Cooking Grass-Fed Beef: Episode 2 – New York Strip Steak with Warm Caramelized Mushroom Salad

This video recipe for New York Strip Steak with Warm Caramelized Mushroom Salad is the second in a series of videos I'm doing that focus on cooking various cuts of grass-fed beef.

The New York Strip is a very popular, easy-to-prepare cut, and the most popular steak in America (with the higher-fat Rib Eye coming in a close second and gaining fast).

While I prefer to grill Rib Eye steaks, with the New York Strip, I think a simple pan searing is best. These grass-fed steaks come from Normanton Farms, and were about 8-oz each. This is sort of a standard size for this cut, unless you're talking about a steakhouse portion, which are usually 12 to 16-oz. Since it's a fairly thin piece of meat, it will cook pretty quickly when seared in a hot pan, but especially so if it's from grass-fed cattle.

To recap some grass-fed facts from Episode 1 – Top Round "London Broil," grass-fed beef is much lower in fat, so it cooks faster, and can dry out faster if over-cooked. As you'll hear me say in the video recipe, I only cooked mine for a couple minutes per side to a fairly rare temperature. This ensured a juicy, tender, and flavorful steak.

Speaking of flavorful, I LOVE this warm caramelized mushroom salad as a topping for steaks, especially these steaks. The earthy mushrooms really amplify the beefy flavors of the steak -- and the sherry vinaigrette and fresh tarragon are perfect conduits. I hope you grab yourself some grass-fed beef and give this recipe a try. Enjoy!



Ingredeints:
For the mushroom salad:
8 large mushrooms, sliced
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1/4 cup sherry vinegar
salt to taste
1 whole garlic clove, peeled and bruised
1 tbsp fresh chopped tarragon

For the rest
1 tbsp olive oil
2 (8-oz) New York strip steaks
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
1 tbsp butter to finish sauce

Chef John and Some "Brand New Entertainment"

I'd like to apologize to everyone who's ever sent me an email saying I should have my own show -- to which I responded, "are you high?" or "have another drink." Turns out you may have been on to something.

I'm happy to announce I've just signed a deal with Brand New Entertainment to develop a series of unscripted food-related television shows. We are still in the very earliest stages of production, and only a small percentage of these projects make it big, but hey, it's still exciting to finally have been discovered (especially for someone that started out using a photoshop'd picture of George Clooney as his avatar!).

Brand New Entertainment has a great track record in unscripted television (that's what they call reality shows down there). I've included their reel below so you can take a peek at some of the stuff they've done.

I can't give any detailed information about the shows we are working on, but believe me, you will be the first to hear when we have something to announce. I want to thank you all for your support, which no doubt helped make this possible. Stay tuned!

BNE Reel from Brand New Entertainment on Vimeo.

Dry-Aging Steaks at Home – This is Only a Test

One reason the steaks at premier steakhouses are so amazingly good is dry-aging. Of course, most high-end steakhouses also use Prime beef, which is more marbled with fat, hence juicier than the Choice grade you get at the supermarket, but beyond the quality of the meat, it's the aging that really makes a memorable steak.

This is also why they are so crazy expensive. The strip loins are carefully aged for weeks in a perfectly controlled environment, and as they sit they slowly dehydrate, which intensifies the meaty flavor, and also give the steaks an even more luxurious texture. Natural enzymes have time to break down the fibrous, connective tissue in the muscle, which tenderizes the steak like no other method.

A thick dry-aged steak is the ultimate red-meat eater experience. Unfortunately, there was really no great way to do this at home…until now (I think). I heard about a website, drybagsteak.com who was selling a kit to effectively dry-age steaks at home. They sell a vacuum heat sealer along with specially designed bags which they claim allows moisture to permeate out of the bag, but at the same time blocks oxygen from entering the bag.

I asked them if I supplied the strip loin would they send me the bags and equipment to test this new product on the blog? They agreed, and so the video demo you see here is Part 1 of the process. This video shows how to prepare the beef in the bags using the vacuum sealer, and in 14 days we will unwrap the meat, cut some steaks, and test the results in Part 2. Stay tuned. Enjoy!




Aging Steaks Photo (c) JOE M500

French Fries – So Nice Because You Cook Them Twice

This how to make crisp restaurant-style French fries video recipe is probably more of any FYI – "oh, that's how they do it" demo, than an inspiration to actually try them.

I don't think most people realize that any decent French fry needs to be twice fried. The first frying in done at a lower temperature, which softens the potato and prepares the starchy surface for the second frying's crispification.

When done correctly, you get an amazing textual combination of light fluffy interior and thin crisp exterior. When you fry raw potatoes, even if the oil and temperature are perfect, there is really no way it will get and stay crisp just cooking it through in one shot.

I've been to so many restaurants that either don't know or don't care about this important fact. Why would they serve a limp fry when they could be making beautifully crisp fries? It remains one of the great foodservice mysteries.

Some people actually refer to these as "Belgium fries," since many food historians claim the technique was first developed there. If you research the history of French fries you will read many passionate arguments on the France vs. Belgium debate regarding this sinfully delicious side dishes' true origins.

I find these arguments amusing, not because there aren't legitimate cases for both sides, but because give or take a few bad movies and a couple museums, France and Belgium are like the same country. Enjoy!



Ingredients:
Russet or Kennebec Potatoes
vegetable oil or shortening for frying
salt

Wednesdays with Wolfgang

Many of you responded to my request a few months ago for questions to ask chef Wolfgang Puck, who I was assigned to do an interview with for About.com. I got so much great feedback, and used many of the questions in this interview. Thanks!

If you are interested, here is the link to the entire interview on my American Food site. In addition to agreeing to an interview, he will also be sharing some of his signature recipes. The first being his world famous pizza dough!

Yes, I feel a video recipe coming on. Enjoy!

Photo (c) 2009 Wolfgang Puck

Easy Chicken Roulade – So Faux Fancy

This chicken roulade video recipe is a great example of something that looks very complicated on the plate, but is actually quite simple to make. The other great thing about this recipe is we can all use a new technique for working with the ubiquitous and often sleep-inducing boneless chicken breast.

I hope this video serves its intended purposes as an idea generator and technique tutorial; not a specific recipe to be recreated exactly. These types of dishes, once the basic method is mastered, are tons of fun to experiment with. Which one of the millions of possible chicken roulade stuffing/sauce combinations will you come up with?

I decided to do an Italian inspired version, but no matter how you "roll," when this beauty comes to the table your guests will undoubtedly be impressed. The only thing people like more than food, is creatively manipulated food.

This chicken roulade video was produced for About.com, and can’t be embedded in the blog, but when you click on the video you'll be taken to the recipe page where you can watch the clip, and get the ingredients. Please return to comment, question, and discuss. Enjoy!




















Happy Bastille Day!
Celebrate in true French style
by following me on Twitter!

Buttermilk Fried Chicken – Southern, Fried, but Not Southern Fried

Not being from the south, I had no idea that this recipe I've been calling southern fried chicken for a long time, was not really southern fried chicken.

It was southern, and it was fried, but the addition of the buttermilk marinade apparently disqualified it from being a true southern fried chicken recipe.

According to my sources deep within the southern fried chicken subculture, real southern fried chicken consists of chicken parts, dredged in seasoned flour, and fried in hot oil until crisp and cooked.

That's it. If any additional steps or ingredients are added, and you still call it southern fried chicken, someone may drop a, "Well, bless your heart" on you. Sounds nice, right? It's not, ask a southerner.

I'll have to try that pure version one day, but I love the tangy tenderization that the buttermilk and associated bacteria provide, so I don't see any reason to change my approach.

Yes, this is a messy project, but there are perks to having a Dutch oven full of oil around for a few days. You already saw the Paczki we made, and you will see a French fry demo soon, so stay tuned.

I decided to show a couple minutes of me cutting up the whole chicken into the classic eight-piece meal. I did speed it up to make it somewhat bearable, so if you need to, go back and watch it a few times to see the nuances of the dissection. Enjoy!




Ingredients:
3 1/2 pound chicken, cut in 8 pieces
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp white pepper
1 tsp ground dried herbs (oregano, thyme, rosemary, sage)
2 cups buttermilk

for the seasoned flour:
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder

2 1/2 quarts peanut oil for frying

Happy Friday! Does This Blog Make Me Look Old?

I just finished editing some great video I shot while making a killer batch of southern fried chicken. I hope to have it up on the blog sometime Monday, so stay tuned.

It's my birthday tomorrow, so I may take the next few days off to rest and celebrate, but mostly rest. I just can't believe I'm going to be 46 – I'm still so immature!

Please don't worry about trying to figure out how to send me a gift. I really don’t want anything except your continued support for what I'm trying to do on this blog. The fact that so many of you get enjoyment from these videos is the greatest gift of all.

Of course, if you insist, a donation to the site would be nice. Enjoy!

How to Make Paczki! Mmmm... Not Doughnuts

So, that didn't take long! Here's the Paczki (pronounced POHNCH-KEE) video recipe I just produced for About.com's Eastern European Foods site. It's quite an easy recipe, and it's traditionally made on what we call "Fat Tuesday," the day before Ash Wednesday.

This surprisingly light, fried Polish pastry is most similar to our American jelly doughnuts – but, please, do not use the term "doughnut" around any Polish people. They go totally "świrują" (Polish for crazy)! They're right, doughnuts have holes, and these are indeed hole-less.

I had never made this exact recipe before, and was surprised how much less sweet it was than one would imagine. The dough is very similar to a soft roll, with just a hint of sweetness.

While the actual Paczki dough itself wasn't very sweet, the final package – warm soft dough, sweet fruit filling, and powdered sugar dusting – was just right. If you don’t drink coffee, you should really think about starting, just so you can drink it with these. It's a perfect pairing.

By the way, you know the drill; since I can’t embed the actual video player in the blog, when you click on the video you'll be taken to a recipe page on About where you can watch the clip. Just don't forget to comeback here for comments, questions, and general fried pastry discussion.

Special thanks to Barbara Rolek for the recipe! If any of you want to explore some more Polish recipes, or any other Eastern European cuisine, check out her great site. Enjoy!

Braised Grass-fed Beef Meat Sauce – Because I'm Down on the Ground

If you saw the video recipe for the London Broil I did using the Normanton Farm's grass-fed beef, you saw me save some of the top round, which had a little more connective tissue in it, to make a meat sauce recipe. This is that.

Most meat sauce recipes call for ground beef, and as most butchers will tell you (off the record), it isn't exactly the premium cuts that go into making ground beef. In fact, usually included somewhere in their answer is the statement, "you really don’t want to know."

This super-easy video recipe for a braised beef pasta sauce is similar to regular ground meat sauces, but instead uses freshly cubed beef as the base. The advantages are obvious and quite delicious.

Using this method, you get to choose the cut you like; I used top round, but rump roast, or chuck steak would be just as good. You can also control the fat content, trimming as you and your summer Speedo see fit. Enjoy!



Ingredients:
1 pound top round steak (may substitute rump roast, or chuck steak)
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
red pepper flakes to taste
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch green onions, white and light green parts only, chopped
1/2 cup beef broth or water
1/2 cup milk
1 (28-oz) jar prepared pasta sauce
1 (14.5-oz) package penne pasta, cooked
grated Parmesan cheese as needed