He Cooks! – Red Meat Edition

This is what we had for dinner Tuesday night:

That lovely piece of steak was grilled to perfection by my Husband, the resident Grill Master.  And the perfectly grilled corn on the cob.  He even prepared the marinade for the steak on his own.  I was relegated to bean prep.  He may not be terribly adept in the kitchen, but give the man an open flame and a couple of grill utensils and he turns into Bobby Flay.

Well, maybe not quite. Bobby does own a few restaurants.

But holy cow can He grill a steak! In this house, we are all pretty fussy about the way we like our meat. And that is all thanks to the Fabulous Husband.

At some point when Fabulous Husband and I were “not dating” (long story involving crustaceans), we were eating steak somewhere and I ordered mine cooked medium. He looked at me as though I had spoken sacrilege.

Me: “What?”

He: “How can you eat your steak like that?”

Me: “Like what?

He: “Like that.”

Me: “You mean cooked?”

He: “I mean ruined.  How can you eat that?”

Me: “Um, with my fork…?”

He: “I’m serious.  Who taught you to eat steak that way?

He was truly horrified.  He proceeded to explain that the only way to properly cook and consume a piece of steak was rare.  Very rare.  It has taken me years to get used to the embarrassing endearing little speech he gives every person who waits on us to explain just how rare he means.  But it is much better than listening to him suffer through what he deems an improperly prepared piece of meat.  And as it turns out, he’s right.

But at that moment during that non-date, I was really insulted because I was pretty proud of my medium-eating efforts where steak was concerned.  After all, this was a major step up from the well done I believed was the only safe way to eat a steak.  You know, fear of dying from food borne illness and all… (Thanks, Mom.)  I never knew you could eat steak any way but well done until somewhere along the line someone made me try it medium.  Apparently steak wasn’t the most awful food on the planet.  Who knew?  Time passes, and under Professor Steak’s tutelage, I learn to appreciate steak cooked medium rare.  But I will NOT budge one degree cooler than that.  I could die.

Fast forward to our honeymoon.  On our first married dinner date, we enjoyed the most amazing meal.  Great atmosphere, terrific food, leisurely pace, private dining room…and the most amazing steak ever.  Ev-er.  I could not stop raving about how perfect the meat tasted.  At the end of the meal, New Husband sat there smugly enjoying his after-dinner drink.  At some point, he finally told me that my steak had come to the table rare.  Rare?  And he knew it?  And he didn’t tell me?  A mere twenty-four hours into our marriage the man had deceived me.  What did this mean for our future?  He simply laughed and asked if I enjoyed it.  Well, yeah.  But I wasn’t about to admit it.  For several years I continued to order steaks medium-rare, though, because I just couldn’t quite bring myself to make the word “rare” come out of my mouth.

After we bought our house and started grilling at home, he got quite good at not only steaks, but lots of grilled stuff.  But steaks are his specialty.  He would grill steaks, carefully tossing his on later than mine so they would be finished at the same time, meticulously using the meat thermometer to make sure they were done just right, taking care to give me the correct piece so I wouldn’t die.  What a guy.  Then he would grill me (no pun intended) on the results.  Did it taste OK?  Was it cooked enough?  Tender?  Good temperature?  Yes, yes, yes.  I figured he just wanted feedback on his grill skills.  Finally, one day he told me I’d been eating my steaks rare for months.  Fully knowing I always ordered medium-rare, the man was serving me rare meat!  Sigh.  I hate love when he’s right.

It really does just taste better.

And now He Who Loves Steaks has not only converted me, but Kidzilla loves hers the same way as her Dad.  When she was about two years old, he taught her to tell our butcher that “meat was meant to be on fire.”  He swells with pride when she looks at a restaurant server and asks for her steak “rare, please.”  Pretty sure most preschoolers don’t even order steak, never mind “rare, please.”  I don’t think she’s ever even had a steak cooked above medium rare.  Well maybe once.  At someone’s house for dinner, she looked at her medium-ish steak, learned over to me and whispered “Mommy…this doesn’t look like steak.  It’s not red.”  I told He Who Loves Steaks about it later and I swear I saw his eyes well with tears of joy.

Tonight’s offering was once again outstanding, so I will share with you our all-time favorite marinade.  We found this in one of those supermarket checkout cookbooks several years ago.

Awesome Beer Marinade for Steaks (adapted from Favorite Brand Name Recipes – Grilling Recipes)

Ingredients

1 cup light-colored beer, such as lager (Our favorite is Sam Adams Summer Ale for this marinade.)

1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce

2 tablespoons molasses

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

Whisk together all ingredients in a bowl.  Place marinade and steaks in a food storage bag.  Marinate in refrigerator.  (I think the original recipe said marinate at least two hours…we’ve done everything from one hour to twenty-four and it’s always fantastic.)  This amount of marinade is good for up to about four steaks.

Grill your steaks the way you like ‘em!

Enjoy!