RECIPES
Recipes from Best Online Steaks
We get a lot of emails and feedback complimenting us on the quality of the food pictures we use for our food reviews, and they are almost always followed with: "Can you give me the recipe for that?" I do not cook with recipes, I never have. I just learned flavor profiles and quantities through the years and formulated a process by which a little of this and little of that turns into something delicious.
What we do have is tons of pictures. we take pictures of every meal all the way through the cooking process. A single product review may have five pictures associated with it, but we have taken at least 80. The pictures will help you understand just how easy this is to do. Before we get to the pictures, here are some guidelines as to how you can make these fantastic meals at home:
- My 1st rule of cooking is to always start with top-shelf ingredients, especially when the protein, or the main course, is concerned. Spending more for better quality isn't expensive, it's a better value. You get more back for what you buy.
- Season a little at a time, wait and season again if needed. You can always add, you can't subtract. Nothing is worse than buying a USDA Prime steak and over salting it, overcooking it, or doing anything "over" to it. It will happen, it does to all of us so learn from your mistakes.
- Use simple season blends. For the most part, I will salt and pepper a gourmet steak. Depending on the cut, or if I am cooking a lesser quality protein, I will use garlic powder, onion powder, and maybe some chili powder. Have you ever watched TV Chefs put tiny glass bowls of spice after spice after spice into what they are cooking? Don't do it, that's for show, no pun intended. Your USDA Prime NY Strip doesn't need ground celery salt, saffron, sumac, juniper berries, or any other seasoning that is not already in your kitchen. If you don't have salt and pepper, you're probably not cooking much anyway.
- Trim the silver skin and any excess fat. You'll see me trimming silver skin and excess fat in the recipes, if it applies. Some cuts will have more than others, and some vendors will do a better job at trimming than others. The only thing you want to is a get a boning knife if you don't have one, and don't try to use a different knife if you don't have one.
- In the slideshow you will see me peeling the silver skin off some ribs. You'll need your boning knife for steak. Silver skin does not melt during cooking. It is like elastic that helps hold the muscles of the meat in place. The season you always want to remove it is because no seasoning will ever penetrate it, making your meat taste unseasoned.
- The rule on fat is a little different, and up to you. Most butchers will leave between a 1/2 and a 1/4 inch of fat on a steak which is an acceptable industry standard. In the slideshow, you can see how much fat I removed from the steak. A high-quality steak will have good marbling so you can trim based on your preferences and still enjoy great flavor.
Good luck, and we hope you enjoy our recipes and our recommendations in helping you find the perfect the steaks for your needs and budgets!