Cheap Eats, A Wine Review

Greetings to all my readers who have been waited with baited breath for my glorious return! (What? I can dream)

I return with a review about wine. Wine that is cheap. I can hear buttholes clenching already. Fear not my lovelies, tis not what you think.

I was at a farmers market that is right by my job that has a ton of everything, produce, meats, bread, cheeses beer and wine. The wine section is so large they break it up by country, then type. Zomg.

I was prepping for a date night with the missus and we were having steak, so of course I had to have a wine, red to be exact. For those of you who are looking at your screen in confusion, wine is often paired with food.  Below is a handy chart I stole borrowed to show you.

Now we all know that for us non wine folk choosing red wine is like a guy going into the store to buy tampons for his lady (or a lady going to buy oil for a guy), lots of options with little to no real clue as to what is good and what is not. Thankfully for you all, I get to be the guinea pig.

I don't know a lot about wine, but I do know that American wine seems to fall flat compared to its French and Italian counter parts. So I went to the French and Italian sections to check out the reds to see what they were all about. I would love to say that I went though a rigours decision process to choose my wine.

I totally didn't. Almost all the french red was like $15 and up, the Italian started at like $6. So I went with Italian. Again with the butthole clenching, relax those sphincters, I did not choose the $6 wine. I went with a nice $10 bottom that had an intersting look to it and a label that gave it a 92 rating while mentioning it goes great with steak.

So I had this with a steak I made using my famous technique.

With full confidence I can say, we have a winner in this one. I am not going to attempt to use wine tasting words. This wine being a red is tannic but not overly so. It has a smooth flavor that flows over your tongue and goes down easy. I preferred it at a temp that is in the 60's. Colder than room temp but not yet chilled and for $10 it really is a good bargain 5/5 for sure.

Go try a bottle if you can find it.

Agree/Disagree with me? Leave me a comment, thank me, school me, teach me etc. its all good. 

How to Cook a Great Steak Part 2

For those of you just tuning in this is the second installment of how to make a great steak. Which should be pretty obvious with the 2 in the title but no one is judging you. When we last left off you had that big piece of meat in your hand ready to toss it in a pan. Before you do that though you need to gather your ingredients.

Kosher Salt
Black pepper (if you don't have a pepper grind, which you should, the ground box stuf works)
Butter
Olive or Grape Seed Oil.

You also need to let your meat come up to room temperature. We are almost there, I am promise you. I am going to presume that you have chose to cook a ribeye or new york strip. Why? Because those are my favorite steaks and you know being like me means you are awesome. Go ahead,

The first thing you need to do with your lovely piece of meat, other than unwrap it is to blot it with paper towels. You want to get the excess blood off it. I like to use a meth similar to the below photo where I take the steak and kind of roll it up so I can blot it all over at once. [PRO TIP: Do NOT use cheap napkins or paper towels that tear easily. It will just cause you to have to peel it off.]

You want to get the meat as dry as possible though don't go over board with it. You don't want to start rubbing off flesh. Just blot it. Depending on size you will like need more than one. If your meat is still cold this is the time to let it come up to temp. This can take a few hours if you have a thick piece of meat. 

Once the meat is clean of the excess moisture lay the out on a flat surface. Take a bit of your chosen oil the rub the meat down with your oil. You don't want it dripping wet. You want it basically to coat the surface of the meat. Once your meat is coated grind or sprinkle your black pepper on the steaks. On top of that give it a generous amount of kosher salt. You want to make sure that the entire surface is coated in salt and pepper. 

 Up close food pr0n's

After you salt and pepper both sides I like to let my sit a bit to let the meat suck in the seasonings. No more than 10 minutes usually. Now you need to take your favorite skillet and get it HOT. On a good electric stove that means 7 or 8. Once it hot go ahead and lay your steak down. Immediately set a timer for 60 seconds.

 While the steak is sizzling away on the pan grab a pair of tongues or your hands if you are crazy like me, and press down on the meat making sure to get as much surface area in direct contact with the pan as possible. You may be wondering why? Well salt and heat on red meat has some type of effect which forms a crust on the meat. This is quite tasty so you want that crust, this is how to get it. When a minute is up flip the steak, turn the heat down to 5 and let the other side crust up.

The reason for turning the heat down is that the steak will cook longer on this side. This will also be the side that is plate up.So you get a strong crust along with the steak cooking slowly.

Some people swear that you only need to flip a steak once, but I am not one of those. I flip as often as I feel is necessary though I don't flip it constantly either. I like to add butter to my steaks and let it brown on it to give it a bit more flavor.

Once the steak is done don't forget to grab the tongs and put the fat strip on the skillet too. 

Speaking of being done. Let us pause for a second. You may have noticed that I did not add any cooking times to any of this. Well there is a reason for that. Cooking times can vary a lot depending on how thick a piece of meat is. I like to go by feel. Let me borrow someone's hand to show you. The below chart seems silly but it is actually spot on. Once you get a few steaks under your belt you will be able to judge the time, until then stick to the chart. 

This is a chart that gives you a good understanding of the different degrees of steak doneness. I will say though this chart is a tiny bit misleading. If you look at this it looks as if rare and medium rare are completely raw in the middle. Which is not true at all if you cook it properly. Now if your steak was cold, and you quickly seared the outside it could be raw in the middle. Now this chart is clearly bias but I do agree that well done and medium well are both too done for a good steak. I eat mine medium leaning towards medium rare.

Once you get your steak to your desired doness, which I hope isn't well done, you need to let it rest. DO NOT CUT INTO THAT STEAK!! If you do you will ruin your hard work. When meat gets hot it expands, the juices flow. If you cut into it all your juices will run out onto the plate. Wrap it in some foil and sit it aside for at least 10 minutes.  Edit: It has been pointed out to me that you do not need to wrap your steak in foil. If you are going to keep it warm then you can just tent the steak with foil until ready to serve. 

Once you do you will be rewarded with a steak that is juicy (unless its well done) and tender. That was a good steak. 

How to Cook a Great Steak Part 1

I like meat. This should not come as surprise to anyone. I am not easy to please when it comes to my meats, steak in particular. I have found while a lot of people cook steak, very few cook it well. I found myself going to restaurants ordering and receiving steak that was either bland or overcooked. It was rare that I found myself truly enjoying a nice quality steak. In hindsight I realize now that was because I was going to restaurant chains like Longhorns, Ruby Tuesdays, Applebee's etc. when I should have went to a place that specializes in steak. Non the less I decided to master steak on my own. I have spent count less and ruined many a piece of meat to get where I am now, where I feel I can make a good steak at anytime. I have decided to share some of my techniques with you guys.

Now the first part of making a great steak has nothing to do with cooking. Yes that is right, now back away from the pan and turn that stove off.

First we need to talk about meat. Not all steak is the same. Sure it may look similar but what kind of steak it is can and will make a difference on how the final product. Steak is usually graded like this

From Wikipedia:

U.S. Prime – Highest in quality and intramuscular fat, limited supply. Currently, about 2.9% of carcasses grade as Prime.

U.S. Choice – High quality, widely available in foodservice industry and retail markets. Choice carcasses are 53.7% of the fed cattle total. The difference between Choice and Prime is largely due to the fat content in the beef. Prime typically has a higher fat content (more and well distributed intramuscular "marbling") than Choice.

U.S. Select (formerly Good) – lowest grade commonly sold at retail, acceptable quality, but is less juicy and tender due to leanness.

Now you may be wondering why fat  content matters. Trust me it matters a lot. You get a lot of the flavor from the fat. In addition to flavor prime and choice beef will be more tender than select as well.

I look at it kind of how I see alcohol.

Select= Mr. Boston/Budlight
Choice = Three olives/Shocktop
Prime = Grey Goose/ Special Made Craft Beer

Choice is what I buy. It is what you will find at most quality supermarkets and butchers. It is easier on the wallet and can still be cooked to a great steak. I bet you are ready to cook now aren't you?

NO YOU ARE NOT SIT DOWN AND KEEP READING!

You must first decide what type of steak you want to cook. There are a lot of pieces of meat with the word steak on it. It can be rather confusing. I like this chart to help keep track.

For this article let us ignore the tenderloin roast. Astute observers will notice the tenderloin and the porterhouse look very similar. Correct you are. There is much debate over this, but basically they are both a combo of two steak, the NY Strip on one side and the tenderloin on the other. The difference being the porterhouse has more tenderloin on it.

If fat were to equal flavor you would be able to easily guess which of those steak would have the most flavor. As you can see the rib eye [rib steak above] has much more marbling than the other ones and therefore can often times be more flavorful. In contrast you see the coveted filet mignon has next to no fat yet we all know how expensive it is. It has a lot to due with how tender that piece of meat is. This is a purely subjective matter, and really you should buy what you like. I prefer the Ny Strip and the ribeye.

Now that you have selected your steak, you are ready to cook right? Great! let's go turn on the heat..........................................
























And read Part II, which is coming soon....

Edit Part 2 is now up. Glad you didn't have wait huh?

No meat.......lol wut?

As I briefly mentioned before. The Wife and I have started a no meat diet. Well she is eating fish, which I feel qualifies as meat however she disagrees. While I could argue that meat is classifed as the flesh of animals, and that vegetarians don't eat fish and pescetarians are the ones which eat only fish . I am going to decide to leave it be. None the less we have both dramatically altered our diets. Instead of feasting on delicious animal flesh we are now eating enough veggies to make a rabbit go "wtf".

This new diet, which has been going on now for around 2 weeks (minus one cheater day), was easy at first. Little did I know it was because I had eaten meat within days of starting. Fast forward to now and I want so bad to punch a baby cow in the face and take a bite. I CRAVE beef. I saw a co-worker eating a beef taco salad and I drooled a bit. While before I would sit and day dream about having 450HP in the S14 I now sit and daydream about the day I can sink my teeth into a steak. Even as I type this now my mouth is starting to salivate at the though of a NY Strip 2 inches thick and cooked medium with a bit of a char on top, juicy with butter mashed potatoes..... OMG *drool* I need a moment.....................

Ok I'm back.  

I'm not the only one being affected. The Wife says that she is constantly hungry now. We both consume tons of fruit and veggies and try to eat little carbs but we stay hungry. The Wife said when she is sleeping at now and pulls me closer she is actually dreaming about chicken. 

By now I am sure you are asking, "Why in the hell would one choose to inflict such a miserable existence upon themselves? " Well my curious friend the answer is simply. I just wanted to see if I can do it. That's right. This is all about me testing my will power and gaining self karma of being awesome enough to be a vegetarian for 6 weeks adding to my e-peen. 

Oh and health benefits and all that as well, but mostly the e-peen.

We still have another month to go. Le sigh..........If you hear on the news about a deranged man biting cows you know that I failed.