The Aftermath

Other than being much more tired than usual and obscenely hungry, I seem to have survived the triathlon more or less intact. I stretched a lot last night, and I'm sure that helped with the soreness. I'm not at all surprised that the parts of me that feel the tightest are my swimming muscles.

Jim and I hit up In-N-Out for lunch (again). I know we were just there, but it's fast, good, and cheap. Neither of us had a lot of time for lunch, so we ended up there. We got our usual order, except I ordered Jim an extra Double Double. I ordered for us, and I figured he'd be feeling as hungry as I was, so I went for it. Even if Jim wasn't feeling the extra burger, there was no way he was going to let it go to waste. But there was no need to worry, because Jim was perfectly fine eating it.

After work, I stopped by a Mexican grocery store to pick up some Chile de Arbol powder for Jim's rib eye steak, which we picked up at Whole Foods Saturday night. The meat guy (butcher? I'm not sure what you call the guy at the meat counter) highly recommended it, saying that there was nothing that could beat it. Although Jim is all about filet mignon, he decided to go for it. This stuff was incredibly expensive, but I consider it a worthwhile investment to purchase the best meat possible. If Jim insists on eating dead animals, it better have been a healthy one. The more I learn about meat and cooking, the more committed I am to high quality carcasses. Not only am I quite convinced that the taste is far superior, it's got to be better for him. Anyway, this stuff was dry aged, which as defined by wikipedia, is:

"Beef that has been hung to dry for several weeks. After the animal is slaughtered and cleaned, either an entire half will be hung, or primal cuts (large distinct sections) will be placed in a cooler. This process involves considerable expense as the beef must be stored at near freezing temperatures. Also only the higher grades of meat can be dry aged, as the process requires meat with a large, evenly distributed fat content. For these reasons one seldom sees dry aged beef outside of steak restaurants and upscale butcher shops . . . The process enhances beef by two means. First, moisture is evaporated from the muscle. This creates a greater concentration of beef flavor and taste. Second, the beef’s natural enzymes break down the connective tissue in the muscle, which leads to more tender beef."

I've never cooked a rib eye steak before, but I know both Bobby Flay and Giada are huge fans of the cut. So I was all for trying it out and ultimately decided (after consulting with Jim) to make a spice rub for Bessie. I've only recently accumulated a decent spice collection and so these rubs have been pretty foreign to me thus far. But there's no time like the present to start expanding my repertoire, so that's what I did.

Making the spice rub simply required me to dump a buttload of different spices together into a bowl and stirring. Easy enough, but keeping track of all of them wasn't so easy. I quickly realized that by simply segregating the used spices into a different group after I no longer needed them solved my dilemma. So here goes the list of ingredients: ancho chile powder, espresso, paprika (it was supposed to be Spanish paprika, but I think I just used the regular kind), brown sugar, dry mustard, kosher salt (opened up the box today!), pepper, coriander (also first time use), oregano, ginger, and chile de arbol powder. Whew! But after that, preparing her was easy. Actually, I should start by saying that before the spice rub, I patted her down with paper towels and let her sit at room temperature while I prepped the rub. The Food Network taught me that you need to blot Bessie so that you get a nice crust on the outside. And letting her adjust slightly to the temperature helps somehow too, but I'm not quite sure how right now.

Anyway, Bessie got a sprinkling of kosher salt and pepper on both sides and a drizzle of Canola oil and then I patted a tablespoon of the spice rub on one side. It was supposed to be two tbsp, but I wasn't sure that Jim would like it and besides, I don't think more would have really stuck on her.

I put the Dutch oven on the stovetop and heated it up to high before placing her on, rub side down, to cook for 4 minutes on one side and then I flipped her (with a considerable amount of difficulty) and let the other side sear for a couple of minutes before popping the whole thing into a 425 degree oven for about 10 minutes. I was supposed to use a cast iron pan and then a baking tray, but I don't have a cast iron pan and using a separate baking sheet seemed like too much trouble to me. So I settled for a cast iron pot instead. I asked Jim to insert a meat thermometer towards the end, but it wasn't reading fast enough so I winged it.

While the steak was cooking, I also whipped up Ina's buttermilk mashed potatoes. Jim teased me about being obsessed with using up the buttermilk, and he's right. I'm on a mission to use as much of the stuff as possible. But I had actually read about Zuni Cafe's buttermilk mashed potatoes the previous night and mashed potatoes are the perfect pairing with steak. Or so I'm told. I diced up approximately a pound of potatoes and let the water boil before adding them and letting 'em simmer for about 10 minutes. I drained and mashed them, adding a mixture of melted butter, heavy cream, and nonfat milk (my version of substituting whole milk), salt, pepper, and finally some buttermilk. They were incredibly silky and flavorful. Loved 'em.

So Jim ended up with a very white boy dinner: steak and potatoes. I also steamed up some asparagus. All this food took a record short amount of time. I was Ms. Efficiency in the kitchen this evening and I was quite proud of myself for it. Dinner was on the table in under an hour including the time needed for Bessie to rest. Although she was well done on the outsides, the middle was just barely over medium rare. Jim said the steak was very flavorful and approved of the rub. It was hard for him to tell if it was the steak itself or the rub that gave it so much flavor. I'm sure it was a combination of the two, but I'm not sure which one I prefer for it to be. After all, that was a twenty and change steak, so it'd better be amazing. But then again, I made that rub, and of course I want it to be good. Eh. There's a ton of leftover spice rub, so maybe we'll try it on cheap grocery store rib eyes and see.

I had to rush home because my parents had company for dinner. I was on dessert duty. I went with Ina's Apple, Pear, and Cranberry crisp, which ended up only being an apple and pear crisp because I completely forgot to add the cranberries. Oh well. It was still pretty good.

It was definitely a crash course in Fruit Peeling and Dicing 101. I simply don't have much experience with cutting up fruit, but here I had just over four pounds to prep. As I stood over the sink, I was brought back to my childhood, where I knicked myself pretty badly with a paring knife while attempting to core an apple. I remember my mom telling me never to cut towards my fingers. Since then I've been a bit wary of fruit and I try to be slow and steady on the rare occasion that I do cut a piece up. However, I was in a super hurry tonight and needed to whack 'em up as quickly as possible. Therefore, I cheated by using a vegetable peeler to take the skins off the pears and apples. It was still an awful lot of work, and I wasted some parts of the fruit. If I had had the time, I would have been able to do better. But I had to rush, so I did my best at pretending I was a chopping machine. Somehow I got through it all and tossed the diced fruit into a bowl with orange juice/zest, lemon juice/zest, sugar, flour, nutmeg, and cinnamon (this is where I forgot the cranberries). The crumble topping consisted of cold unsalted butter, oatmeal, brown sugar, sugar, and flour. So the fruit went into a 9 x 13 pan and then I sprinkled the crumble over. It baked for 50 minutes and came out golden and bubbly.

I had the foresight to purchase some Haagen Daas vanilla ice cream, which paired perfectly with the crisp. I actually liked it quite a bit, and I think it went over well. The only problem was that there was too much of it. After looking online, I found that Ina actually makes the same crisp without the cranberries with no other alterations to the recipe. So I guess it was just fine.

The intentional alterations were with the fruit: I used Golden Delicious apples instead of Macoun and Anjou instead of Bosc. I haven't the slightest idea what that did the recipe, since I don't think I've had either Macoun or Bosc pears. But regardless, the crisp was pretty good. I would totally make it again for Jim to try, and I might even use the cranberries next time.