Inevitably, the steak-lover is tempted to cook other cuts of beef. The most popular alternative, by far, is ground beef. I’ve spent endless summers forming hamburgers, seeking the perfect thickness, original seasoning combinations, and compatible toppings. I think you will enjoy one I call the Herb-Burger. (No, it’s not named for a person.)
Another cut that appeared often at the dinner table during my boyhood was cube steak. I thought I’d never make it taste special until I prepared it as chicken-fried steak. Beef ribs, too, are a challenge to cook; or they were until I learned to prepare them in a smoker.
In my experience, beef ribs usually emerge from a conventional barbecue tough and fatty and are far less agreeable to eat than pork ribs. So I applied the virtues that tame many creatures, gentleness and patience, seasoned the ribs with a lively herb-and-spice rub, and cooked them in an outdoor smoker. After several hours of smoking (largely unsupervised), the ribs emerged tender, aromatic, and almost fat free. In a word: realgood. Meaty beef short ribs respond beautifully to the same treatment. If they are your preference, note that they’ll smoke in less time. Serve these ribs dry or with plenty of your favorite barbecue sauce on the side.
4 slabs beef back ribs (3 to 3½ pounds each) or 10 beef short ribs (8 to 12 ounces each)
Bill’s Rub
2 tablespoons black peppercorns
1 tablespoon white peppercorns
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1½ teaspoons granulated garlic
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon celery salt
1. Bring the ribs to room temperature, pat them dry and set aside.
2. Coarsely grind the black and white peppercorns and the cumin seeds in a mortar with a pestle, or in a spice grinder, or a pepper mill. Combine with the chile powder, cayenne, oregano, garlic, mustard, and celery salt in a small bowl. Stir well.
3. Prepare the smoker following the manufacturer’s directions.
4. Coat each slab of ribs with about 2 tablespoons of the rub, pressing the mixture into the meat, or allow 1 tablespoon of the rub per short rib. Cook until the ribs are between golden and dark brown and the meat has begun to pull away from the bone, about 5½ hours for back ribs and 5 hours for short ribs, turning the ribs once or twice.
5. To serve, cut the slabs into individual ribs and offer 2 or 3 to each person or serve each person 1 short rib.
SERVES 10 OR MORE
There is cooking that is work and cooking that’s fun. For me, making pastry falls into the work category, while making barbecue sauce is pure fun, an indoor sport that provides me with something tasty to call my own.
It’s fun because if I start with a commercial sauce, most of the problems I create can be fixed with a little tinkering. Playing chef, I add a spoonful of this and pinch of that. My object is to doctor it until something distinctly different and pleasing emerges.
The sauce I choose as my base almost certainly will have sprung from one of three roots: tomato, vinegar, or molasses. My objective is to look beyond that base and decide in which of five well-defined flavor areas I want my sauce to be parked and then choose ingredients to get me there. The flavor areas are:
Sour or tart: Lemon juice, lime juice, tamarind, plain and flavored vinegars.
Sweet: Brown sugar, honey, hoisin sauce, corn syrup.
Salty: Coarse salt, celery salt.
Spicy: More or less in descending order of popularity—coarsely ground black pepper, cayenne pepper, paprika, chili powder, garlic powder, cumin (ground and seeds), anise or fennel seeds, onion powder, ground ginger, white pepper, coriander seeds, ground cinnamon, ground clove, ground allspice, grated nutmeg, dried basil, dried oregano.
Tomatoey: Ketchup, tomato paste, tomato juice, chili sauce.
A combination of flavors from two or more of these categories is fine. The game, and this should be a game, is to experiment. Use a liquid, even if it’s only water, to thin the sauce if it becomes too thick. Add some sugar if you’ve been too heavy-handed with the cayenne.
Don’t rush things, either. Your palate needs time to recover between tastes. Give the sauce plenty of time to simmer (as much as two hours, stirring every five minutes, for a from-scratch sauce). In fact, try to make the sauce at least a day ahead so the flavors really come together and develop.
Other advice I’ve learned to heed is to work with small quantities to limit the expense of failure and to limit the number of ingredients as well. If something doesn’t have a negative effect, leave it in, but you will reach a point of diminishing returns where whatever is added has virtually no effect on the smell or taste of the sauce.
Instead of offering a recipe—and immediately quenching the fire of creativity—I send you into the kitchen with this inspirational message: Trust your taste buds!
Few meats or meat preparations have received a worse rap over the years than the chewy cube steak or the greasy, tough chicken-fried steak served in the South and Southwest. Chicken-fried steak usually is made from top round, pounded extensively in an attempt to tenderize it, and then fried in the same fashion as chicken. Since the cube steak already has been tenderized by machine (those tracks on the steak show where tendons have been cut), I thought it would be the ideal cut to turn into a quicker and easier chicken-fried steak. And so it is. Serve with mashed potatoes or rice.
2 cube steaks (about 6 ounces each)
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Paprika, to taste
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons diced tomato
1 tablespoon diced onion
1¼ cups milk, or more if needed
1. Pat the steaks dry and set aside. Combine ¼ cup flour, ½ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, and ½ teaspoon paprika on a plate and stir with a fork until well mixed. Coat the steaks with the flour mixture and pound lightly on both sides with a rolling pin or the side of a cleaver to help the meat absorb the flour. All the flour should be used.
2. Heat the oil in a skillet until very hot (375°F). Add the steaks and cook until seared and wellcrusted on one side, about 2½ minutes. Turn the steaks with tongs and cook 2 minutes more for medium. Transfer the steaks to a plate lined with paper towels and keep warm.
3. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the cooking oil. Return the pan to a burner, add the remaining 2 tablespoons flour, and whisk over medium-low heat for 1 minute. Add the tomato and onion. Add the milk and whisk until a thick gravy forms. Continue to cook for 1 minute more, adding more milk if the gravy is too thick. Season with salt, pepper, and paprika.
4. Spoon ⅓ cup of gravy onto each of 2 warm plates. Slice each steak and place on top of the gravy. Pass the remaining gravy at the table.
SERVES 2
No food, except perhaps the comfort food custard, is more likely to bring out the child in us than the hamburger. Certainly no child could be more stubborn and unyielding than some of my otherwise easygoing friends when it comes to the size, shape, type of bread or roll, and condiments involved in the perfect hamburger. I insist upon hamburgers that are unadorned with cheese, fitted into a toasted bun (which does a much better job of keeping the juices captive than sandwich bread), and garnished with nothing more than onion—raw, cooked, or both—and ketchup. The burger that follows is simple, noble, and as fancy as I want a hamburger to be. Placing several shards of ice in the center was a trick used by James Beard to keep the center moist. I’ve been making my hamburgers very successfully with ground round steak in an 85 to 15 percent lean-fat ratio. For added flavor, use homemade Red Pepper-Dill Ketchup (see page 159).
5 ounces ground chuck or round
1 tablespoon finely chopped onion
1 teaspoon dried herbs such as basil, oregano, or herbes de Provence
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 ice cube, cracked into shards (optional)
Vegetable oil or unsalted butter
Salt, to taste
1 hamburger bun
1 slice (¼-inch thick) sweet onion, raw or sautéed (optional)
Ketchup
1. Spread the meat with your fingers to make a thin layer. Sprinkle the chopped onion, herbs, and ¼ teaspoon pepper over the surface. Place 4 or 5 ice shards, if using, in the center and, working the meat as little as possible, form a patty 1 inch thick.
2. Heat a heavy frying pan, preferably cast-iron, over medium-high heat. When hot, add a glaze of oil and the hamburger. Cook until the meat is crusty brown on one side, 4 minutes. Turn, season the cooked side with salt, and cook until brown throughout but still tender and juicy, 5 minutes more.
3. Meanwhile, open the bun, spread a little oil or butter over the inside surfaces and toast it.
4. If desired, place the onion slice on the bun. Top with the burger. Season with salt and pepper and anoint with ketchup. Eat!
WHAT TO DRINK
BEFORE AND AFTER YOUR STEAK
For guidance in stocking your home bar, the best place to look is the bar of a fine steak house. The martini has had no need to make a comeback in steak houses, so a first-class gin— my choice is Bombay—is de rigueur. I buy dry vermouth by the half-bottle and keep it in the refrigerator, otherwise, like an open bottle of wine, it will oxidize.
Cocktails are still popular among beefeaters, with brand-name vodkas being poured on the rocks and in a wide variety of mixed drinks. The other liquors I keep on hand are blended Scotch, bourbon, and tequila. I’m inordinately fond of a slightly bitter-tasting Italian cocktail called “negroni,” made of equal parts of gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari, so I stock those ingredients and occasionally drink the Campari with sparkling water.
Non-alcohol wines and beers continue to improve in quality and I always have both available as well as traditional wine to be poured by the glass. If possible, I will convince a guest to choose fruit juice over a soft drink.
Bartenders tell me there has been a downturn in demand for rich after-dinner drinks. Perhaps that’s due to the improvement in restaurant dessert selections. In their place, in my home as well as in restaurants, guests seem delighted at the opportunity to taste, and perhaps compare, single-malt Scotch, Cognac, port, and even cigars.
Here’s a starter set of recipes I use. With the exception of the Caribbean blush, they are strong enough that you will not need to make a second batch. The daiquiri comes from Ed Moose of Moose’s restaurant in San Francisco. The margarita is from Maida Heatter.
In sum, pour a taste of the good life.
MY MARTINI
¾ cup gin, preferably regular Bombay
2 tablespoons dry vermouth, preferably Boissiere
8 ice cubes
4 small pimiento-stuffed olives, skewered on 2 toothpicks
1. Combine the gin and vermouth in a cocktail shaker. Add the ice cubes and shake vigorously (to a waltz rhythm, according to William Powell in one of the Thin Man films) until your hand tells you to put down the cold shaker.
2. Place the olive skewers in 2 martini glasses and pour the cocktail over them. Add any remaining shards of ice, if desired.
Note: My wife has a taste for anchovy-stuffed olives. Their saltiness is intriguing, but ask your guest’s permission before popping one into the glass.
MAKES 2 COCKTAILS
QUEEN MAIDA’S MARGARITA
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
⅓ cup Cointreau
⅔ cup top-quality tequila
Ice cubes
Salt (optional)
1. Pour the lemon juice, Cointreau, and tequila into a blender. Add 8 ice cubes or enough to bring the level to 2 cups. Blend until only a few shards of ice are left.
2. Salt the rims of 2 outsized wine or brandy glasses, if desired. Divide the margarita between the glasses and add extra ice cubes.
MAKES 2 COCKTAILS
CARIBBEAN BLUSH
⅔ cup dry white wine, chilled
¼cup pink grapefruit juice cocktail, chilled
1 tablespoon grenadine syrup
1 or 2 ice cubes (optional)
Mix the wine, grapefruit juice cocktail, and the grenadine in a wine glass. Add the ice cubes, if desired.
MAKES 2 COCKTAILS
WHISKEY SOUR MADE SIMPLE
2 tablespoons superfine sugar
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
¾ cup top-quality bourbon
8 ice cubes
1 thin slice orange, cut in half (optional)
1. Pour the sugar and lemon juice into a cocktail shaker and swirl until the sugar dissolves. Add the bourbon and ice cubes and shake vigorously (to a fox-trot rhythm) until your hand tells you to put down the cold shaker.
2. Pour into 2 rocks glasses, adding the remaining shards of ice. Garnish each glass with an orange slice half, if desired.
MAKES 2 COCKTAILS
HEMINGWAY’S DAIQUIRI
⅓ cup light rum, preferably Bacardi
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon maraschino liqueur
1 tablespoon fresh grapefruit juice
4 ice cubes
1. Pour the rum, lime juice, maraschino liqueur, and grapefruit juice into a cocktail shaker. Add the ice cubes and shake vigorously.
2. Serve straight up or on the rocks.
MAKES 2 COCKTAILS
