Wednesday, 20 September, 2012

What's cooking: an occassional supplement to Mr. Zartler's Food and Culture class blog.

What's cooking

My mother-in-law is visiting; she loves a good steak from time to time. So I made Bistecca for her.

Now if your Italian is good, you know that I just wrote, "I made steak for her." So let me be a bit more precise. I made Bistecca all Fiorrentina for her (and, well, for me!). That is, I made a steak preparation that is popular in the Tuscany region of Italy. (Fierenze is the Italian for the capital of Tuscany, the city we call Florence).

The breed of cattle most common in Tuscany are called Chianina. They are white.

I don't think my meat came from a white Italian cow, and in cooking one often has to make substitutions. There are two main concepts to the dish that make it Tuscan style.

The first is that a thick cut of steak, a Porterhouse is traditional, is used.

The steak is grilled at first over a very hot fire, then moved off the hot flames to finish cooking over lower heat.  The idea is to strongly brown the outsides of the steaks (what chemical reaction is being used here?) while leaving much of the interior rare or medium rare.

This photo shows how a Fiorentina steak looks. The browning is a result of the Maillard Reaction.

The second aspect of the preparation is that an olive oil is used as the steak sauce. Before grilling the meat is typically seasoned with salt and pepper. Different recipes suggest different ways to season this olive oil (see, it's kinda hard to go totally wrong in cooking because everyone has different tastes). Some say just pour excellent olive oil on the steak, but most season the olive oil. Some use rosemary, others some lemon. I put some cloves of garlic, and green pepper corns in my olive oil over night, and added some lemon peal to the oil a bit before serving it.

One thing to realize is that a Porterhouse is a pretty expensive cut of meat. If you wanted to try something similar you could use any steak suitable for grilling (a sirloin for example). Some people (including me) prefer a steak with a bone in it because they think that they have a richer taste. I normally get my mother-in-law a New York Strip steak because it is her (and my wife's favorite cut). A New York has less fat than a Porterhouse or Rib-eye. But one does give up a bit of lovely unctuousness  (look a new vocabulary word) with the leaner (and healthier?) cut? The strip steak pictured below has more marbling (fat between the strands of meat) than many, so it doesn't show the difference the way I'm used to thinking of it.

Bone in New York Strip

Bone in Rib-eye

In class as we discuss this entry, we will discuss possible side dishes and beverages to serve with Bistecca alla Fiorentina.

We might also talk about the parts of a cow.....

If Tuscany intrigues you, you can read Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes. Her memoir (made into a film) includes recipes.

Bon Appetit!
Mr. Z