When the Weather Turns: Winter Cooking Project #3
November 2, 2008
The Tutor: Davo The Organizer: Karrie
The Tutees/Bloggers: Christie, Lizz, Jen Pennock, Jen Wiz., Mary, Mindi, Amy
Cut of beef: Export Chop, Prime, Bone in from the steer’s rib, AKA bone in ribeye
Price point: Prime: $10.95 whole, 18#, (11.95 half), Choice: $6.95 whole, 18# ($8.50 half)
Cowboy steaks, 1 pound (16oz) and up--Prime: $16.95/pound, Choice: $15.95/pound
Why Jefe Dave chose it: To teach us about “Frenching”. Fortunately this did not involve kissing!
Butchering goal: Breaking a 20 plus pound bone in export rib into cowboy steaks
Recipe: Chuleton de buey con pimientos del piquillo (Beef Chop with red piquillo peppers) from the Best 100 Spanish Recipes Cookbook
Why we chose it: Our Spanish friends from Solex Partners, chose it for us! For more information on their products distributed by JDY, go to www.solexpartners.com.
Working Through Recipe and Butchering
We started our tapas party cooking project with individual recipes (listed after we explain the heartbreak of breaking down an export chop). Jefe Dave placed a dishtowel under the cutting board to sop up juices and keep it steady while we took turns lifting the hefty chop which Jefe warned was at least 20 pounds and that he himself had never butchered before. Before cutting off the fat cap, there was much discussion about knife sharpening, and it became clear that Lizz has strong opinions about sharp knives. Christie took a turn at the knife (and a turn at her finger later, too) and cut the 2 inch fat cap off. Karrie informed us that on a ribeye, the fat cap is referred to as a lip and that restaurant chefs reference this in their orders as a 2 inch lip on ribeye. Christie commented that this fat cap felt like candle wax and the group inquired about what we could do with this large portion of waste. Lizz wanted to render it and fry frites while Jen Pennock was thinking candle making for Christmas.
While Christie worked on trimming the fat off the ribeye, Dave told us about the confusion of prime rib versus a ribeye. More often than not, a prime rib is not prime, it’s a choice grade. It’s just called a prime rib. This confuses chefs and consumers alike. And Jefe Dave when it’s ordered incorrectly on voice mail at 2 in the morning! Amy assumed that the $5.95 prime rib specials her Arizona family coveted in Vegas was, to her amusement, likely not a prime cut. Jen P. made a quick dictionary for anyone confused reading this blog: Ribeye-a whole boneless prime rib. Export rib-a ribeye/prime rib with the bone in. Export chop-the export rib butchered into individual steaks. Cowboy steaks-export chop with the bone Frenched. French cut-trimming the fat away from the bone (and not your finger, Christie!)
Jefe continued telling us that with this crummy Geo. W. economy prices have dropped, especially on prime products. Typically at the holidays meat companies book all the Christmas fares such as tenderloins and rib cuts, but not so much this year. If you are considering a good time to treat yourself to prime, this holiday season would be the affordable one to do so.
The ribeye can actually be considered 2 separate cuts. The strip end is in the middle/back of the animal and rib end is where we started our meat struggle. We easily identified the rib end because of the kernel of fat smack dab in the middle. This kernel of fat has an intense flavor around the end, and is tender and fatty.
Fortunately none of us were tortured by special diets, but for those of you are, don’t order prime rib. Skip the flavorful fat and head straight for the New York strip. We paused for a moment to take in the beautiful sight of the loose grain and excellent marbling characteristic of a prime ribeye. Jefe Dave pointed out the ribeye cap, a fatty, flavorful portion of the ribeye that is soft like a tenderloin but rich in flavor like a prime rib.
Christie trimmed some of the fat around the bones off then flipped the export rib to the opposite side to see the where the chine bone (a flat bone running the length of the ribeye) had been removed during processing. Christie took some fat off here (we needed meat liposuction!!) and then we were finally ready to hunker into this chunker. Christie lobbed off a piece o’ meat on the left side of the first bone on our chop. She sliced down on the right side of the same bone forming our first cowboy chop. We were excited by its beauty and impressed when it weighed in at 22oz—almost 1 and a half pounds! The next cut of steak did not have a bone in it. It was a called a ribeye. These are usually about 6 to 8oz and sold at a discount according to Jefe Dave. They are still a great cut, but do not taste the same as a bone in chop which has been flavored by its own marrow and other factors. If you didn’t chop these into bone in and bone out steaks, you would have giant 40 ounce steaks. To the average “Joe Meat Consumer” this might be too much for one sitting. Guess you could always go romantico and make it Steak Fiorentina for 2. Or as Lizz said, “Only a cowboy could eat that much meat!”
About halfway through this process you could start to see the fat caps forming. Also at the same time, poor Christie got confused and did a butchering job on her finger versus the export chop. We all gave advice on home remedies to stop the bleeding but it still took a good portion of the day to nip the bleeding in the bud. (We are happy to report that our meat amiga and her phalange are both doing fine.)
Jen Wiz stepped in but her butchering debut was cut short (Ahhh, what a debut it was! Wiz got about 6 inches into her first shot at butchering when she hit a bone that she would have never gotten through without losing at least a digit. Thank god we had an expert on hand!). Jefe Dave stepped in giving us fair warning he had never butchered this cut, and was quite surprised to learn that there is still a chine bone on. Had we a ban saw like a proper restaurant, this problem could have been easily solved, however, Jefe had to hack, whack and attack this bone for us. (We weren’t surprised he did this quite well!) Finally we had cut into the middle of the ribeye and could start to see the strip end which is smaller than the rib end and looks completely different.
While Jefe finished up our butchering, Jen W. and Mary got their bone on, or off rather. They “Frenched” the chops with a make-shift “boning” knife, causing the bone to stick out past the meaty part of the chop, making the presentation of the chops “cowboy” style. Jefe said a restaurant chef would have plastic tool used in trimming, but ours was sufficient enough for the afternoon. We could have tartared these fatty, flavorful scraps but since we had already prepared so many other dishes, the doggies were treated to this tapas dish.
Amy and Lizz seasoned our chops with sea salt. The recipe called for coarse salt, but we went with salt of Spain. We also diverted from the recipe and added some pepper. We are Americans and therefore we have a gas grill versus wood burning so Jefe Dave threw the chops on the barbie and grilled them to perfection while we completed the recipe by frying 4 garlic cloves in a lovely Spanish olive oil, Marques De Valdueza, another gift from Solex, $18.30 bottle. Since Karrie can’t follow a recipe our garlic was minced instead of whole, but we powered on adding 24 piquillo peppers also gifted from our Spanish friends, $27.50/large #10 can. We sautéed slowly and stirred frequently as the recipe called. The presentation was easy, we placed the chop on a nice white square plate and garnished with peppers. The winter cooking project team was pleased with another juicy tasty beefy meat treat!
All about the Tapas!
Upon arrival, cooking project team members and guests chowed on a chorizo and queso tray gifted from Solex: U shaped chorizo $5/package and Autentico Palacious and Garrotxa, a 100% pasteurized goat’s milk cheese $15/pound. Both were amazing Spanish treats. Gracias Solex!
The rest of the menu consisted of patatas bravas, fava bean salad, tomato bread, and espresso granita recipes from Anya von Bremzen’s cookbook, The New Spanish Table Dave and Karrie got at a tasting of hers a few years ago. We also had garlicky mushrooms and a tortilla recipe that Mary got from a very good Spanish-American friend, Jackie (who after the time suck-age Mary endured with this recipe, Jen P. decided that their relationship must be more love/hate than anything. Maybe a little heavier on the hate…)
Mary’s tortilla de patata recipe called for 4 eggs, 3-4 medium potatoes sliced in circles, salt, olive oil and ½ onion, but this is the last time she judges a recipe by it’s ingredients. It came with a video, guess we should have watched that before this laborious effort! She heated just enough oil to cook potatoes and onions in a non stick pan on a low flame (approx. 1 cup). In the meantime, she beat the eggs and a pinch of salt for each egg. When the oil was hot, Mary added the potatoes and onion slices, cooking slowly so that we didn’t get fried potatoes. Turning them from time to time, Mary drained the potatoes and onions when they were soft (tender, not fried!) Mary added them to the beaten eggs, folding until she had a uniform mixture. The next step was again heating the pan, but this time with just some oil covering its bottom (medium heat) and adding the omelette mixture. Now our beautiful, time consuming tortilla took its final shape. Mary shook the pan from often to prevent sticking and when she saw the borders around it were solid (damn, she is patient!) it was time to flip the tortilla. This only took 3 cooking team project members! They placed a dish on the pan, covering it and flipping the omelette carefully, as the center of the mixture was still liquid. Now that the mixture was on the dish, Mary added some oil to the pan (again!) and let it reheat. She added the mixture to the pan, cooking the other side of the tortilla. Mary may have the patience of a saint (if you know her boyfriend, Lance, you’ll understand why) but we were not. According to Jackie’s tortilla source, even in Spain, there are some people who prefer the tortilla de patata somewhat undercooked while others prefer it completely “solid”. One thing for sure we were instructed that both surfaces of the omelette needed to be solid and have a clear brown color. Ours was a little more on the solid side, a perfect circle and gorgeously golden brown. Effort or no effort, it tasted as good as looked.
A few of us, especially Jen Pennock often base their meal on the sides so tapas style was perfect for her. She joked about struggling with the tomato bread – such a difficult recipe! (You will see her sarcasm come out as you read more about this “treacherous” task!) For the Catalonian recipe, pa amb tomaquet Jen cut two loaves of bread length-wise and cut 2 tomatoes in half crosswise. She then cut garlic cloves in half and rubbed each loaf of bread with garlic and also brushed the bread with olive oil. Since the bread didn’t smell very garlicky, she diced the garlic and put it on the bread as well. At the end of our cooking extravaganza, Jen broiled the bread for approximately 5 minutes. Once out of the oven, the bread got rubbed again – this time with the cut tomatoes, a la tomato bread style. Then she spent lots of time writing really technical notes on meat cutting in sloppy handwriting (sorry Karrie)! We all loved this dish so much, we wish we had doubled the batch. There just was not enough garlic, tomato, doughy goodness to go around.
Karrie also lucked out with an easy tapas dish. She had this mushroom dish the previous weekend at Café Iberico and tried to recreate it with baby ‘bellas, minced garlic, salt, pepper and lots and lots of olive oil. She then threw the ‘shrooms and their cazuela in the oven and took it out (fortunately reminded by a cooking project member) once it smelled of delicious garlic and the mushrooms has soaked up the olive oil. It was no Iberico but it was a big hit regardless.
Wiz and Lizz also had a pretty easy but equally delish tapas dish… patatas bravas. They boiled, diced and then roasted potato wedges in a 475 degree oven for 45 minutes. We served them with a spicy sauce (salsa de tomate picante) of tomatoes (15oz), onion (1 small minced), garlic (3 chopped cloves), smoked Spanish paprika (3/4 tsp), cumin (1/4 tsp), pinch of red pepper flakes, distilled white vinegar (2 tsp), salt, sugar and tobasco that we boiled with ½ cup water and then blended. We must admit, tapas dish #3 was another solid hit, and such a comfort food.
Amy and Mindi, our dynamic fava bean duo, had a lot of fun tweaking their dish, amanida de faves amb menta. They made a salad of 3 cups of canned lima beans (the 80s Dominicks Karrie shopped at did not carry such a fancy product as fava), 1 ½ cups of endive (the recipe called for escarole, ah, the ‘80s Dominicks strikes again), 3oz Serrano ham also a Solex product bought from Provenance Food and Wine, 1/3 cup of mint picked fresh from Karrie’s garden, 2 lg finely chopped shallots, sea salt and pepper. Their dressing consisted of ¼ cup E.V.O.O., 1 tbs sherry and 1 tbs red wine vinegar (recipe calls for 2 tbs sherry vinegar or 2 tbs sherry vinegar but the D.F.B. duo wanted the flavor of sherry and vinegar so they did 1 and 1), 2 tbs of fresh lemon juice, ½ tsp Dijon mustard and 1 minced clove of garlic. We were concerned the endive would be too bitter compared to escarole, but the combo of sweet, sour and acidic elements came together just fine. Also, their little secret was to hold off on dressing the salad until right before serving. Another good call! We all enjoyed this Catalonian dish and felt the lima bean, endive and sherry upgrades worked in our flavor.
Before we arrived Karrie made granizado de café espresso, fortunately a double batch as 1 bowl flew right out the freezer. Curses! The single recipe called for 1 ¾ cups of espresso (fair trade, of course) and ½ cup sugar, but she went a little light on the sweetness. The sugar was dissolved in the espresso, cooled to room temp, then chilled in the fridge. She transferred it to a metal pie pan, covering it with foil. Every half hour or so Karrie stirred and mashed this mixture with a fork until all liquid was frozen (approx. 3 hours). Before serving, she fluffed the granita one last time and buzzed Lizz instructed Wiz on how to properly whip cream (Wow, does this sound like a porno or what?). The granitas were great, topped with cream and chocolate shavings, served with apple pie Mary baked early morning, but we must have had our buzz on as well when we added Baileys to our granitas and decided it was a good idea to turn them into icy blow job shots. Don’t tell our mothers!!!
Thoughts from a Home Chef
Christie’s accident aside, we probably would probably purchase cowboy steaks versus purchasing an entire export rib for a home chef without a bansaw. (Unless of course you really, really want to whack your meat!) Although pre-cut steaks are a little pricier, we would definitely save ourselves the headache of a one hour chop job which a butcher could break down in a matter of minutes. Similar to Kid Rock’s theory, “Save an export, ride a cowboy!”
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