Adam Ragusea
Уровень B1· 560 слов
Steak and ale pie, exactly what it sounds like, a hearty British classic, often made with little chunks of stew meat, but with steak in the name, I like to have a large steak of beef that I can cut up on my plate. And to get that, you could use many different things. I'm using a large chuck roast, which is
shoulder meat, 3 lb, kilo and a half. If yours looks like this, then it is technically a steak. You see the meat fibers running up and down there. This has been cut across the fibers into a wide, relatively thin piece, aka a steak. I want to break it into a few steaks for serving, so I'll just go
ahead and pull the meat apart at the seams. A big shoulder steak has pieces of many different muscles, all separated by fat and connective tissue. You should only need the knife here and there to separate the muscles, and once I have, I'll trim out some of that intermuscular fat. Intramuscular fat, aka marbling,
like that. That is good. That is crucial. It flavors and moistens the meat. These concentrated hunks of fat from between the muscles just melts over the cooking, and they contribute an excess of grease to the sauce, so out they come. There is my steaks. Maybe I'll cut that big one in half. Yeah, one
or two of those per person, you got at least four portions worth here. I'll need some fat to brown them in, and we already have these chunks, so in a cold pot they go with a little water. Turn the heat on moderate, and just slowly render some fat out of those chunks. If things start browning before much fat
has come out, add more water. It'll rapidly evaporate. There we go. That is plenty of fat. Plus, we've already got some brown flavor going. Take out those chunks and discard. Season the steaks really heavily, lots of pepper and salt.
These are thick pieces. I always just leave extra seasoning on the board that I can mop up with the other sides. That way I only have to wash my hands once.
And in these go to sear in that hot fat. Biggest chunks first. Actually, I'm going to take that one out. I'm worried about crowding the pan, which is when the water coming out of the meat is so great that it interferes with the browning process. You can't overwhelm the pan with more moisture
than it can readily evaporate. I've got good color on the first side there, so I'm just going to flip things around.
And the meat is already shrinking, so I can probably fit that piece back in there. Now we can try to brown the rest of these on their sides a little bit, which then opens up room for these smaller pieces that'll take less time to cook anyway, so it all worked out. Real quick, I'll peel and slice this onion.
Doesn't really matter how you cut it because these pieces are just going to melt by the end. Move the meat around, try to get as much color on all the sides as I reasonably can without letting the stuff at the bottom of the pan burn, which would ruin the sauce.
That is more than enough browning. You could take the meat out to make room, but I'm lazy. I'm just going to pile it up on one side, drop in my onions, and keep them moving as I get some color on them. Use the water that comes out of them to scrape off the bottom of the pan before it burns. Maybe push the onions
