Beef with Alton Brown
Let me just say that Alton Brown is a genius. I cooked a pair of New York Strip steaks to perfection yesterday in under ten minutes (mine to medium, Sarah’s to medium well). This used to be a relatively arduous task involving two days of marinating and tense handwringing as the steaks broiled.
We saw Alton make the steaks on a very early first-season episode of _Good Eats_. It’s interesting to see how things have changed. How his delivery has improved, his timing tightened, his kitchen decorated. It’s also interesting how his attention to detail has changed.
For example, nowdays he makes a big big deal about “cross contamination” — keeping meat and meat tools isolated so you don’t spread germs from one surface to another. But in this episode, he handles the raw steaks with his hands, then wraps those raw-meaty hands around his peppermill to grind some pepper on them. Ooo. Bad Young Alton. Old Alton would be so ashamed.
Personally, I used the more modern Alton Brown method of turning the meat over with tongs. I don’t have the cleanest kitchen in the world, but I’m learning…
Anyway, here’s the instructions. I used a digital-read thermometer to tell how cooked the steaks were. A Polder (the one I use) is $25. It paid for itself last night; I trusted the thermometer instead of my eye. As a result, the steaks weren’t overcooked and the meal trashed. So I definately recommend you add one to your kitchen.
