Days of Fine Dining

I realize it’s somewhat of a cliché, but she sure engorged ourselves over the holidays. In addition to the enormous quantity of sweets and treats, we ate an inordinate amount of red meat, which is unusual for us, but man was it good.

As I think I mentioned, there was some debate regarding our Christmas and New Year meals. There were four meals to consider, Christmas Eve/Christmas, and New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day. In the past, we’ve done roast beef or chicken, but we thought we’d do things a little differently. Besides, roast beef is generally pretty average, it tends to be tough, or at least it’s that way when I’ve cooked it.

For Christmas, we talked of trying beef tenderloin or salmon. We’ve never really cooked steak, even though I’ve had rib eye in the freezer for months. I’ve always felt that a good steak should be grilled, otherwise it’s gone to waste, but I was willing to give it try. After some discussion, we decided on salmon for the Eve meal, and filet mignon on Christmas day.

I’ve been told by my Mentor that the best filet, bar none, can be found at BG’s, and he worked in the restaurant industry. BG’s is famous for its meat, I’ve heard many people rave about it, and we buy their chicken on occasion, but their meat is not local, nor it is grassed fed. I hate to be such a dork about it, but when it comes to beef, we really try to stick with grass fed. This is not just a trendy issue, we feel it’s the best thing health wise. Plus, we have an excellent beef source, which is not only incredibly reliable, but has killer beef.

So I contacted Cloudland Farms and CE told me she had filets, and could come over and pick them up. This entailed the usual sojourn up to Pomfret, which is bit of a trek, but was well worth it, because the steaks were beautiful. Nice, thick filets.

Now we eat salmon fairly regularly, so that meal was pretty straightforward. It was the steaks that were going to be new territory. Since they were filets, I would generally go for cooking them rare, but being only occasional meat eaters, bleeding flesh can be a bit intimidating, especially when you fill your kids with all sorts of food anxieties. Fortunately, there is always the internet.

I scoured websites in search of Martha Stewart and finally decided to pan sear the meat, then roast in the oven. The filets were fabulous, tender and flavorful, really what you come to expect from Cloudland Farms. In retrospect, I probably would have cooked them a bit longer, they were pretty rare, but oh so tasty, and local and grass fed.

On New Year’s Eve, we decided to make homemade pizza and watch a movie and eat junk food. Making pizzas has become a family tradition, and since we can make whole wheat/grain crusts, it’s a healthier option, though a bit of work. The beauty is that the kids really love to help, and it becomes a family affair.

The meal to usher in the new year was more of a challenge. What to do? Traditional Korean values would dictate making dumplings, but not only are we not a traditional Korean household, but dumplings are the last thing we would consider to celebrate a special occasion. As I mentioned, we had a rib eye steak (from Cloudland Farms) just screaming to be cooked, so we did something we never do and had steak twice in one week. Actually, we almost never eat steak.

Again, I was faced with the dilemma of how to cook the rib eye, and decided to go for the pan sear/bake approach. The steak was delicious, and tender to boot. My understanding of steak is that there are two schools of thought. The most common one, at least in this country, is that texture is king, so people consider the filet to be the best steaks, though they may be compromising flavor to some degree since it’s a leaner cut of meat.

The other side of the equation trumps flavor over texture. With this in mind, a cut of meat that is marbled with a little fat will give you more flavor, but won’t be as lean and tender. In this school of thought, the rib eye is king. I agree that the rib eye has more flavor, and because it has more fat, tends to be juicier, but it’s hard to beat the velvety tenderness of the filet.

Either way, both steaks were amazing, and since we are now steak aficionados, might very well eat them more often. At least we know where to get it.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Rob Owen-Wahl for the pic.