He Cooks, She Cooks

My three months in Buenos Aires are up, sadly. I loved getting to know the city by walking everywhere and sitting in parks peoplewatching. The weekends were my favorite because everyone spent the day outside. I would walk to Puerto Madero’s Costanera Sur, where I’d be surrounded by local people and food.

No, Buenos Aires doesn’t have as strong of a street food culture as some countries you see Anthony Bourdain travel to, but I found the area along the ecological reserve to be the best place to fill up for a buck or two. Although I’ve written some about this before, I have a few more street treats to add.

Bondiola — This grilled pork shoulder can be a little tough, so it wasn’t typically my first choice, but it’s a common order for others. Porteños tend to keep their food simple. Bondiola al limon (with lemon) is standard. I liked to load up on the vegetables. My sandwiches always looked like a salad bar compared to those of locals. In fact, that’s how I decided which parilla to visit, by the topping options.

The stand where I got these choripans (chorizo sandwiches) had great salads and marinated vegetables to add. Oh yeah, and it still costs a dollar no matter how much you load on top.

I also loved the caramelized onions and spicy salsa at the stand where I got this morcilla (blood sausage).

And if you read my ode to dough, you know how hard it was for me to ever pass up the grilled bread. Some stands only offer plain, but others will slice it and add cheese, ham or other filling in the middle. My favorite stand was a mother-daughter operation in the Puerto Madero park. They would mix spiced ground meat into the dough before cooking. Fantastic results.

And then, there’s dessert. People would make cakes and other sweets to sell in the parks on weekends. I usually went with a churro or an alfajor, which involves two soft cookies surrounding dulce de leche, then rolled in shredded coconut or dipped in chocolate.

Yep, I’ll miss this.

More about Buenos Aires street food here.

An iPhone image I demanded my friend take and email to me.

I was in Barnes and Noble the other day with some friends, and man do they have lots of magazines.  As I was reading through the Esquires Big Black Book (an essential guide to being a man), I noticed a nicely printed smaller magazine with the word “meat” popping out.  Tell me more, I thought.

I picked it up and lo and behold, in my hands was a magazine about meat culture.  The name was a little weird, but meatpaper was beautiful.  Images of pork and beef and hunks and slices and charcuterie and oh man.  It was like eight dollars so I passed on purchase for the moment, but when I have a job, and money, I’m gonna look you up meatpaper.

Brittany mentioned that besides chocolate of course, a perfectly cooked steak is quite romantic.  I have to agree, I don’t know if the color of the pink juicy cut of beef does it, seared just enough to give it flavor, or the little bit of crimson that flows out when you rested it 5 minutes after taking it off grill/broiler.  Personally, I think its a crime and waste of good meat to cook it anything beyond medium.  I’ve only had food poisoning twice in my life (thanks, Costa Rica) and I undercook food way too often, so I say let it be rare.

So to cook a steak without a grill, first lets start with the cut.  My personal favorite is the ribeye cause in addition to all the fatty flavor you get a little piece of tenderloin on the side, its a nice surprise.  Now, I should point out that the fat in ribeye should be marbled.  If you know this already, great, if you don’t, marbling is when fat is equally dispersed throughout the muscle, like little white specks and fibers.  The more of this there is, the more it melts into the fibers of muscle when cooking, enhancing the flavor and mouthfeel (god, i love that word).

But not everyone likes ribeye, I get that.  A NY strip cut also works just fine, maybe more tender, but I feel has less flavor, and if you can’t tell, thats kinda what we’re all about here.  Also, don’t just pick up a pack of meat from the grocery store thats vaccuum sealed, or bright, food-dye red.  You want the meat to look natural, not feel slimy, it should be somewhat tacky, a natural red color (brown means it’s starting to go) and not smell foul in any way.  If you don’t live near a butcher, go to the grocery store deli at least, but I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND the Mizzou Meat Market.  It’s where we buy all our meat. It’s locally raised, locally slaughtered, and hung for 21 days.

Many of you are probably asking why that’s important.  First off, its respectful to cows and the environment to not have to truck the meat across the country, second, it’s promoting local food.  As for the hanging, I’m not going to go into the details, but the longer meat hangs, (preferably two weeks, but three to four is better), the better it tastes, just believe me on that.  I can almost guarantee every piece of meat you’ve bought from the grocery store has not been hung, and if it says aged “for up to” a certain number of days, it probably means aged in the packaging.  The sheer economics of it make it much cheaper to just butcher it up and not waste the time.  Hence, why we love butchers.  If you want to learn much more about all this, I also highly recommend
The River Cottage Meat Bookby Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.  It’s a fantastic read and insight into the world of meat, and where I learned most of this information first.

Anyway, on to the recipe.  This is for cooking indoors, as I find it keeps the flavor of the steak natural, and gives an even distribution of searing, not charring (some people hate the taste of char, and find it bitter).  If you must cook your steak on a grill, the instructions are almost identical, you just won’t use a pan.

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