Steak & Salad with Buttermilk Ranch
I took the fucking week off because it was my birthday on one of them, so the last thing I cooked (other than some of the best grilled cheeses you’ll ever eat), was like a week ago? I dunno, time is a fucking construct.
Also my partner was supposed to guest blog on Wednesday because she made dinner but like she doesn’t like to swear or something. I know! Re-godddamn-diculous if you ask me. “Ooooh look at me I don’t swear so people think I’m well-educated and not a rat-fucker from the gutter.”
(Only like she’d never say that since there was a obviously a swear in there and she’s a really wonderful and decent person and even if she did think I was that, lol joke’s on her she married me.)
Yeah, so the last thing I made was steaks. I thought about not blogging about them all but I figure you’d never learn from missed-steaks.
I’m sorry, please, ignore me.
The steaks were nothing really to blog about – there’s really only one way to cook a steak properly in my mind which is to reverse sear it — you put it in a low oven (like 225º) until it reaches about 5-10º shy of your target temperature (which for me is about 130º), and then take them out and let them rest. After this you have a choice — if you have a charcoal grill, light that fucker and get it hot enough to make you sweat when you go near it and then after the steaks have sat for 30 minutes, give them a very quick char on both sides quickly. If you don’t turn your oven to the hottest it’ll go when you take the steaks out. Then when you’re about to ready to serve, flip on the broiler and broil the steaks. They won’t be as charred as on the grill, but if you give them around 2 minutes a side you should get a nice crust.
Oh? Sous vide you say? Eh. It’s too wet – without a more intense heat source like a grill you won’t get a good sear since all the heat will go to evaporating the water on the outside of the steaks.
But enough beating around about my meat.
(Ew.)
Lets talk about that salad, yo.
First. I might not really be an American because I fucking hate ranch. Like not even kidding. Commercial ranch is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever had the displeasure of ever putting even near my mouth. I once dated a woman when I lived in Boston who would put ranch on her fucking pizza. No fucking joke.
GODDAMN RANCH DRESSING ON GODDAMN PIZZA.
And since we’re talking about Boston you know the pizza was also goddamn sin against nature. (And, sure, there’s great pizza in Boston now. But in 2001? It was few and far between at best. And it certainly didn’t fucking deliver to Somerville.)
Well, it turns out that I’m a real fucking aesthetic and it’s not that I don’t like ranch, it’s that I don’t like shitty ranch. They’re fucking lucky that valley is so hidden.
Second. My partner grew the lettuce. Which like given how bullshit this weather has been this Spring is pretty fucking cool.
My version of ranch is made up of dill, cilantro, parsley and chives all finely minced, with one or two cloves of garlic grated on a microplane, mixed into a base of lemon juice, buttermilk and olive oil. I added a decent splat of mayonnaise to thicken it a bit and then let it sit for about 20 minutes.
The rest of the salad was thinly shaved radishes and carrots.
I also made some ricotta-pea toasts. That is not homemade bread though. See, I fucked up my homemade bread so that’s a store-bought loaf, toasted and rubbed with garlic, and then topped with ricotta, peas that were blanched and dressed with a lemon-garlic vinaigrette and a few radish sprouts because I’m goddamn fancy.