Steak

We like this steak served with sauteed mushrooms and polenta, but it would also be great with a green salad or Parmesan Steak Fries (page 83). And since it’s made with commonly available ingredients, you can enjoy it year-round.

The term giò is used not only for the ubiquitous meat paste, but also for describing any charcuterie that is log shaped. Most giò-style charcuterie is wrapped in banana leaf, including this wonderful sausage spiked with dill and crushed black peppercorns. Because beef is a luxury meat in Vietnam, giò bo is a special treat. It is not commonly sold at delis and markets, which is fine because it is simple to make at home. Lean top round steak (a.k.a. London broil) yields great flavor and a fine texture.

This is a fine example of a Vietnamese hybrid dish. In many Viet cookbooks, the prescribed method for cooking potatoes is the double-fry approach (a Belgian technique introduced by the French), which yields nongreasy potatoes that are crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. Atop the perfectly fried potatoes is a mound of stir-fried beef, the juices of which penetrate the potatoes to give them great savoriness. Enjoy this East-meets-West dish as is, with a boiled green vegetable or green salad to round out the meal. Or, treat it like a stir-fry and eat it with rice (as I like to) as part of a traditional Viet meal.

Chinese celery has a wonderfully intense and rather wild flavor when eaten raw, which explains why it is always cooked before serving, as in this simple stir-fry. It looks like pencil-thin stems of Western celery with roots attached, and in a bunch, it could be mistaken for Italian parsley because the leaves are similar. At a Chinese or Viet market, choose Chinese celery that looks crisp and fresh (check the roots) and use it within a couple of days of purchase.

In classic stir-fries such as this one, beef, a special-occasion meat in Vietnam, is paired with a vegetable that is equally prized and costly. Here, it is cauliflower, traditionally considered a luxury vegetable in Vietnam because it used to be grown only in the cool areas around Dalat. To allow these precious ingredients to shine, they are treated simply with little sauce and only a few other ingredients. Taking a cue from Chinese cooks, I use flank steak for stir-frying. Cut across the grain into small pieces, it cooks up to an inimitable tenderness. To complement the beef, I select cauliflower that tastes sweet, looks dense, and feels heavy for its size.

I often pan-sear steaks Vietnamese style, with lots of garlic, black pepper, and Maggi Seasoning sauce, a favorite condiment of the Vietnamese. Thinly slice the steaks so guests may help themselves with chopsticks, plus the juices released are delicious mixed into a bowl of rice. Or, make the steaks part of a Western knife-and-fork meal (bit-tet is the Viet transliteration of the French bifteck) and serve with crispy fried potatoes instead of rice (see Stir-Fried Beef with Crispy Fried Potatoes, page 140, for guidance on cooking the potatoes).

This classic Vietnamese noodle dish features a lightly crispy bed of panfried rice noodles topped with a slightly tangy, saucy stir-fry of beef and vegetables. It is among my favorites. For this preparation, I usually start with dried noodles the size of pappardelle (or wide egg noodles), mostly as a matter of convenience because soft , room-temperature fresh rice noodles are hard to come by. If you should find good fresh rice noodles, use them the day you buy them. You will need to buy a pound for this recipe, and you don’t have to boil them. They are already cooked and coated with oil, so just toss them with salt and panfry.

My mom often prepared this southern noodle bowl for weekend lunches. It is remarkably easy to make, and with the exception of the beef topping, all of the ingredients are at room temperature and can be readied ahead of time. Noodle dishes like this one are popular at Vietnamese American restaurants, where the topping options usually include grilled pork, grilled pork and shrimp, or grilled chicken. The stir-fried beef version is homey fare that rarely appears on menus. I have provided directions for four other versions of this rice noodle bowl at the end of the recipe, for anyone who wants to replicate his or her favorite restaurant dish.

Years ago, I tasted these grilled beef skewers at a restaurant in Orange County’s Little Saigon, where they were served with a hoisin-based peanut sauce. When I got home, I researched the recipe in cookbooks published in Vietnam decades ago and developed this recipe, which includes shrimp sauce (mam tôm) to give the beef a distinctive savory depth. Typical of food from Vietnam’s central region, these skewers are rich and a bit salty. Dipped in the earthy sauce, they are addictively good—the perfect match for a cold beer, margarita, or gimlet. Tri-tip steak (from the bottom loin), a flavorful cut that California cooks like to grill, is ideal for these skewers. A thick piece of flap steak (from the short loin), which is oft en used for carne asada, also works well. For the true flavors of the Southeast Asian table, grill the beef over charcoal or a gas grill. In the absence of a grill, use the broiler.

I first brought this steak out at Bobby Flay Steak in Atlantic City. It caused enough of a stir to prompt me to serve it at Bar Americain, where, to the delight of our patrons, it is Saturday’s plate of the day. Flavorful, juicy strip steaks are massaged with a chile-laden spice rub and topped with sweet golden caramelized onions—because I definitely order my Philly cheese steak “wit” onions! The cheese choice has always been more of a dilemma for me—the flavor of provolone is far superior to that of classic Cheez Whiz, but I love the smooth, melted texture of the Whiz. I created my own answer to that age-old dilemma for this steak: the provolone sauce is creamy, luscious, and full of sharp cheese flavor. Seriously, this steak is drool-worthy good.

A favorite cut of butchers, hanger steak is also the steak of choice for the quintessential French bistro dish steak frites. It may not have the cachet of a hulking porterhouse or a pricey filet, but what it lacks in name it more than makes up for in taste. Hanger steak has a rich, beefy flavor that is enhanced here by a savory rub. Bar Americain’s steak sauce is a balanced blend of the sweet and sharp notes of molasses, honey, Dijon mustard, and horseradish. You could serve this steak with Fries Americain (page 164) for your own steak frites, or you could make it the centerpiece of an American steakhouse meal by pairing it with Brooklyn Hash Browns (page 163) and Creamed Kale (page 169). (Both the rub and the steak sauce are available for purchase at bobbyflay.com.)

Tom Perini started as a chuck wagon cook. Ten years later, in 1983, he opened The Perini Ranch Steakhouse on the family spread in Buffalo Gap, not too far from Abilene. After twenty-five years, his business is still going strong. Tom has cooked all over the country, including the White House, and he still takes his 1850svintage chuck wagon to rodeos and other events throughout Texas. Chicken-fried steak is one of my all-time favorites, and I knew exactly where to go for a genuine rendition. Tom gave me permission to adapt this recipe from his book Texas Cowboy Cooking. He says, “Cream gravy is a must with chicken-fried steak.” No argument there, so I’ve included his gravy recipe too.

Despite all my big Texas talk, the truth is, I don’t make classic chicken-fried steak for myself. Between the prep work and the calorie count, it’s just not practical. Instead, I make something that requires no pounding, no dredging in egg and flour, no inch of oil in the pan. It’s inspired by my favorite steaks growing up: those at Margaret Heinen’s Western Sky, where the cooks would rub crushed garlic into the steaks, very lightly dredge them in flour, and grill them over wood. The light coating was positively delectable. I pan-fry my steak, pair it with boiled and smashed new potatoes, and finish them both with a quick sauce of anchovies, butter, and parsley. I don’t call this chicken-fried, for obvious reasons, but it tastes like Texas just the same.

Flank steak has to be pretty much the best thing this side of getting a foot rub while drinking a root beer float. But it’s tough. It’s ornery. There is a common strategy to making flank steak supple enough to eat without popping your jaw out of joint: marinating. I’ve made coffee and ginger marinades, lime and tequila marinades, smoked salt and chile pepper marinades, vinegar and sugar marinades, you name it. Every time, great steak. But think of the poor steak: a wonderful, flavor-packed piece of meat subjugated to intense acids and sugars and salts. What if you’re a purist, racked with guilt? The flank steak puts you in a quandary. How do we get the elemental flavor out of a meat that resists the teeth? As usual, the solution to every quandary is to think outside the box, or in this case, outside the pan. The two simple tricks to this dish (if you can call steak seared on a giant block of salt a dish) are cutting the meat thin, against the grain, and cooking it fast at a high temperature. Oh, and don’t cook it on indifferent steel, but on a block of glowing, flavor-packing, tenderizing Himalayan pink salt.

One of the great diversions of life in France is an intimate evening at the local bistro, where mainstays of French food are reduced to their basic elements for quick, casual dining. Côte de boeuf en croûte de sel is among the great bistro dishes: beef rib steak, cut tremendously thick, perfectly cooked, and served piping hot with a little herbed butter. Roasted potatoes can accompany the dish, but it is perhaps best to leave the steak to itself; the dish is so simple, so satisfying, that you will likely find yourself thinking of little more than another sip of good red wine and a nice green salad to round things off. This preparation calls for a lot of salt, but fear not, the resulting steak will be seasoned to perfection. Whatever you do, use moist sel gris, never desiccating kosher salt, for your salt crust.

If the restaurants that produce them are any indication, the superlative steaks of the world cannot be reduced to a simple formula. Consider Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecôte in Paris, where the brisk waiter actually serves you half a steak, then gives the other half to another person, and then, just as you are finishing the last bite of your first half, he brings you another half-steak right off the grill—a miraculous second coming. Consider Raoul’s in New York, where the experience of eating is suffused by an equally savory experience of sitting, drinking, observing, and conversing. The only way to rival these folks is to take matters into your own hands: an excellent steak, the best pepper, the perfect salt, and thou. Tomes have been written on how to cook a steak. Precious little has been said on how to salt one. To cook: start with a lot of heat, finish with a little. Do the opposite with the salt: cook with no salt at all, or very little, if you really must have some. When the steak is served, choose the most beautiful sel gris you can find and let fly.

When I was first married, back in the late sixties and early seventies, going out to eat was reserved for very special occasions. Because of our tight budgets and young children, our social lives consisted of cooking out with our friends on Saturday nights. When the steaks and Vidalia onions were piled on our plates and we took our first bites, I think for a short while we all forgot that we were as poor as church mice, because we were eating like kings. What fond memories these Vidalia onions bring back!