I need new ideas for steaks!!!!

[chefjohnpaul]

Have you tried using different cuts such as the bavette, hangar and flat irons?

Also, specify your beef and find excellent sources for breeds such as premium Hereford, or American KOBE, or certified organic Angus. Have your wait staff promote this.

Buy the best breeding and feeding you can afford and then prepare it simply and let the beef speak for itself. One of my favorite preparations is a marinade of soy, L&P, garlic, black pepper, Dijon, olive oil and a splash of wine vinegar- a hot mesquite grill is all you'll need at this point- and o yeah- excellent beef.

If you are doing a lot of grilling different rubs and marinades work well as well as an interesting variety of compound butters. Pan seared steaks do well with a simple deglazing and some well made demi-glace. If your beef is of excellent quality you don't need to do much other than prepare it properly.

John Paul Khoury,CCC
Chef, Northern California Region
PREFERRED MEATS
www.preferredmeats.com

[KeeperOfTheGood]

Hey oh

Well, such a simple question with such a simple answer. Unfortunatly all 10,000,000,000,000,000.4 answers are simple. I know the feeling of looking in the fridge at a piece of meat I paid 30 bucks for and drawing a complete blank. So. I have read most of this thread, skipping only the portions that left me cross eyed. I noticed three things overall in peoples responces (well, maybe more, its hard to do math when cross eyed):

I noticed that no one stated a position as seen from the customers point of view. So I will say this, as a customer, my mouth will water in anticipation for a steak. Can I say it, I love a good steak. I will of course go right cold if what is served me is anything other than steak. I do mean, I absolutly hate having to dig to even begin to see the steak. I want it there, bold and in my face. I want it to be the king on my plate. I want to know that I am spending 29.95 on the stake and not the rosetted radishes!! Radisehes be banned, I ORDERED A STEAK!!

I have also noticed a lack of pickles and sweets, both of which go nice with steak ("with" not hiding). There are many terrific pan relishes that can be done with chunky vegtables to be served with steak. Instead of carmelised onions, try juliened and quick pickled onions. Or asperigus spears under a nice sweet apricot sauce.

I have also noticed a lack of nuts. Pecans roasted, salted, sugared, smoked, and or coated in chili powders are awsome, meaty, and a good with steak.

I will say that yes, there was one person back on the seond page that mentioned pickled walnuts. Now that is interedting, though I personally prefer pecans.

I also read right near the top of an alfredo suggestion, and I will say this, alfredo and steak is good, just not that easy. If you do it as a sauce, place it on the plate first, and the steak on this, or it gets muddy looking. Remembering that Alfredo is essentially parmasean cream and liaison with nutmeg at pepper flavouring. This flavour can be added to rice (risotto) pasta (alfredo) and whipped potatos (). Actually an Alfredoed whipped potato under the broiler browned would probably be right nice.

I will also always expect carmelised onions and shrooms. I find it eminently acceptable to have these served in a seperat dish. Like I said, I wanna see my steak, thats what I have ordered!


Thanks all.

[CookMonster]

Originally Posted by isaac

suzanne,

I take what you said somewhat personally. I was simply just asking a question to get some ideas. Isnt this a place in which we all can ask questions and get ideas? When I posted that.... it was late at night... i had one to many glasses of red wines and I wasent thinking cleary.

It was a simple question. And by the way.... I learned a **** of a lot of stuff at the CIA. Just because I asked a simple question about steak can lead one to think that I didnt learn or get my monies worth from school?!?

I would have to agree with you Isaac - I am not sure who here has an absolutely original recipe idea...Many recipes are built from ideas obtained from other chefs and cooks...

[gonefishin]

Hi all

Originally Posted by Suzanne

Apparently so.

I do not buy the "he's being ironic" theory. I stick with "he's nuts when it comes to steak."

I was just reading this thread, with no intention of posting anything (my mouth was watering too much) But after I read your post above...I kept thinking of coconut crusted fillet and a pecan crusted fillet.

now that's nuts about steak!

dan


(after reading the rest of the thread keeper had mentioned nuts...I guess I should have read the entire thread before posting)

[KeeperOfTheGood]

Hey oh


LOL, not to worry. I was talking about Pecan halves, not ground. Interesting Idea doing a nut coating. It ispiered me to think of fillet mignon with the ground pecans on the outside instead of the bacon. Fryed nice and crispy Dang, why are we doing chicken for sup tonight!?!

I don't usually cook with ground pecans, or nuts in general so I'd not thought of it. I will lightly roast a tablespoon of ground pecans in a teaspoon of sesame oil, and mix that into a cup of white rice and a quarter cup of dried currents (plumped or cooked in with the rice). Tastes to me like chocolate....

[MikeLM]

Isaac-
Seems like a perfectly reasonable queston: the electronic equivalent of picking a dish and looking it up in four or five cookbooks to get different approaches to its preparation and ingredients. What I do with practically anything I decide to make.

I happen to like a slurry of LOTS of garlic, EV oilve oil, Danish blue cheese and all the cayenne pepper you can stand. (The garlic/cayenne combo is supposed to be extremely healthful; that soothes my conscience when I scarf up a big hunk of red meat.) I prefer flank steak - maybe not suitable for commercial presentation except as fajitas - and schmeer it on both sides, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.

Grill fiercely to crusty outside/medium rare inside, slice thinly across the grain and serve with your favorite sides/garnishes. Works fine with other, more prestigious cuts, but we mostly stick to the flank steak.

Next favorite is Beard's version of Steak Mirabeau, thick porterhouse with brown sauce, butter, anchovies, and chopped green olives. A real artery-hardener. Don't do it very often.

Mike

[kcekwk]

A good steak doesn't need to be seasoned or played with too much. It needs to be aged and cooked right and seasoned lightly. I briefly marinate cheap steaks I buy from the store and I am always pacified with cheap steakhouse steaks- because they overseason them and I am eating a lot of spices. I live in Iowa and there is just a HUGE difference between the steaks I get at a chain Steakhouse and what I can get at any given hole in the wall with a half competent cook behind the scenes.
Get to know meat eaters. All of the steak lovers I know are either burn unit well done people or bleeding, mooing, mercilessly red-toothed carnivores (that's me).
You could of course take any crusted or seasoned steak standard like steak del monico or something similar and change up the spices.
A lot of the seasonings I have seen listed seem more suited for chicken or pork. A good steak should stand on its own. Lemons and garlic and jellies and soy sauces are for pork and chicken period. I consider myself the recipient of a good steak when I push away the Worchester or steak sauce and just enjoy the taste of a rare, blood-heavy steak.
Jelly is for lamb, maybe pork. Garlic is for everything, but only in small doses when we're talking about beef. Salt, pepper, and the marbled fat inside the cut are what make a steak, not gimmicks or overkill brainstormong. And a good salad on the side. You should tell most of the pretentious, derisive pricks who responded to yor simple question to **** off.

[Suzanne]

Keeper -- have you actually ever used nuts on a steak? I just can't imagine the combination, because a good steak has soooooooo much flavor, it would overwhelm the nuts; and a steak that wouldn't (like a filet mignon) is not worth bothering with (not at the prices charged for it! ) So I'm really curious as to how it has worked for you -- which steak, which nuts. I mean, nuts are great on fish or chicken or veal, but those proteins don't have as strong a flavor as beef.

And for all the newbies, may I explain: I have removed my rather harsh early post, in which I took Isaac to task; you are all right, it was unnecessary. But the background: Isaac first came to CT as a student at CIA; after he was graduated, he immediately took a job as an executive chef. To my mind (and to several of the other professionals here as well), he was in way over his head: one of his first questions was the old "make-or-buy" hamburger patties -- surely he should have known how to do that analysis himself, no? And there were more such questions later. Which is why I took him to task: if you take the title, you'd better have the wherewithal to do the job. Even more to the point: chefs are not "made" chefs because they have the title, but develop through a long process of work and experimentation and learning.

But yes, ChefTalk is a site for sharing information and helping each other. And so I apologize for being harsh to a seeker. (But I still think there's something really strange about Chef Kitching in that link I posted! )

[Ma Facon]

Here is a steak recipe. Choose the cut of steak of your choice and rub it with fresh ground black pepper , sea salt , finely minced garlic and wrap it in plastic wrap and place a weight on it overnight, unwrap and panfry in whole butter to desired doneness this will produce a delicate brown garlic crust, Then top it with escargot"s in a green curry butter laden with fresh garlic and pureed fresh green onions , Set the steak on grilled portabella mushrooms .WOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[love-to-cook]

How about individual Beef Croustades with Boursin & Mushrooms assembled individually in their own little bundle of phyllo dough? I just finished reading the Jan 2005 Fine Cooking magazine, issue #69 and these look heavenly. They can be prepared at the same time or in different stages.