Tuesday, June 24, 2008

A Steak Sandwich, And A Steak Sandwich

Over the last few days I've been enjoying the merry situation that ensues when a laptop, DSL modem, and camera all decide to stop working within days of each other. It's a freaking laugh riot, and I'm interpreting it as a sign from God that this blog is an abomination. Therefore, I'll be changing the blog to johnmccainisTOTALLYastraighttalkingmaverick.com in the hopes of avoiding the brimstone, burning, and the lake of fire, and the eternal torment (aka Verizon tech support) and all that stuff whenever I finally get hit by a bus.

In the meantime, though, skipping over the myriad meals that came during what I'm referring to as my "Involuntary Amish" period (which included some bad-ass falafel, the pictures of which lie buried in a card I can't access right now) I present the sublime deliciousness of this here sammich. The family was out of town for a few days- I bailed on the trip ostensibly to get a lot of important work done, but in reality it afforded me extensive quality alone time with the robot phone tree whose fruit is some half-trained Russian guy named "Steve."

I had made myself a beautiful ribeye- sous vide at 52˚ C for two hours- but I ended up not eating much of it because I was exhausted (I actually did get a ton of work done, but we had a couple of epic storms that woke me up on two different nights. This, and the equipment failures, is why I think God hates my blog.) So the next night I took the beautiful just-cooked hunk o'meat and seared it hard in some homemade bacon fat. While it rested, I made mayonnaise with a little horseradish and truffle oil, and green mash with frisée, ume plums, garlic, and copious olive oil (and more truffle oil.)






















On a toasted local baguette with just-picked selvatica arugula and a glass or three of a 2006 Siduri pinot, it wiped away almost all the stress of the last few days. The second one, with more wine (to study its evolution as it reacted to the air- you know, research) pretty much took care of the rest, and restored my faith in food as medicine. The clouds broke. The sun is back. The garden is still lousy with strawberries. The DSL goblins are banished. All is well. I can say the following things with complete certainty: searing steak in bacon fat is pure genius, making your own custom-flavored mayo is too, and you can totally buy new cameras on the interweb. So we're back in business.

6 comments:

cookiecrumb said...

Still, and all... nice sandwich.

Heather said...

Isn't there just something about a perfectly-crafted sammich? My last one inspired Homeric poetry. Yours was Zanax on bread.

Zoomie said...

Welcome back to our world... although I'll bet you'll miss your Amish period one of these days.

peter said...

CC: It was, at that. So was the second one.

Heather: "Marge, I'd like to be alone with the sandwich for a while."

Zoomie: I'm all for retreats; I just prefer the voluntary kind.

Hunter Angler Gardener Cook said...

Nice sammich. I do much the same thing with venison, and when my arugula is too sharp, I switch to sorrel. Try it sometime, it's good.

peter said...

I love sorrel; ours is just coming in. This wild arugula is much slower to bolt than the domestic kind, and has that magical buttery flavor that balances out the peppery heat. It's still doing fine at the end of June, which is incredible.