Things have sort of gotten away from me in the last couple of weeks. I’ve been cooking a lot – some for a new project venture (more on that soon), some for The Chicken Thigh Guy, and of course, some for The Weekly Menu. This week, I probably didn’t pay enough attention to planning, since I was still taking photos this morning and serving most of the dishes in today’s newsletter last night.
That time crush, and our first real chance to entertain in 15 months (now that we and most of our friends and families are vaccinated) – led to this week’s menu. A simple old school steakhouse meal with a couple of twists.
There are reasons that the steakhouse is such an enduring institution: The food is generally pretty good, even when it’s not “good”; there’s something primitively pleasing about a hunk of good meat; and they’re familiar. You’re almost certain to find something you like. It’s why they’re a favorite of business travelers, for group celebrations, and … well, all those things.
Last night’s dinner was a small celebration – the long delayed and long-awaited fist post pandemic visit of a close friend who lives on the other side of the Atlantic – a friend who’s definitely very much completely totally a fan of a big slab of tasty red meat. So – like the holiday menu I did back in December, and the steak frittes I share in October - this is yet another steakhouse style meal that you can make at home.
Yet Another Shrimp Cocktail
I’ve mentioned before that I love Shrimp Cocktail – so much so that this is the second time I’ve made it as part of this newsletter. It feels fancy even when it’s not, and it’s a fast and easy appetizer for a crowd. A Food and Wine article a year or so ago mentioned using fermented chili bean sauce in seafood cocktail sauce and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. The strangely funky salty spicy condiment is a great backbone for a cocktail sauce. That recipe simply mixed ginger and chili bean sauce into ketchup – I split the difference and used it to enhance a more traditional lemon and horseradish recipe.
3-5 shrimp per person
1 tbsp seafood boil/Old Bay Seasoning
Lemon slices
Parsley for garnish
Peel and devein the shrimp.
Add seafood boil or old bay to a pot of rapidly boiling water.
Add the shrimp and immediately reduce the temp to the lowest heat.
Allow to cook until the shrimp are just firm – this will depend on the size of the shrimp you’re using. For “Jumbo” shrimp (21/25 per lb) as little as 2 minutes.
Remove the shrimp and transfer to a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking.
Drain, dry, and chill the shrimp until serving.
Serve with chili bean cocktail sauce, a slice of lemon, and sprig of parsley.
Chili Bean Cocktail Sauce
½ cup tomato ketchup
1 tbsp chili bean sauce
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1 tsp prepared horseradish
Combine all ingredients and stir until combined.
For best flavor and texture, refrigerate at least one hour before using.
Simple Soft Dinner Rolls
Soft, slightly sweet dinner rolls are a must have with a steakhouse dinner. Sure, you could probably get by with a couple slices of good pandemic times homemade sourdough bread or a piece of a baguette, but somehow -as good as those breads can be – they’re just not the same as a pillowy soft throwback dinner roll. You want that soft roll to mop up juices and sauce and as a delivery device for that pile of intricately piped whipped ultra-salty butter that the waiter set down in front of you at the beginning of the meal – or that you’re happily and greedily cutting off a paper wrapped stick on an extra plate. Same thing, really.
This roll recipe is simple, fast, and relatively forgiving – even if the dough itself is a little sticky and thus messy to work with. Just keep your hands and work surface well-floured and you’ll be fine.
Makes 12 dinner rolls
3 ½ cups AP flour
1 ½ cups room temperature whole milk plus ¼ cup for brushing
2 large eggs
2 tbsp softened butter
2 tbsp neutral oil
2 ½ tsp (1 packet) active dry or instant yeast
2 tsp granulated sugar
1 ½ tsp kosher salt
Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer and process with a dough hook until a smooth but sticky dough has formed and has pulled away from the sides of the bowl.
Cover, and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size – 60-90 minutes depending on room temperature.
Preheat your oven to 375°F.
Turn out of the bowl onto a well-floured surface and divide into 12 equal portions.
Using a cupped hand, roll the dough pieces into even balls.
Arrange on a greased ½ baking sheet.
Brush the tops of each roll with milk.
Bake until golden brown on top – about 25-35 minutes.
Allow to cool somewhat before serving.
Cheaters Caesar
What’s a steakhouse style meal without a Cesar salad, right? I call this a cheaters Cesar because the dressing and technique use a number of shortcuts that give you a great traditional flavor without most of the fuss. The big shortcut? Mayonnaise. See, I don’t always do everything from scratch. Cesar dressing is egg, acid, and aromatics emulsified with oil. Mayonnaise is egg, acid, and aromatics emulsified with oil … so in this recipe I’m skipping most of the hard work and using the mayo as a base along with garlic, lemon juice, Dijon and Worcestershire sauce for flavor and funk. A healthy dose of very finely shredded Parmesan cheese rounds out the whole mess and there you’ve got it – a cheaters Cesar that you can whip up in 30 seconds.
Serves 4 as a side salad
1 head romaine lettuce
½ cup small croutons (see below)
½ cup good quality store bought mayonnaise (I use Dukes)
½ cup microplaned parmesan cheese or ¼ cup grated parmesan or grana
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp lemon juice 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp prepared Dijon mustard
½ tsp coarse ground black pepper
Peel trim and microplane or crush the garlic.
Add the garlic, lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce to a non-reactive bowl and allow to rest for five minutes to take the harsh edge off the garlic.
Add the remaining ingredients and whisk until combined.
For best flavor, refrigerate for 1 hour before dressing.
Remove the very green tops of the lettuce, trim away the brown stem, and cut the head into quarters, or 8ths if the head is particularly large.
Soak the leaves in cold water for 30 minutes.
Drain well.
Toss with dressing and croutons, optionally top with shaved parm and additional black pepper Serve immediately
Small Homemade Croutons
1 cup neutral oil
1 cup country sourdough bread, cut into ¼ inch cubes
½ tsp kosher salt
½ tsp garlic powder
Heat the oil over medium heat until it reaches ~325°F
Working in batches, fry the bread cubes until they’re light brown.
Remove, drain, and toss with salt and garlic powder.
Allow to cool completely before adding to salads.
Spinach Carbonara
The last time I wrote about creamed spinach I called it “the least vegetable vegetable you can cook.” That’s still true, and I still love it for that. The steakhouse classic really is almost more of an additional sauce than a side – I love swiping a chunk of salty, nearly rare beef through the creamy green perfection that is a good creamed spinach, mopping it up with a nice soft dinner roll.
I’ve shared a more traditional creamed spinach recipe previously, but this isn’t a traditional creamed spinach. I decided I wanted to try something just a little different and … well, a while back I made creamed spinach with a carbonara style sauce. Eggs, cheese, and cured pork add some depth and a different flavor to the classic – but it still fulfills it’s meat swiping roll moping destiny – so that’s the one I’m sharing today.
Serves 4 as a side
1 lbs fresh spinach
2 pieces thick sliced bacon or equivalent amount of pancetta or guanciale
½ cup finely shredded parmesan cheese
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp heavy cream
1/2 cup water
2 tsp AP flour
Prepare a large pot of heavily salted boiling water and an ice water bath.
Wash the spinach and remove any long woody stems.
Blanch the spinach for 1 minute, or until all the leaves are dark green.
Drain the spinach and squeeze to remove as much water as possible.
Using a sharp knife, chop the spinach finely and set aside while preparing the sauce.
Cut the bacon or cured pork into 1/8th inch pieces.
Fry the bacon over medium heat until crisp.
Remove the bacon, retaining the fat in the pan.
Add the flour and cook just until the raw flour smell has dispersed.
add the water and cream and bring to a low simmer.
Whisk the egg in a separate bowl.
Slowly, and while constantly whisking, add about half of the warm sauce to the egg.
Reverse the process and whisk the egg mixture back into the pan.
Add the parmesan, half the fried bacon, and the chopped spinach.
Reduce the heat to very low and cook for 5-10 minutes.
Serve topped with the remaining fried bacon.
A Very Large Tot
This is my most successful attempt at making a giant tater tot. It was only partially successful in reaching the high bar that is tot perfection, but it does end up being a pretty great steakhouse style hashbrown. I’m still going to call it “a very large tot” but I reserve the right to keep trying and eventually share an even better, more refined, more tot like “very large tot” with you in the future. I strive for very large tot perfection, and you will reap the benefits.
Make 4 6” x 2” round super-sized hashbrowns
6 large russet potatoes
1 tsp kosher salt
Neutral oil for frying
Peel the potatoes.
Cut 4 of the potatoes into a very small dice (1/4 inch or smaller) and place in cold water to prevent discoloring.
Drain the water and cook the finely diced potatoes in the microwave - stirring every 2-3 minutes - until tender. For me, this takes about 8 minutes.
Cut the remaining two potatoes into 1-2inch pieces and add to a pot of boiling water.
Cook until very tender, drain, and mash until smooth.
Add the mashed potato and salt to the cooked finely diced potatoes and stir well.
Spray a ring mold with cooking spray and line with plastic wrap.
Spoon the potatoes mixture into the mold, pressing down to fill any gaps.
Repeat for additional mixture.
Wrap the potato “pucks” tightly and refrigerate until 30 minutes before serving.
Add 1 inch of oil to a thick bottomed pan and fry the potato pucks until well browned – turning only once.
Season with salt and serve immediately.
Steak Oscar
Steak Oscar is one of those absurdly luxurious preparations that really just doesn’t have any reason to exist. Like a lot of European dishes from a hundred or more years ago, it was supposedly prepared to sate the desires of a famous gourmand – in this case a member of Swedish royalty. The original was a piece of veal topped with white asparagus, crab meat, and hollandaise sauce. The modern version has evolved just slightly – the over-the-top luxury democratized slightly by using green asparagus and filet mignon instead of veal. It’s still absurd, and it’s still delicious, and it still probably shouldn’t exist at all but I’m sort of glad it does because like its cousin Tournedos Rossini it’s sometimes fun to go completely over the top.
For this recipe, I recommend cooking the filets using a reverse sear method – though you can cook the steaks any way you prefer.
4 beef tenderloin filets
12 thin pieces asparagus
½ cup lump crab meat
1 recipe Easy Stick Blender Hollandaise (below)
Salt and pepper to taste
Prepare a large pot of salted boiling water and an ice bath
Trim the asparagus pieces down to 4-6 inches – keeping only the tip end.
Quickly blanch the tips in boiling water, then shock in ice water. Drain, and reserve to garnish the steaks.
Preheat your oven to 300°F.
Pat the filets dry and season well with salt on both sides.
Arrange the filets on a rack, and transfer to the oven.
Cook until the internal temp of the meat is 5-10 degrees below your preferred final doneness. For medium rare, I cook them to 125°F. The time this takes will vary depending on the initial temperature of the meat, and the thickness of the cut.
While the meat cooks, prepare the hollandaise (below)
When the meat has reached the desired temperature, remove from the oven and quickly sear both sides in a very hot pan.
Warm the crab meat and asparagus spears in a little butter.
Top each steak with three spears of asparagus, a small portion of crab meat, and generously ladle hollandaise over the top.
Easy Stick Blender Hollandaise
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp water
1 pinch cayenne pepper
8 tbsp unsalted butter
Melt the butter over medium heat.
Add the egg yolk, lemon juice, water, and cayenne to a container just barely larger than head of your immersion blender.
Once the butter is fully melted and bubbling (the butter must be very hot), turn on the stick blender and pour a stream of hot butter into the container, while blending to form a smooth, thick emulsion.
Keep warm until service.
Chocolate Layer Cake
For me, there’s only one obvious steakhouse meal dessert and that’s a thick slice of chocolate cake. It’s funny because, well, I don’t really like chocolate cake that much, but somehow it still seems like it’s the correct choice, possibly even the only choice (at least the only non-liquor choice), to end an absurd meal like the one above.
This is a simple chocolate cake recipe – and it uses a technique I’ve come to prefer for shaping. I bake the cake on a sheet pan and cut layers from the sheet rather than using cake pans. It gives me even layers and allows me to cover up a multitude of sins in building the cake. That’s necessary because I am not, never have been, and probably never will be the sort of precise and careful baker who produces a glamor shot worthy cake. Let’s just say that no one is inviting me to bake in a tent on a picture-perfect English estate any time soon.
2 cups AP flour
1 cup dark cocoa powder
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
¾ cup whole milk
2 tbsp melted butter
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp kosher salt
Preheat your oven to 305°F.
Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer and process with the whisk attachment until smooth.
Pour the batter in to a parchment lined ½ sheet pan, use a spatula to spread it evenly, and bake until a toothpick or cake tester comes out clear – 20-30 minutes.
Allow to cool completely.
Use a sharp knife to cut circles the size of your cake mold (I use this)
Layer cake, and chocolate buttercream (below)
Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Chocolate Buttercream
1 cup (2 sticks) softened unsalted butter
3 3/4 cups confectioners sugar
¼ cup dark cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 to 2 tbsp heavy cream or whole milk
Add the butter to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment.
Process on high until the butter is fluffy.
Reduce to medium speed and slowly add the sugar and cocoa powder until integrated with the butter.
Add the vanilla, and return to high speed.
Add 1 tbsp milk or heavy cream and process until fluffy - adding additional 1 tbsp if needed.