My wife and I had a mid-summer’s night Barbeque yesterday evening and night. We had several collegues over for a couple cocktails, hors d’oeuvres (which consisted of BBQ’d chicken wings, baby back ribs and a Fiddle Head concoction my wife came up with) and a great grilled dinner…
Now I had been waiting all day to get these steaks going on the grill, and to start cooking the 4 racks of Beef Ribs I got at the specialty Butcher Store [on sale :)]. I put a light coating of Montreal Steak seasoning (Low sodium) on the ribs and put them on the char-coal webber for an hour and a half. I put some wet hickory chips on the coals right before I started the ribs.
Everyone in attendence was having beef. I had bacon wrapped fillet’s and several large 30 ounce top serloins (No seasoning added. Just Blood)
We had sweet potato fries and all the fresh asparagus you can eat from our garden. Plenty of Merlot and the right mix of couscous/orzo brocholi concoction again from my wife.
Back to the flesh - Each piece was cooked medium/medium rare and for some strang reason nearly everyone had to watch the steaks cook on the grill whilst they were sizzling. It was an interesting phenomenon to watch. As soon as I brought out the steer people watched with meticulous consentration as I put them on the grill. All the time we were all mesmerized by the O’so common backyard traditon.
Why do people stand around a grill watching the meat cook? Why is it so mesmerizing? I mean most people have seen it a thousand times, but -for me- each time is unique, and I seem to enter a tasteful hypnotic trance watching the meat cook on the grill. Does this happen to the teeming millions?
The smells, the textures, the sizzling sound, the drooling anticipation for the meat to be done…It’s all so caveman, but at the same time, the primal instinct to watch the emat cook, or to want it rare, is so ingrained in out collective unconscious it is hard to keep it at bay…
It is even better when that steer you are cooking is the one that grazed in your pasture all of its life. Knowing that he only ate the grass your field provided him and the all natural feed you gave him. All the work of keeping those cattle happy and healthy pays off when you bite into that juicy all natural sirloin.
All right Tex - time to share a brief story you will like. I was driving I-40 from Tucumcari NM, to Tulsa, I stopped with my wife in a little spot outside Amarillo. We were told they had the best steaks by a guy at fruit stand.
I have never, ever, EVER, tasted a steak like the one I had in that little restaurant. Damn if I can remember the name of the place, but I count that as the best 10 bucks I ever spent on a steak. Your little blurb only stands to reinforce my thought process on good steaks.
BTW, I nearly begged my wife to move to Amarillo, just to be near that restaurant. Oh and I’m going back at the end of the summer
I do love that story. I can taste it in my mouth right now. Even hamburger meat has a different consistency than the stuff you buy in stores. I make burgers with some kosher salt, garlic powder and/or minced garlic and plenty of soy sauce with our beef. I am beginning to drool. Beef ribs, sirloins, filets, roasts and burgers. I can hear the fat dripping into the flames.
All I can say about cow is, RIBEYE, rare, 30 ounces, seared with garlic butter just before serving.
And a short road story: I ordered a steak and eggs breakfast in a little joint, The Snazzy Pig, in Clovis, NM. What a meal! One of the best pieces of meat I’ve ever had.
I did a ribeye roast last weekend on my new grill. It has side containers for the coals to keep them away from a large piece of meat for indirect grilling. Applewood chips in the center – delicious!
And yes, I have often experienced the huddle-around-the-fire phenomenon with the grill. In my circle of friends, it seems to be only the males who are susceptible. At a friend’s cabin, in particular, if the coals start up, there is a good chance that all the men will soon be standing around the grill as one or more tends the fire. Maybe it’s some deep ancestral holdover. Who knows?
My SO has some connections through work that has let us get a hold of really fresh ribeye roasts that we share with our friends. 8-10 pounds of ribeye cooked with nice maple smoke, until it’s just starting to change from red to pink.
Heck, now I have to go put together the monstrosity of a grill we just bought so we can cook these things for friends. I would claim to be short on friends, but I’m guessing once we start cooking they will just kind of appear.
I’ve never had a cow that was self raised, But I’ve had hand-raised beef. Every other year or so my parents would by go in with the neighbors and buy a cow or pig that was judged top quality from a 4-Her or FFAer. Damn that’s good stuff.
I am not sure what you mean by that statement. We usually have around two dozen head of cattle; steers, cows, calves and one bull. We sell 5 or 6 at livestock auction in the fall and send 1 or 2 per year to the market for ourselves. They send them back wrapped and labeled in different cuts of meat. We store them in the deep freeze in the garage and eat or give away as much as we like.
I used to be a total “quantity” guy. The bigger the steak the better. But now, I so for the “quality”.
I usually buy Angus Beef, Top Sirloin Grilling steaks from my local supermarket (Overwaitea). They are $9-12 CAN for a 6-8 ounce steak, but well worth it!
I of course cook my blue, piping hot on the outside, still cool in the middle. That with a nice baked potatoe and a sh!t load of butter and a nice glass of red wine… pure culinary orgasm!
I can’t beleive I forgot to mention ribeyes before. For me they are the perfect balance of fat and meat. Anyone else enjoy eating a nice piece of fat like I do?
Ok Tex - I live in CT most of the year, but my wife and I are going to be in AZ for a while towards the end of the summer - we have a home there - so I guess we’ll be at your place for some grill’in round about mid-august… Is that cool?
Good God what I’d give to be that close to prime cuts 365 days of the year!
