The Sun Burns Cold

So I work at this incredibly good Italian restaurant, and one of the biggest perks of working there is the staff gets fed dinner every work night. I’m on six days a week, so I usually only cook dinner at home a few nights. Mondays are my day off, so it’s my big cooking day-and as anyone who has read this blog can attest to, I make a big fucking deal out of my Monday night dinner.

Sometimes I get to cook for my wife on Mondays, but she’s usually at her dad’s on Monday nights so I don’t have to worry to much about fucking something up that I cook. Luckily I have a near perfect batting average. I made something once that was a little too salty, but I have yet to cook something that ranks as inedible in at least the past six years. This isn’t due to having terrible amounts of skill really. My mother was a professional cook, so I learned a lot from her. Plus I work with the best chef in at least three counties, so I get to pry recipes and tips from him. All that and I don’t drink anymore. There is no more guaranteed way to fuck shit up than to cook when drunk.

Ok, so I’ll just get to it. Tonights vittles. Basically it’s a standard beef Marsala preparation that I fucked with. I make it a little different every time I guess, but its generally pretty simple. You just need some chopped dead cow-I’ve made it with sliced Delmonico and it was good, NY Strip is about the best shy of a filet from a tenderloin (but who the fuck is going to chop up a filet mignon and cook it with gravy over pasta when it can be marinated and grilled outright), and sirloin is ok. You’ll also need some Marsala wine, some olive oil, beef stock, flour, butter, Worcestershire sauce and some seasoning. For seasoning I always use a mixture of  Montreal steak seasoning, Adobo and plain black pepper.

It gets real fuckin easy from here. Prepare your beef stock. You wont need a whole, whole lot of it. I usually just throw a fat teaspoon of beef base in a small pot with water and heat the shit up. Cook your beef. You want it cut up, but do it however you want. Sometimes I cube it, sometimes I make strips. It makes no difference to me. I generally sautee the strips of steak in a little olive oil. I don’t know if thats the right way and I don’t care. There’s people who swear on cooking their steaks in butter. I’m not one of those people. I like my beef good and seared yet still rare in the middle for this (and in general I prefer my steak “Pittsburgh” style like that) since it’s still going to be cooking in the sauce (and there’s butter gonna be in the sauce)-so I want high heat to sear the cut up pieces of carcass, and butter and high heat just doesn’t work well really. You get the smoke, you get the brown charring of the butter, it’s just a fucking mess. And anyways, I hear its healthier to use olive oil instead of butter. Not that it matters to me all that much. I generally take a smoke break while dinner is simmering so the healthful arguments about food are lost on me.

Yeah, digression aside. Cook the steak. Now you can do this next part two ways. You can have a separate pan ready to put the steak in and then make the sauce in that and cook it all up. I used to do it that way, but I found it unnecessary. I just drain off most-not all-of the oil and everything then make the sauce in the same pan. It actually adds a little to it if you don’t completely drain everything off, but you can if you want. Set your heat for medium high. So, then I add a ladle of stock, about 3/4 of a cup of wine ( I don’t know the exact amount, I just eyeball it),and stir everything around. Then the seasoning goes in. Stir it around some more. Somewhere in there you want to add about a quarter stick of butter and let it melt up real good. And just a leeetle shot of Worcestershire sauce. Be careful with it. It kicks ass when you add it, but you don’t need much at all. Then you hit it with the flour and take it down to medium heat. A good hefty three finger pinch of flour is about what you want. Add it slowly while stirring so the shit don’t clump too bad. It’ll start to coagulate pretty quick, and if it’s looking too thick just add some more beef stock. Actually, I always do anyways cause I let the whole mess then simmer for about eight to ten on low heat and any excess liquid will cook off.

Throw it all over a bed of pasta, and there you go. Oh, I added some roasted red peppers too but those are optional. It’s really good with mushrooms but I didn’t have any tonight.