the steak method

A few weeks ago on Amazon, I bought these two items:

An instant-read digital thermometer and a 10-inch cast iron pan.

Of course, there are a multitude of uses for these 2 tools, but the main reason we bought them was for these:

Jeff and I love a good steak, and we really love the idea of making it at home to save some money. We’ve wanted to try the method of searing it in a pan and then finishing it off in the oven, which is hard to do without a cast iron. Friday night’s dinner became the day we made it happen!

So after my Fresh & Easy market trip the other day, we took a bottle of this,

and used it to marinate the steaks.

Some sources say to marinate it for about 6 hours, but we ended up just marinating it for 24 hours.







This is what we did with the steaks (which we got off of a Good Eats episode):

-Preheat the oven to 500F and stick the cast iron pan into the oven for about 5 minutes.

-Season the steak with kosher salt & pepper, then rub a little oil with a high smokepoint (we used Grapeseed oil) onto the steaks.

-Take the cast iron pan out of the oven and place the steaks onto the pan.

-Sear one side of the steak for 30 seconds, flip and sear the other side for 30 seconds.

-Flip the steaks over again before sticking the cast iron pan with the steaks into the oven for 2 minutes.

-Flip the steaks over for the last time and leave in the oven for 2 more minutes. (We took the temperature of the steaks at this time and it was around 130F, which is about medium-rare, which is what we wanted.)

-Take out of the oven and let the steaks rest.







Yum. It was a littttttle more medium than we would’ve liked but that might’ve been because we let it rest for quite a while. Next time, we might leave the steaks in the oven for 1 1/2 minutes on each side instead of 2 minutes. Of course, it also depends on the thickness of the steaks.

But I will say that these were the best steaks we have made at home yet!

We had the steaks with brown rice, roasted carrots, roasted garlic, and sauteed spinach.

Jeff’s favorite vegetable is carrots. And he told me about 5 minutes before we were going to cook the steaks that he wanted carrots with dinner. I was slightly annoyed because carrots take a little longer to roast in the oven and wished he had told me earlier. But I found out from Friday night’s dinner that carrots will cook in almost no time when an oven is set to 500F and the carrots are cut into tiny, tiny pieces. The carrots were perfect, drizzled in a little grapeseed oil with salt & pepper.

I also halved a bunch of garlic cloves and stuck them into the oven with the carrots. I find that I like “roasted” garlic this way better than this way:

Of course this way is absolutely delicious, but all the garlic cloves turn out soft and mushy. Whereas we find that the garlic gets crispy on the outside and soft on the inside when we just halve a whole clove and stick it in the oven (with a little oil, salt & pepper). Plus, it is 100% easier and 100% cleaner, especially if you have those huge bags of already-peeled garlic from Costco.







Dessert was just as amazing and it included this:

Shouldn’t be toooo hard to figure out. ;D

Did you have any good eats this weekend?

heaven in a cup

I have been wanting to go to Ruth’s Chris for a while now. For the steak, yes, of course, but mainly…for their dessert.

On Saturday night my friends were kind enough to treat me to a birthday dinner at this restaurant with amazing food and just-as-amazing-as-their-food service. I loved our waiter.

We ordered some wine for the table…

…which the waiter brought down from $85 to $65! This was so smooth and delicious.

 

And then it was time to look at the menu, which is where I became conflicted and distraught.

I knew I wanted to get the Prix Fix menu.

 

Appetizer? Hmm…I guess I’ll go with the classic Caesar Salad. No picture, because it was a little boring.

 

Meat? Cowboy Ribeye please! Difference between Cowboy Ribeye and plain Ribeye? Cowboy Ribeye = BONE-IN = YUM.

Unfortunately, my thoughts were bigger than my stomach because I could only get through 1/3 of this.

 

Side? Green beans with roasted garlic please!

Crunchy and the perfect accompaniment to the steak.

 

Dessert? This is where I became distraught and conflicted because the only option was something in the likes of “Chocolate cake with raspberry syrup.” Yuck and yuck. Together? Double yuck. So I kindly called our waiter and said,

Me: Excuse me, I have a question! Do you have a dessert with all sorts of berries with a cream like thing over it?

Waiter: Why yes, yes we do!

Me: Well, I’m looking at the prix fix menu with this fixed dessert and I’m wondering if I could switch it to this amazing sounding berries and cream dessert instead?

Waiter: It’s your birthday, we can do anything you want.

Me: I love you.

 

OK, I only thought the last line, but when this heavenly dessert came out, complete with a candle and a “Happy Birthday” written in chocolate, I was all smiles.

Best birthday “cake” ever. No, those aren’t finger swipes, what are you talking about??

 

We loved this so much that my friend and I recreated it at home the very next day! We used PW’s recipe, but didn’t follow it exactly. We used less egg yolks and less sugar.

It was purrrrrfect. We (and everyone else who tried it) thought it tasted pretty much like Ruth’s Chris’ except maybe a little sweeter. So next time (and there will be a next time) I’ll use even less sugar.

 

My dinner at Ruth’s Chris was wonderful.

Good food, good service, and most of all good friends.

 

Oh, and the Giants won just a couple miles away from us as we were about to bite into our steaks.

Err yeah…watching on the iPhone. Crazy fans.