The Food Maven Diary
[Archives]

[Previous Entry] [Diary Home] [Next Entry]

04/23/2007 Archived Entry: "Kashruth Controversy and Cooking Steak"

While I was away in Italy, a small storm brewed over the kashruth observance at Le Marais, a kosher steakhouse at 150 W. 46th St. in the Theater District that is supervised by the Orthodox Union (OU is the symbol or hecksher that it is known by).

One of the restaurants two mashgiachs, the highly trained men who supervise the kitchen, making sure everything is done according to the Jewish dietary laws, reported that the chef was not doing everything according to the rigorous Jewish dietary rules. When management did not fire the chef, which the mashgiach demanded it do, he reported what he felt were the infractions to the OU.

The OU investigated and found no intentional fault on the part of the chef, or that anyone eating in the restaurant was ever at risk of eating something not kosher. Neither the kitchen nor the food had been compromised, it said. The other mashgiach (who happens to be a friend of mine) wrote and signed an affidavit that all was, indeed, kosher at Le Marais. The claims of the other mashgiach, which included statements by other people who denied making such statements, were shown to be unfounded.

The disgruntled mashgiach went on the internet and made outrageous claims about the restaurant, the chef, the Orthodox Union, etc., claiming a “cover up.”

I heard about all this from several subscribers who wanted to know what I knew, which was nothing until I got home and made some phone calls and received copies of all the correspondence and claims on both sides. There was quite a brouhaha about this in the kosher community. Le Marais claims their business has suffered because of the mashgiach’s claims on the internet (and, I have to say, some people in the kosher community’s willingness to believe him), and they are now suing him. It is a very sad story.

Meanwhile, with steak on his brain, one of my subscribers, a fan of Le Marais, wondered why he couldn’t make a good steak at home. One thing he wanted to know was if there really is something to having “aged” meat, or is aging was just hype. The answer is: You can make an excellent steak at home and aging counts big time.

Having said that, it is difficult to find aged kosher beef, although Le Marais does, indeed, serve it.

The ultimate steak, kosher or not, is USDA prime-grade beef that has been “dry aged” for 28 days in controlled humidity and temperature. There is a lot of waste to this process, so dry aged” beef is very expensive. Besides having to cut off the exterior that gets moldy, the meat dehydrates. That helps concentrate flavor. In addition, the aging process itself – enzyme action -- changes the flavor of the meat, making it taste meatier.

Because this is such an expensive process, generally only prime grade beef is used. However, there is very little prime beef in the world. Prime is the fattiest grade because fat produces tenderness and juiciness. It has the most exterior fat, which can easily be cut off after cooking. And it has the most interior fat -- euphemistically called "marbling" because it gives the meat the look of marble. (You can use the word marbleized to apply to many things.) Very little kosher meat is USDA prime – hardly any, if any. In fact, I have never seen prime kosher beef for sale, although I am told it exists.

Okay, so what's a steak-loving boychick or girlchick to do?

You should buy the most marbleized slab of USDA choice-grade rib steak that your kosher butcher has. If you have a good relationship with your butcher -- maybe you should start developing one -- ask him to find this meat for you. Rib steak is the best kosher steak cut, although I happen to love skirt steak, too, but that's a decidedly different thing.

Have your butcher cut the meat 1 ½ inches thick. Season it with salt, no pepper. Heat your broiler to the highest it will go, placing the broiler pan in such a place that the steak will be no more than 4 inches away from the heat. Preheat the broiler pan.

When the broiler pan is very hot, put the steak on the pan. Now, how long you cook the steak depends on how you like it – rare, medium, well. I find that 5 minutes on the first side and 4 minutes on the second side is medium rare on the rare side. I like it like that. The middle will only be warm. There is no such thing as a rare steak that is hot. When I hear people in restaurants complain that their rare steak is not hot I want to slap them into sense. A rare steak cannot also be hot. Anyway, you have to fiddle around with the broiler rack placement and the timing to suit your broiler and taste for doneness. (I have an excellent gas broiler in my very basic, residential model Amana stove.)

If you like well-done steak (I simply won't eat it -- why waste calories on something I don't like) then you have no problem. Cook it further from the heat source and cook it too death. If you like medium done, just pink in the middle, it will probably take a few tries before you get it the way you like -- perfectly. In this case, you may also want to distance the meat a little further away from the heat. The hardest degree of doneness to achieve in a home broiler is rare at the center and nicely crusted on the outside.

I pepper my steak at the table, and generally add more salt, too. But if the meat is flavorful -- as a great steak will be -- I don't want to mess with it. If I have a lesser steak, such as one that I picked out of the meat case of my market, then lots of smothered onions and maybe some mushrooms help it along.

You can also make a very credible steak on top of the stove. I use a black iron skillet that I heat up until a drop of water will instantly evaporate. I use about the same timing as in the broiler. It creates a lot of smoke, as your broiler might, too. So remember the smoke alarms. The skillet method is actually better if you have a thin steak, meaning less than 1 inch.