, let alone finding me indoors.
If you’re going to grill, go indirect heat, and itll be just like the oven (no flare ups and charred black steak) and youll be outside, not raising your air conditioning bill.
Salt and Pepper just like indoors. If you have propane, crank up one half or two thirds of the burners until the whole grill is hot, and toss on the non-high heat burners.
With charcoal, let it get ripping hot, and put your steaks over the grates with no charcoal beneath it. If you have a 1 inch bone in steak (and whats more delicious?) go 5 minutes or so per side….
Enjoy the outdoors while you have it!