Peppered Crusted Ribeye with Creamy Blue Cheese Sauce

Last Wednesday I shared my the first recipe, leek soup with a hint of blue cheese, from my husband's and my cook-off we did on our anniversary. Here's recipe number two and you can read the following post for recipe 3 - Oven Baked Potato Chips. This dish is easy to make and wonderful tasting.

The steak only takes about 6 minutes to cook, however before you can cook it, it needs to sit out on the counter for about an hour to come to room temperature. Have all your sides ready to go before you throw the steak into the skillet. Depending on what type of peppercorn you use and fresh ground is a must here, your steak can be very spicy. The first time I made it I used tellicherry peppercorns, which had wonderful flavor, but were not overly spicy. The second time I used black peppercorns and wow my mouth was a flaming, but they were good. The blue cheese sauce helps cut down the heat and goes perfectly with this type of steak.

I was able to get some awesome blue cheese at the co-op. It was from a local farm and was made with raw milk from grass-fed cows! If you don't have blue cheese, gorgonzola would work too. For this meal I was able to get everything, but the sea salt, pepper and olive oil, from local sources!
What You'll Need - serves 2
For the Creamy Blue Cheese Sauce2 tbsp. organic butter
1/4 cup white onion - diced very finely
3 oz. blue cheese - crumbled (about 1/3 cup)
1/2 cup organic cream

For the Steak:
2 grass-fed ribeyes about 1" thick
Olive oil
~6 tbsp. fresh ground peppercorns
Sea salt


Getting Started:
For the Sauce:
1. Melt your butter in a small pot over medium low - medium heat. Toss in your onion and cook

until onion is very tender and soft. Do not brown the onion. This takes about 5-10 min. depending on how finely your onion is chopped.

2. Add your blue cheese to the pot and smash it, along with the onion, with the back of a spoon until smooth. Stir in your cream and bring to a slight simmer. Allow to simmer for 10 -15 minutes or until it's reduced to your desired thickness. For me this is when is coats the back of a spoon like a really creamy soup.

3. Season with salt and pepper if you think it needs it, then set aside and keep it warm until your steak is ready.

For the Steak:
Ideally you should use a well-seasoned iron skillet to cook your steak in, but a heavy bottom stainless steel skillet would likely work as well. I have a 12" skillet and it's best to cook only one steak in a skillet that size, so either use two skillets or cook one steak at a time.

1. Turn you oven on to 500º and place you skillet inside and allow to heat for at least a half hour or even better for an hour.

2. Coat your steaks with a thin layer of olive oil and then wrap in plastic wrap or wax paper. Let your steak come to room temperature for about an hour on the kitchen counter. You can not skip this step. If your steak is cold when you cook it, you'll be left with a cold steak to eat. It also won't cook as well.

3. Spread your fresh ground pepper on a plate. Place steaks in pepper and then flip them (putting more pepper down if necessary) to thoroughly coat the steaks.

4. Turn your stove top on high and make sure it nice and hot before the next step.

5. Pull your extremely hot frying pan out of the oven and place on hot stove. Place steak in skillet on one side and cook for about 90 seconds. (My steaks were just a about 1" thick and I'm cooking them so they'll be medium rare, if you your steaks are thicker you may want to increase the time up to 2-3 min. per side depending on how well done you like them).

6. Flip steak over to the other side of the skillet, cook for 90 seconds more. Flip back to it's original side and stick in the oven and cook it 60 seconds more on each side. Just a heads up, be prepared for a bit of smoke, the steak isn't burning, but the pan is so hot that it smokes.

7. Remove steak from the oven and wrap it in a couple pieces of aluminum foil. Allow to rest for approx. 5 minutes before slicing and serving. During this time you can make your other steak if you are doing them one at a time.

8. Serve your steak with a dish of the blue cheese sauce on the side or drizzled on the plate and some oven baked potato chips.


Enjoy!

source: http://artistta.blogspot.com/

Grilled Steak and Corn - Made by My Man

Grilled Steaks, Corn on the Cob, Garlic Oven Fries and Caprese Skewers made for a fantastic dinner on a hot summer night. I'm getting hungry again, just looking at these pictures. We rarely cook steaks at home. Do you want to know why? Because this girl just did not know how to cook one at all. I hated the thought of buying a great piece of meat and then having it turn out poorly because I didn't do it justice.

When my husband volunteered to do some research (aka. Google and try to figure out what we were doing wrong) and then grill them, I was thrilled to turn the work over to him. Listed below is what he did this time and they turned out great! I suspect that we'll be grilling beef a whole lot more often now that the intimidation has worn off a bit.

I would LOVE to know how you grill your steak. Please share your secrets and tips! There is a lot of information online, but how do you know what is good or bad advice? Feel free to link me to your site if you've posted any grilling information there. Thank you in advance!

DIRECTIONS for Grilled Steaks
Remove steak from the refrigerator about 90 minutes before grilling. Steak should be at room temperature before it hits the grill.
Preheat the grill to make sure it is hot before grilling the meat.
Rub a crushed garlic clove onto all sides of the steak.
Crack fresh pepper all over the steak and rub it into all sides of the steak.
Squeeze the juice of half a lemon or lime onto both sides of the steak, this is supposed to help tenderize tougher or less expensive cuts of meat.
Searing the steak on a high grill heat helps seal in the juices. Set the steak on the grill at a 45 degree angle for 2-3 minutes, then use tongs (not a fork or knife, because that will cause the juices to drip out of the meat) to rotate another 45 degrees and cook 2-3 more minutes. Flip the steak over and repeat.
Grill on low for another 3-5 minutes with the lid closed. The steak should be about medium rare now, depending on thickness.
Remove steak from the grill and place on a platter.
Rest the steak on the platter for a full 5 minutes prior to cutting. This allows the juices and flavor to develop more fully.

DIRECTIONS for Grilled Corn on the Cob
Remove husks and rinse corn thoroughly.
Brush with softened butter and then sprinkle with kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper.
Wrap in foil and place on the hot grill.
Grill for 30 minutes, turning the corn over every 10 minutes.

Click here for printable recipe

source: http://barefeetinthekitchen.blogspot.com/

Recipes for Tuscan-style Grilled Steak with Roquefort-Rosemary Butter & Oven-Roasted Potatoes

It’s been snowing off and on for the last few days. In self-defense, we’ve kept a roaring fire going, a not-insignificant accomplishment since we’ve been burning green wood.

By Saturday afternoon, we had an impressive bank of coals in the fireplace, just right for grilling thick Tuscan-style steak. We headed out to the store to buy the best steaks we could find.

We rarely eat big chunks of meat, so in honor of the decadent occasion, we decided to throw dietary caution to the wind. I mixed up a compound butter seasoned with Roquefort, rosemary, and garlic to top the steak.

For fireplace grilling, we use a simple folding grate and set it up directly over very hot coals. If the fire is flaming, all the better; just be sure to turn the meat often so it doesn’t burn (long tongs are perfect for this task).

The final result was amazing. Seared brown on the outside and rare on the inside, the steak was everything we could’ve hoped. The rich flavor of Roquefort-Rosemary Butter was a lovely finishing touch for our perfectly grilled steaks.

To accompany the steaks, I made simple Oven-Roasted Potatoes. These are the potatoes I turn to when I need to cook potatoes at the last minute and want something fast and reliably delicious. The potatoes are great for mopping up the melted Roquefort-Rosemary Butter and meat juices left on the plate when you've had your fill of steak (don't feel obligated to eat the whole steak; it makes terrific left-overs).

Tuscan-style Grilled Steak with Roquefort-Rosemary Butter
Serves 2
The key to this dish is cooking the meat over a very hot fire, and regularly turning the meat. Instead of Roquefort butter, Tuscan-Style Grilled Steaks are also excellent with a little fresh lemon juice squeezed over them at the table. Tomato salad, made with juicy fresh tomatoes, is a nice balance for steak and potatoes.

Steak:
2 rib-eye, porterhouse, T-bone, New York, or other high-quality cut of steak, at least 1” thick
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Roquefort-Rosemary Butter:
3 Tbsp. Roquefort
3 Tbsp. butter
2 tsp. minced rosemary
1 tsp. minced garlic
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

Liberally season both sides of the steaks with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Let the steaks sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes.

Using a fork, mash the Roquefort and butter together. Add rosemary, garlic, and lemon juice and continue mashing until the mixture is smooth. Divide the mixture into sixths and shape into small balls.

Let the grate heat up over the fire for five minutes, or until it is very hot. Put the steaks on the grate and cook, turning regularly, until the steaks are done to your liking. For rare steaks, cook them 3 – 5 minutes on each side.

Plate the steaks, top with the Roquefort-Rosemary Butter (or lemon wedges), and serve.

Oven Roasted Potatoes
When I’m using potatoes with unblemished skin, I don’t bother peeling them. If you want to make more potatoes than will fit as a single layer in the frying pan, brown them in batches on the stove, and then put the browned potatoes in a larger pan for oven-roasting.

Yukon Gold or red potatoes
Olive oil
Salt

Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Peel the potatoes and cut into 2” chunks. In an oven-proof frying pan (cast iron works best), pour in enough olive oil to lightly coat the bottom of the pan. Brown the potato chunks in the olive oil. Put the pan and potatoes in the oven, and roast until the potatoes are cooked through (easily pierced by a skewer), about 10 – 15 minutes. Serve immediately.

source:

Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska

How to Cook a Steak in the Oven

How to Cook a Steak in the Oven

I just cooked a really good steak. And it was so easy, too. This is a big deal for me because steak is my Achilles' heel when it comes to cooking. It was always too tough, overdone or raw. I could never get it just right, until now. I used this method and I had the perfect ribeye in about 10 minutes.

The only variation I made on the steps below is that I marinated my steak in Mr. Yoshida (for a sweet teriyaki flavor) for a few days in the freezer instead of just making it with salt & pepper, as instructed.

What You Need

Ingredients
One approximately 1-pound ribeye steak, 1 to 1 1/2 inches thick
Canola or vegetable oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Equipment
Cast iron skillet
Long tongs
Very thick or well-padded oven mitt

Instructions

1. The first, and most important, step in cooking a great steak is to buy a great steak. The best way to do this is to go to a local butcher, preferably one who either raises the animals himself or sources them from a local farm. The beef should be at least partially grass-fed and humanely butchered. Look for steaks that have been dry-aged to intensify the flavor, too. I buy my steak from a butcher at my local market; they raise the animals on a farm nearby and dry age the beef for at least a couple weeks.

2. Buy a rib eye steak. It should be at least 1-inch thick and have some fat marbling around the edges. Again, buy the best you can. No matter how expensive it is, it will still be cheaper than eating out on Valentine's Day! Expect to pay at least $10 to $15 for a pound of steak. If it is less than that, pass it up. I live in the Midwest, so prices aren't too bad here. If you're in the city, you should probably expect to pay at least $20 per pound. 1 pound of steak will easily feed two, and can be stretched to three or even four people. (I got my ribeyes from Whole Foods. As soon as I brought it home, I put it in a large freezer bag with Mr. Yoshida Gourmet sauce to marinate and stuck it in the freezer for a few days because I didn't know when I would be making it).

3. Now that you have your rib eye steak, open the package and drain out any juices. Blot the steak dry with paper towels or a rag. Let the steak come to room temperature, if it isn't already.

4. Turn on your oven and heat it to broil. Put a cast iron skillet in the oven to heat up with the oven. (If you are marinating your steak like me and not using the oil, salt & pepper recipe here, then just make sure to rub the inside of your cast iron skillet with an oiled paper towel before sticking it in the oven.).

6. Pour a little canola or vegetable oil (about 2 tablespoons) into a small bowl.

7. Put about 1 tablespoon of kosher salt into a ramekin and mix in a generous amount of freshly ground black pepper.

8. Brush the oil all over the steak, coating it generously on both sides and on the ends.

9. Now sprinkle the salt and pepper mix generously on both sides of the steak, patting it into the steak so it sticks.

10. Turn on a stove burner to high heat.

11. Very, very carefully remove the hot cast iron skillet from the oven, using your thickest and most reliable oven mitt or pad! Place it over the high heat and use long, sturdy kitchen tongs to place the steak on the hot pan. It should sizzle immediately.

12. Cook the steak for 30 seconds, then flip it over.

13. Cook the steak for an additional 30 seconds on the other side. Then, again carefully, put the skillet and steak back in the oven. Cook the steak for 2 minutes. (Don't forget to turn off the burner) Open the oven and carefully flip the steak, using the long tongs. Return to the oven and cook for an additional 2 minutes. At this point your steak will be medium-rare (as seen in the photos). If you prefer your steak closer to medium, add 2 minutes to the oven time.

14. Take the steak out of the oven. Turn off the oven. Remove the steak from the pan and put it on a large cutting board. Cover it with aluminum foil and let the steak rest for about 5 minutes.

15. Slice the steak against the grain and fan slices out on each plate. Serve immediately.

image and recipe from The Kitchn

source:

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