Joe, while you're playing with cast iron and meat, try just a light coating of oil on the steak to improve heat conduction (in addition to the tablespoon or whatever you use in the pan). Then when you drop it into the there-goes-the-smoke-point hot pan that is smoking up your house in spite of the exhaust fan, give it a little downward pressure for maybe 10 seconds to force surface contact. Don't move it for 3 minutes or whatever your sear time is. Flip and repeat. You'll get the char. Salt bae and win.

he's done a revisit to that episode.

In the "new" version of the show or just during the old run?

Do you remember which episode it is, if it's an older one, so I can try to look it up?

it was s01e01. reverse seared ribeye, something like that. Not the new episodes, but he went back to a few and readdressed them. kinda like pop-up video, then with updates to his methods.

Gotcha, without the aging, but reverse-sear is typically how I do thick steaks.

I think I shall try this on the two I've got drying in the fridge right now.

To ensure that I can hold out for a few days, I picked up some Italian sausage. It was on sale for $2.99 / lb at the butcher counter at Marianos, so how could I not? Put me in the mood for something decadent.


Begin with Aerosmith's "Permanent Vacation." This is a flavor-forward dish, but one which is generally upbeat, slightly sweet, and respects traditional customs. Delicacy is called for. Even something as mildly dystopic as "Jar of Flies" would be inappropriately heavy here.

Both the sausages and some bell peppers go onto a sheet in a 400° oven. Flip 'em both at the 20 minute mark, then another 20. Then remove and let cool. Slice the sausage. Reserve the peppers. Leave the gun. Take the canoli.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...9355f50d14.png



Into the soup-pot: Olive oil. Medium heat. A large yellow onion. Basil, oregeno, crushed garlic. Some canned diced tomato. A spritz of black pepper. Ideally, you started this one 40 minutes ago, at same time as the peppers & sausage. (I didn't. Learn from my mistake.)

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...975305e82b.png



Also, and this is important: After the peppers have cooled, remove the skin. You will thank me for this. If the peppers are properly done (and cooled), the skin will very nearly just slide off.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...33d892bbd2.png



Then chop coarsely.

Combine everything together. Add a healthy shot of Marsala wine. Or, quite frankly, any wine you happen to have at hand. Fuck it, you can add bourbon if that's what you've got open. The point here is that we need a little acidity to offset the alkaline nature of the tomato, and the sweeter the booze, the better.

I let this simmer until reduced to a pasty consistency. Added some crushed red pepper flakes and a pinch of salt to taste. Don't be ashamed if you want to toss in a little sugar. Personally, I like the flavor profile to follow a "lollipop-sweet, followed immediately by Satan's-asshole-spicy" kind of track. There's something about the train-wreck confluence of those two sensations which really strokes my jimmies in just the right way.

But this is entirely a personal-preference decision.


There's still about 30 minutes to go on the concoction at this point. We want it to have the consistency of plaster (with meat and onion) before we pull it off the heat:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6e74223e25.png


And that's it. Plate on a French roll, and top with shredded Asiago. Probably the most calorie-laden and unhealthy thing I've eaten in a long time, but man, this scratched an itch.


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...211935b0d3.png

You mention the "sweet then spicy" aspect.

But what's in there to give it the spice?

Or do your sausages there have a good hit of chili in them?

The crushed red pepper flakes which I noted towards the end.




My modus operandi when doing dishes such as this is as follows:

1: Get all the base ingredients done, and add savory herbs. (Rosemary, basil, dill, cilantro, oregeno, thyme, etc)

2: Add sweetness, until the up-front profile just about equals a unicorn kiss.

3: Add hotness as appropriate. "Appropriate" can vary greatly, depending upon context.

Random thought:

Butter belongs on top of steak.

That is all.

Ah, that would be it.
I missed that part.

I may give something like that a go, I rarely do the sweet/savoury thing since it's really not that much of a thing here.
but the few times i've had American style bbq it's been a nice combo.



Agreed.
Also works great if you use a sprig of thyme as a brush to butter the steak.
Gives a great subtle taste without overtaking the meat.

Typically when we do a reverse-sear, before I pull the steak out of the oven, olive oil and a healthy pat of butter and a piece or two of crushed garlic go into the cast iron.

Sear quickly while basting with the butter/oil, rest, down the hatch.

Joe has a lot of time in his life for cleaning sheet pans.

y8s uses unbleached parchment paper to line his sheet pans (up to about 425°F and not broiling) because ...

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d8771cebd7.png

Have we not already established that I don't clean things?

Can we now establish that I probably skimmed that/those post and have no intention to go back and research the subject?

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6eb00f9b9a.png


Cleaning stuff that doesn't need to be cleaned annoys me.

Like, if I'm assembling an engine, sure, I'll go ahead and rinse the sand and gravel out of the engine block before I start putting the expensive stuff in, because that makes the engine not destroy itself.

But cookware? C'mon. Give your immune system a little credit. :giggle:

I gotta draw the line at caked-on, burnt, mystery stank. I mean I only casually scrub and rinse my cast iron to get the chunks off so I get it.

So not the best presentation, we were going for consumption of delicious cast iron seared burgers not food blog points. Brioche dinner rolls, 50/50 of fatty ground beef and ground chuck (just buy both and LIGHTLY combine at home), raw red onion slices, extra sharp cheddar, each with a different condiment. One dijon mustard, one stone ground, one mayonnaise. And of course for extra deliciousness, always toast the buns in the butter/beef fat left over in the pan.


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2d973cd50c.jpg

Ain't nothin' wrong with a tasty burger.

How cook?

Depends on how thick you make your slider patties. Medium heat in a cast iron skillet pan, 90 seconds a side with a bit olive oil for a nice medium. Put in the cheese when you flip, then move off the heat to rest while the cheese continues to melt.

Don't wipe out the pan, throw in a pat of butter and toast the buns in all of the amazingness left in the pan.

Then top/dress to your liking.

Obviously if you're making full size/thicker patties you'll have to adjust your cooking time.

I recently became aware of a burger joint in Memphis called Dyer's, where they deep-fry the patties.

Specifically, the skillet is simply filled with the grease from the last few hundred burgers, which they literally never remove except to keep the level down to a point where it does not over-flow. Legend has it that there is an unbroken lineage of burger grease going back 103 years to the restaurants founding.

I kind of want to try that.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...fe11e5b32a.png







On the reverse-sear test:

After five days on the rack, Mr. Moo has a nicely dried surface, and has noticeably shrunk a tad:

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...78f381da62.png

The interwebs tell me that I want to bake it at 250° until it reaches an internal temperature of 110°, and then finish in the skillet. My leave-in thermometer doesn't go that low, so I did this based on estimated cook-time. Turns out that 25 minutes is too much for a steak this size.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0d1170d913.png


It wasn't awful, actually. That photo was taken straight out of the pan, and it did lose a bit of that red center due to carryover, however while there were no juices gushing out as you can see, it was none the less still quite tender and flavorful.


For a first attempt, I'm not entirely displeased. Definitely room for improvement, but I kind of like this technique.

I've got one more piece from this cut still in the fridge, will repeat tomorrow, adjusting for lessons learned.