Year of the Cow (18 page)

“It's a weekday.” I grin a little. For a weekday, this is quite a meal.

It's also the type of meal I've found myself eating more and more in this project. And it seems to be having an effect on me—I've dropped nearly ten pounds since last I weighed myself, which admittedly, I do not do often.

Though counterintuitive, this weight loss does make a kind of sense. I'm cooking far more than I did in the era BC (Before Cow) and eating a far higher-quality beef than I ate before I started the project. Chicken-fried steak notwithstanding, having a freezer full of beef has led me to eating far more vegetables as well. I'm eating a diet much closer to that of my great-grandparents than that of people of my generation. Whole grains. Raw sugar. Grass-fed beef.

I may not know what I'm doing all the time. But I feel like I'm doing something right.

 

Chicken-Fried Steak and Onion Rings

Time: About 1 hour

Serves 4

This is not, in any sense, a salad. However, if you grew up in a few particular areas of the Midwest or South, this dish will taste like home.

1 pound round steak or tenderized round steak

3 large eggs, plus 1 additional, beaten

3 cups plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons kosher salt

2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon garlic powder (optional)

1 white onion

1 cup canola oil (approximately)

1½ cups chicken broth (plus 2 tablespoons, if needed)

½ cup milk

½ teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

  
1.
Preheat the oven to 200°F or the “keep warm” setting.

  
2.
Using a Jaccard tenderizer, stamp your steaks from tip to tip. Rotate the Jaccard 90 degrees and stamp them again. Flip the steaks to the other side and repeat. (Alternatively, you can pound each side all over with a tenderizing mallet, but be gentle.)

  
3.
Put the 3 beaten eggs in a wide bowl and beat them lightly with a fork to combine. In another bowl, combine 1½ cups of the flour with salt and pepper (and garlic powder, if desired), to taste. Transfer half of the seasoned flour to another bowl.

  
4.
Dredge each steak in the first bowl of seasoned flour, then dip in the beaten egg, then dredge again in the second bowl of seasoned flour. Gently shake off any excess.

  
5.
Stow the steaks in the fridge for 30 minutes to allow the egg/flour mixture to harden into a crust.

  
6.
Meanwhile, peel the onion, keeping it whole, and slice into rings
³
/
₈
inch thick. A mandoline is your friend here.

  
7.
Create a new dredging station in clean bowls, again seasoning 1½ cups of flour and dividing it in half between two bowls. Use the remaining egg as the egg station for the onion rings. Repeat the same flour-egg-flour dredging process used for the steaks.

  
8.
Put the oil in a wide stockpot until it reaches a depth of 1 to 2 inches. Heat the oil to about 350°F on a deep-frying thermometer, or until it's shimmery. Lower the heat to maintain the temperature.

  
9.
Working in batches, fry the onion rings until golden brown, then transfer them to a baking sheet lined with paper towels. Sprinkle the onion rings generously with salt, then put them in the warm oven until ready to serve.

10.
Pour off most of the oil into a heatproof bowl, leaving only ½ inch in the stockpot. Heat the oil in the stockpot to about 350°F, or until shimmery, then lower the heat to maintain the temperature.

11.
Working in batches so as not to overload the pot, fry the steaks for about 4 minutes per side, or until each side is golden brown.

12.
Remove the steaks to a plate and season with a sprinkle of salt.

13.
Quickly pour the remaining oil into the heatproof bowl, then add 1 tablespoon back to the stockpot. Boost the heat to medium and whisk in the remaining 3 tablespoons flour to make a roux.

14.
Add 1½ cups of the broth and whisk to deglaze the pan (add a splash more if the fond is stubborn about dissolving).

15.
When the broth begins to bubble, add the milk and thyme and cook until the liquid is reduced and coats the back of a spoon, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste (pepper is your friend here) and kill the heat. You've got gravy.

16.
Serve the steaks alongside the onion rings, applying gravy to whatever suits your fancy. Or serve the gravy on the side.

17.
Next meal, eat a salad. Seriously.

 

7

Go Big

Here's a little-known fact: God made summer to give the rest of the world a taste of what it's like living in the City of Angels.

I mean, sure. Beautiful days exist in other places. But not like here. We get the platonic ideal of beautiful days. We get Elysium and the Land of Milk and Honey. Other places have the odd song written about them now and then—“Take Me Home, Country Roads”; “New York, New York”; “April in Paris”—whatever. We've got the entire Beach Boys canon.

And in certain specific instances of this Southern California idyll—on certain days when the sky is impossibly blue and the sun shines down with all its beatific glory and people slip their shades on and crack a grin that splits their faces ear to ear—on days like that, it's a crime against nature not to go to the beach.

On this particular Saturday, the beach of choice for us is Leo Carillo. It's dog-friendly and toddler-welcoming. Close enough to our house that we don't have to pack a lunch and a canteen to get there, but far enough away from Los Angeles proper that we won't have to throw elbows to find a place to drop our towels.

At the beach, Summer relaxes while Declan, Basil, and I chase the waves back into the sea. It's an altogether lovely way to spend a Saturday. And it's becoming more and more common.

Since I've been focusing on cooking and eating whole foods, I've noticed that trends in my life reinforce one another. When I'm active—when I run, climb, surf (or try and awkwardly fail to surf)—I also cook more often. I'm inspired, in some weird way, to seek sustenance in proportion to my ambition. And the reverse is also true—when I slouch around the house, I cook less. I can't really explain it. But it could be that when I do things that I personally ascribe meaning to, I want to keep the chain going. I ride a wave—I want a steak, a beer, and a sunset. I blow some time killing virtual zombies, I want a pizza.

And today, I was active. I'm tired but not ready to quit. On the way home, I turn my thoughts to dinner. “Surf 'n' turf,” I suggest, grinning to my wife in a way I hope splits the difference between cocky and genius. Have Jeeves bring around the Bentley and fetch me my driving Rolex. No, no, the good one.

This meal is stunt food. It exists because it's a way for restaurants to package the two most expensive items on the menu—tenderloin and lobster—into one ostentatious price tag. Otherwise, these two items don't even go together. It's the most conspicuous of conspicuous consumption, and maybe even a little cliché.

But it also sounds delicious, and I already have the tenderloin.

Summer grins a little. “I like the way your brain works, Stone.” When my wife is down for an adventure, that adventure moves from “great idea” to “absolutely epic” with a quickness. “That means we'll have to buy a lobster.”

“Yeah. I was reading the other day that lobster prices have fallen through the floor in the last few months. Global recession, financial catastrophe, yada yada—nobody's buying lobsters.”

She grins wider. “I'm down.” Then she turns to watch telephone poles whip by in front of a shimmering ocean. “Do you know where to get a lobster?”

“Sure,” I say. “I know a guy.”

*   *   *

I don't know a guy.

After trying two Vons supermarkets, a Henry's, and a Ralph's, I finally find a supermarket that has a tank of lobsters—and a seafood attendant who's never sold one. He has to call over his manager to figure out how to package the crustacean. He settles on a plain white box that I believe once held cans of tomato sauce.

Minutes later, the box is resting on my wife's lap. Something scrapes the lid from within. It's like a sound effect from a zombie movie. Creepy.

At home, I open the box, gross out the wife, frighten the child, and freak out the dog, in that order. Then, as is my wont, I do a little research.

Lobsters are colloquially referred to as “bugs,” and that's actually relatively accurate, as they are both arthropods, or beasts with no backbones and their skeletons in their skin. Their brain is about the size of a grasshopper's—and I use “brain” very loosely here. It's more like a clump of ganglia that don't really have other plans.

Lobsters used to be considered the vermin of the sea. In the 1800s, so many would wash ashore after New England storms that they were fed to indentured servants, or even ground up and used as fertilizer. In Massachusetts, servants actually filed suit against their masters to prohibit them from feeding their servants lobster more than twice a week. The servants won. Poor bastards.

I'm researching lobsters because I'm going to be killing this thing, and I want it to be as painless and humane as possible. I look into methods. Alton Brown, kitchen guru, suggests fifteen or twenty minutes in the freezer to render the lobster insensate. My trusty copy of the
Larousse
says that two hours in a freezer will cause the lobster to lose consciousness and painlessly die. Mark Bittman, in
How to Cook Everything,
essentially says to just chuck the damn thing into boiling water and stop being a pansy.

I opt for three hours in the freezer, a considerably longer period of time than even the most conservative suggestion. This is—quite literally—overkill. When those three hours have passed, I pull the bug from the freezer and start bringing my pot of water to a boil.

Through the kitchen window, I see Summer and Declan playing in the late afternoon sun. It's a charming, storybook scene. Basil dozes near my feet. I smile at the sheer, gosh-darn swellness of it all. Today is a good day.

From the corner of my eye, I notice the lobster twitch. Eerie, but I'm ready for this. It's a postmortem nerve reflex, like frog legs kicking in the sauté pan. Perfectly normal. The water is nearly boiling, so I prep a side dish. I toss some fingerling potatoes with oil, sprinkle them with salt, and chuck them into my preheated oven.

The lobster twitches again. Very creepy.

I take a deep breath and walk over to the cutting board. To set my mind at ease, I tap the lobster's shell.

The lobster stands up.

I make an embarrassingly high-pitched noise and shove the bug back in the freezer. Slam the door. Lean against it like they do in every horror movie ever made.

I take a moment, chest heaving. Out the window, I can see my wife and son playing in the yard. So innocent. So blissfully unaware of the eldritch horror lurking in our freezer.

Another full hour later, I crack open the freezer door. Lobster corpse. For sure, this time. Water already boiling, I pull the cutting board the lobster is resting on out of the freezer and slide it gently onto the counter—just in case the bug is only sleeping. I don't want to risk waking the dead again.

My sources suggest rinsing the lobster briefly before placing it into the pot. I turn on the faucet, pick up the bug, and slip it into the stream of water.

The lobster detaches its claw from its body and throws it at me.

This is not hyperbole—the claw bounces off my arm and falls clattering into the sink. I make another high-pitched noise and stash the lobster back into the freezer. Then I run back and pick up the claw and stash that in the deep freeze as well.

Two strides later, I'm at the computer. Google informs me that lobsters often detach their limbs as a defensive measure.

This bug is still alive.

Furthermore, after four full hours in subzero temperatures, this bug is seriously pissed off. So angry, in fact, that it winged its arm at me rather than go gently into that good night. Despite my best efforts, I'm not making this easier on the bug, I'm making it harder. This bug is some sort of zombie Rocky Balboa, and I'm his culinary Apollo Creed. I'm pissing off the most badass undead crustacean motherfucker the planet has ever known.

Enough. Without further ado, I pull the bug from the freezer and slide it quickly into the boiling water. I follow up with its disembodied claw. Then I shoot it with a silver bullet, drive an oak stake through its heart, and hang garlic above the doorway. Deep breath.

After my culinary Romero movie, I turn to my dog-proof microwave and pull out the beef tenderloin, already at room temperature. I dust it with salt and pepper, then lay it delicately into a skillet with some melted butter. It's easy. It's relaxing. It's autopilot. It occurs to me that handling this beef has become second nature to me. That dealing with this particular steer—once the difficult and unfamiliar part of the cooking process—is now the easy part. It's a nice feeling. And the meal, despite the horror-movie drama, is outstanding.