Previously, on SteakFeed …
We described our wish to compare a bistro-style steak recipe to an actual bistro steak, prepared according to the same method. Nobody from Boston signed up to eat at Hamersley’s, and that’s probably because we didn’t offer them a comp, or dangle a crisp fifty for the tab.
Anyway, since then I’ve ruined two pairs of lovely rib steaks, trying to pull off the the sear-roasted ribby recipe in the book. Okay not actually “ruined” … but my results have been on the sketchy side, especially presentationally.
The first shot was overcooked, even for The Lady, who tends toward the more done end of Medium. My steaks were thinner than those Hamersley described, so my timing was borked. I should know better, but the method here is new to me, with the brief hot pan-sear and slower oven-finish combo.
The second shot, I got the thicker bone-in rib-eye steak, and paid a LOT more attention to the timing and feel of the meat. It would have been perfect, except for one thing: since ribbyes were the bone-in type, and not well trimmed, ignoramus that I was that night, I ended up with my steaks really nicely Medium, but warped or cupped by the constriction of the thick fat band around the edges. Rookie mistake, I know! It didn’t even occur to me to score the fatty edges until the big puddle of melted thyme-garlic butter started to form in the ever-deepening well formed by each steak.
Gordon doesn’t mention it in his book, and it’s not talked about in this crib of the same recipe by Food TV. However, I’ve learned it in the best way: as basic steak handling behavior, from experience.
Anyways, I doubt The Lady will humor me again for a while with this recipe, even though I still have the Hamersley book… Maybe I can fake her out by making a different bistro rib steak…
My new mantra: With a sharp knife, make small incisions, about 1 1/2 inches apart in the fat around the outside of each steak.
