New Steak : Recipes for a Range of Cuts Plus Savory Sides

by Lefavour, Cree

• ISBN13: 9781580088909
• ISBN10: 1580088902
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-04-01
• Publisher: Random House Inc

Summary

Steak is synonymous with big flavor, but home cooks often dismiss it as ¿eating out¿ food on account of the expense and care it takes to prepare the perfect tenderloin or strip. In this substantive take on steak entrées, Cree LeFavour shares convenient recipes for all-American, bistro, Far East, and Latin meals that are big on taste, convenience, and value. Using fresh ingredients and a variety of methods¿sautéing, roasting, broiling, grilling, braising, and wok-frying¿these recipes teach novices as well as experienced cooks how to cook steaks well.

Author Biography

CREE LeFAVOUR was born into the food world and grew up in the kitchens of her father's acclaimed restaurants, including The Paragon in Aspen and Rose et LeFavour in the Napa Valley. She received her PhD in American Studies and has taught writing at New York University; run her own baking business, Pink Frosting; and authored food articles with her husband, Dwight Garner. Once an avid traveler, Cree now spends her time cooking, gardening, and writing at her home in Garrison, New York. For more information, and to read her On the Plate blog, visit www.creelefavour.com.
 
THE AUTHOR SCOOP

Do you eat your vegetables?
Definitely. As you can tell from The New Steak, I love vegetables! Once I figured out how to move beyond the basics of steaming one vegetable at a time, I started eating more and more of them. Nuts, nuts oils, good vinegars, fruity olive oil and mixtures of vegetables in a range of textures make vegetables one of my favorite things to eat.

Do you have a favorite dish that your mother used to make?
Despite being a terrific cook, my mom seldom gets much credit for her work in the kitchen. That's what happens when you're married to a chef. Among other things, my mom used to make outrageously good banana bread with tons of dates, walnuts, bananas and whole wheat flour. I wish she'd written down the recipe. Hot out of the oven and slathered with butter, my sister and I used to gobble down half a loaf after school before it had a chance to cool.

What's your favorite dessert?
That's a tough one I love sweets! Vacherin the intense combination of crisp meringue and ultra-rich vanilla ice cream comes to mind. It's something I remember eating as a kid in my father's restaurant in Aspen, The Paragon. I like a lot of other desserts, but it's tough to compete with the foods of childhood when you start naming favorites.

What do you like to make by hand?
I love making pasta like the oxtail stuffed ravioli I made last weekend. From cracking raw eggs right onto my marble board and using my hands to mix them with the soft flour to rolling the dough through the machine and watching it emerge in perfect sheets I find the whole process deeply satisfying. Of course, sitting at the table with a glass of wine and biting into one of these elegant pockets with their rich filling is pretty great, too.

Excerpts

Steak Basics
 
How to Use This Book
 
Ideas, as much as instruction, are the currency of good cookbooks. I hope reading my recipes will get you excited about cooking steak. Use the book to gather ideas about how to put together a menu on your own. That means combining the steaks and side dishes in a way that appeals toyou. The same goes for choosing the cuts of meat for a recipe. I hope you'll explore unfamiliar cuts and try some of the things I suggest for putting a plate together, but I realize many people already have strong ideas about what they like.
 
Please don't meticulously measure every little item I call for. Who measures chopped herbs? I don't. I've given the quantities, because there are people who like to knowexactlywhat the recipe calls for. Writing "1 shallot, chopped" is simply too general for many people's comfort. Okay. After all, a large shallot can produce 4 tablespoons while a small one can be barely 2 tablespoons. But would it matter a great deal if you ended up putting in 2 or 4 tablespoons? The sauce would certainly taste a little different, but it wouldn't be bad in either case. So if you tend to measure and worry, the quantities are here. But I hope you'll at least consider using your own good sense. Rather than awkwardly stuffing 2 tablespoons of cilantro into a measuring spoon, just chop up what looks to be about that much and be done with it.
 
Portion Size
In my recipes I generally call for 8 ounces of meat per person. This is a loose guide; your steaks will always be a little over or under that amount. Plenty of thick-cut steaks weigh in at 12 ounces each. Don't worry. However much you buy, there will be people who eat more than that 8 ounces (big, hungry adults and teenagers), and others who consume a lot less. To my mind, half a pound of meat is about right--but then, I love steak and I also like to have leftovers for steak tacos the next day.
 
If you're concerned about the increasingly high price of buying top-quality sustainably raised steak as well as about the ethics of eating meat, given how much energy and fuel goes into producing each pound of meat, consider cutting the portion size in half while doubling one or both of the side dishes. This is a way of thinking of the steak as equal in importance to the side dishes. Eating a little less really great meat is a smart approach to ethical consumption. Rather than buying 2 pounds of cheap supermarket sirloin, splurge on 1 pound of locally raised porterhouse or, if you can find it, a pound of grass-fed, dry-aged sirloin. Take the time to make a sauce and savor every bite.
 
Matching the Steak to the Recipe
Almost every recipe in this book can be made with any of the steaks listed below. If that isn't the case, I'll make note of it. Just because a recipe is called Porterhouse with Black Mexican Chocolate Sauce doesn't mean you can't use strip steak. Sure, if you're cutting up meat for fajitas or doing a wok stir-fry, it doesn't make sense to buy an expensive bone-in rib steak. Even if you did, the meat would be excellent after you cut it off the bone. Some cuts are leaner, some are thinner, and some have more flavor than others. I make it clear what my favorites are--your tastes may tend in another direction. Use whatyoulike.
 
Know Your Cuts
It's hard not to be stumped by the endless litany of names that butchers, grocers, and cookbooks use for the same cuts of meat. We're a big country, with regional distinctions, and while a strip steak is sometimes just a strip steak, it's not always. Sometimes it's a shell steak, or an ambassador steak, or something else again.
 
Stepping back a bit, it helps to understand that American butchers (and the USDA) uniformly divide the cow's anatomy into eight regions. These are the primal cuts, and they matter; if you remember the names of the

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Excerpted from The New Steak: Recipes for a Range of Cuts Plus Savory Sides by Cree LeFavour, Cree Lefavour
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.