Maybe I was thinking just steak and okra would be too white-bread.

In any event, I had this big beautiful yellow/orange heirloom tomato which was aching to be a part of this meal, so I decided to turn it into a salsa. It became a problem when I added some jalapeño, even a really, really small amount of jalapeño, to a mix that wasn’t going to be heated (and chopped very finely, which I later found had only added to the problem, because it made it almost impossible to spot and remove the offending source of heat).

Neither of us is afraid of a little capsicum, but the salsa, while it suggested it would have been very interesting had it been more tamed, turned out to be almost impossible to enjoy. I eventually managed to pick out pieces of tomato that showed no sign of any pepper bits, but I was sorry we both missed the kind of refreshing salsa that would have been a spicy exclamation point for the meal.

I think that biting directly into a pepper obviously gives a much more concentrated dose of the chili oils, and cooking them with other ingredients would spread them through a dish more evenly, reducing the impact because the oil would have been distributed throughout a much larger volume of food.

• two thick picanya cuts of steak (10.8 ounces each) from Sun Fed Beef in the Union Square Greenmarket, defrosted, brought to room temperature, seasoned on all sides with sea salt and a generous amount of freshly-ground black pepper, seared for less than a minute on the top, thick, fat-covered side inside a dry oval heavy enameled cast iron pan, then the 2 long sides cooked for 4 or 5 minutes each and the ends briefly seared, removed from the pan at the moment it had become perfectly medium-rare (checking with an instant-read thermometer), arranged on warm plates, a bit of juice from an organic Chelsea Whole Foods Market Mexican lemon squeezed on top, followed by a drizzle of a little Portuguese olive oil, a Whole Foods’ house brand, scattered with garlic flowers from Alewife Farm and chopped summer savory from Lucky Dog Organic Farm, allowed to rest for about 4 minutes before being served

• twelve ounces or so of small (mostly) green okra from Campo Rosso Farm, sautéed over a high flame inside a very large enameled cast iron pan in a little bit of olive oil along with 3 tiny dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia, seasoned with local sea salt
• one large yellow/orange heirloom tomato from Eckerton Hill Farm cut into relatively thin wedges, mixed gently inside a medium bowl with a very small part of a fresh jalapeño pepper, very finely cut, one fresh sliced habanada pepper (the first of the season) from from Campo Rosso Farm, a bit of sliced fresh red onion, salt and pepper, a pinch or so of cumin seed, a good squeeze of lemon, and a little olive oil, allowed to rest until the steak and potatoes were ready to be served, at which time they were joined by some chopped fresh epazote from TransGenerational Farm, arranged inside low black bowls and scattered with micro red amaranth from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• the wine was a Portuguese (Duriense/Douro-Porto) red, Ramos Pinto Duas Quintas 2014, from Garnet Wines
• the music was Johann Christian Bach’s 1772 opera, L’Endimione, Bruno Weill conducting the Cappella Coloniensis

 

The best steak.

The plate suggested the New York steak house classic: Steak and potatoes, with something green on the side. There were even chives, but they weren’t to be found on the baked potato, and the vegetable proved that everything green is not spinach. Actually, I think everything was very different.

We don’t eat out much, and I think neither of us has been to a real steak house more than once in our lives.

In fact, we don’t eat beef of any kind very often, but when we do it’s normally a steak, and the steaks I’ve chosen more and more are of a single perfect cut, the sirloin cap steak (aka ‘rump cover’, ‘rump cap’, or ‘culotte’ in the United States, and ‘coulotte’ in France, ‘picanha’ in Brazil). There are reasons for this, and we’re reminded of them every time we’re able to enjoy the texture and the flavor of this great cut.

I’m noting right now, for my own records at least, that for once no fancy micro greens showed up for dinner. Maybe it was an unconscious obeisance to the sturdy fare served in the classic steak houses that still remain in this city.

• one perfect, frozen 23-ounce picanha/culotte steak from Sun Fed Beef in the Union Square Greenmarket, defrosted, brought to room temperature, seasoned on all sides with sea salt and a generous amount of freshly-ground black pepper, seared for less than a minute on the top, thick, fat-covered side inside a dry oval heavy enameled cast iron pan, then the 2 long sides cooked for 3 or 4 minutes each and the ends briefly seared, removed from the pan at the moment it had become perfectly medium-rare (checking with an instant-read thermometer), carefully cut crosswise into 2 pieces of the same weight, arranged on warm plates, a bit of juice from an organic Chelsea Whole Foods Market lemon squeezed on top, followed by a drizzle of a little of Trader Joe’s Italian Reserve extra unfiltered virgin olive oil, scattered with scissored fresh chives from Phillips Farms, the steaks allowed to rest for about 4 minutes before being served

• just under a pound of La Ratte potatoes from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, halved lengthwise, tossed with olive oil, a small amount of crushed dried habanada pepper, sea salt, and freshly-ground black pepper, roasted inside a large seasoned Pampered Chef ceramic oven pan, cut side down, inside a 400º oven for about 20 minutes

• one not-so-large bunch of high tunnel-raised cavolo nero (aka lacinato, Tuscan kale, or black kale, among other names) from Norwich Meadows Farm, wilted briefly inside a heavy antique medium size tin-lined copper pot in a tablespoon or so of olive oil after several halved cloves of garlic, also from Norwich Meadows, had first been heated there until fragrant and softened, the greens seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper and drizzled with a little more oil
• the wine was a Spanish (Catalonia/Priorat) red, Sao del Coster Priorat 2015, from Crush Wine & Spirits

• the music was Bernhard Gander’s album, ‘Bunny Games’, the music performed by Klangforum Wien, here meaning Hsin-Huei Huang, Krassimir Sterev, Emilio Pomárico, Johannes Kalitzke, and Sylvain Cambreling

 

[image of Gander’s album cover from KAIROS]

Size didn’t really matter.

Until the package had defrosted, there was no way to tell how many pieces of steak it contained, or, of course, how much each weighed. Those numbers aren’t all important however, at least until it’s time to put the dinner on the 2 plates, when questions of aesthetics and fair apportioning arise.

As it turned out, the package held 3 pieces of sirloin cap (aka coulotte/culotte/picanha), each a different size. We would be 2 at the table that evening, so my solution to ensure portion fairness was to cut them all into halves, and then juggle them to see that each trio weighed the same.

The steak was delicious, and we each had our (modest) fair share, so aesthetics be damned, although the presentation doesn’t look half bad in the picture above.

• three pieces of sirloin cap steak from Sun Fed Beef in the Union Square Greenmarket, weighing approximately 13 ounces together, each divided into 2 pieces because they were all very different in weight, brought to room temperature, seasoned on all sides with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, seared for less than a minute on the top, thick, fat-covered sides inside a dry oval enameled heavy cast iron pan, the 2 long sides cooked for 2 or 3 minutes each, then removed from the pan the moment they had become perfectly medium-rare and arranged on 2 warm plates, topped with a pat of ramp butter (a leftover, frozen, from some made for a much earlier meal), the steaks allowed to rest for about 3 minutes before being served

• a generous mix of mostly red Kyoto carrots (pictured above) and some more familiar loose orange carrots of the same size, both from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed, dried, sliced once lengthwise, rolled inside a large unglazed ceramic Pampered Chef oven pan with a little olive oil, salt, black pepper, more than half of a teaspoon of crushed Italian fennel seed, and a bit of crushed dried habanada pepper, roasted at 400º for about 30 minutes, or until tender, arranged on the plates and garnished with micro chervil from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• a few small Brussels sprouts from Migliorelli Farm, the last of a supply purchased late in December (Brussels sprouts are one more member of the terrific huge mustard family (Brassicaceae) that’s such a great boon for cooks in the winter), washed, trimmed pretty intensely by hand, and dried, tossed inside a bowl with a little olive oil, salt, and black pepper, plus a bit of dried  peperoncino Calabresi secchi, then roasted inside a small unglazed seasoned Pampered Chef pan, a medium size this time, until the sprouts were slightly brown and crisp on the outside

There was a cheese course.

• two cheeses, an Ardith Mae Farmstead, Columbia County, NY, camembert-style using 2 milks (goat from their own farm and cow from that of a neighbor, Liz Baldwin’s Shunpike Dairy) and an Eastern Connecticut cows milk, Cato Corner Farm Dairyere Reserve (aged one year)
• a garnish of micro red mustard from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• slices of a nutty whole wheat She Wolf Bakery miche from the bakers’ strand in the Union Square Greenmarket
• dried Calabrian (Amantea) figs from Buon Italia in the Chelsea Market

 

• the wine throughout was an Argentinian (Luján de Cuyo/Mendoza Province) red, Bodega Norton, D.O.C Malbec 2015, from Flatiron Wines
• the music throughout was Puccini’s 1896 opera, ‘La Bohème’, Bertrand de Billy conducting the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, with soloists Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazón, Boaz Daniel, Nicole Cabell, Stéphane Degout, and Vitalij Kowaljow [after two succeeding evenings with extremely popular operas, first ‘La Traviata’, and now ‘La Bohème’, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of our friends will be asking themselves, “Are those two all right?”]

With a little extra help from the Greenmarket.

The first course required little more talent than an ability to open a container.

• eight ounces of a squid and conch salad, with olive oil, parsley, red pepper, lemon juice from P.E. & D.D. Seafood in the Union Square Greenmarket, made by Delores Karlin, the wife of Phil Karlin, the fisherman, arranged on a thin bed of wild cress from Lani’s Farm
• slices of a levain (organic wheat, whole wheat, and whole spelt flours) from Bread Alone
• the wine was a Portuguese (Lisbon) white, Dory Branco 2016, from Garnet Wines

The second course was almost as easy, for several different reasons: The potatoes almost cooked themselves, as did the steak, whose sauce was simply resurrected from the freezer, and preparing the tomatoes, which didn’t require cooking, was simply a matter of cutting them up, mixing them with a few things I had on hand, and then letting them sit for a spell.

• two sirloin cap steaks (aka ‘culotte’ steak, ‘coulotte’ in France, or ‘picanha’ in Brazil) from Sun Fed Beef in the 23rd Street Market at Saturday’s Chelsea’s Down to Earth Farmers Market, one block away from us, weighing approximately 12 ounces together, each divided into 2 pieces because they were very different in weight, brought to room temperature, seasoned on all sides with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, seared for less than a minute on the top, thick, fat-covered side inside a dry oval enameled heavy cast iron pan, the 2 long sides cooked for 3 or 4 minutes each, then removed from the pan at the moment they had become perfectly medium-rare and arranged on 2 warm plates, topped with a pat of a little toasted yellow mustard and Sicilian fennel seed butter (a leftover, frozen, that had originally been made for a rack of lamb meal 4 months earlier, the steaks allowed to rest for about 4 minutes before being served

• a few small red thumb fingerlings from Norwich Meadows Farm, halved lengthwise, tossed with a little oil, 4 or 5 unpeeled (to keep from burning) rocambole garlic cloves from Keith’s Farm, a small amount of crushed dried habanada pepper, sea salt, and freshly-ground black pepper, roasted inside a medium Pampered Chef ceramic oven pan, cut side down, in a 400º oven for less about 20 minutes

• three organic tomatoes, each of a different color, from Toigo Orchards, cut into relatively thin wedges, mixed gently inside a medium bowl with 2 thinly sliced fresh grenada verde peppers and one fresh habanada, pepper, a squeeze of an organic lemon from Whole Foods Market Chelsea, and a little olive oil, allowed to rest until the steak and potatoes were ready to be served, at which time they were joined by a small mix of several chopped fresh herbs and a quite small drizzle of balsamic vinegar
• the wine was a Spanish (Rioja) red, CVNE (Cune), Rioja Crianza “Vina Real”, 2014, from Flatiron Wines
• the music was Walter Braunfels, ‘Die Vogel’, in a performance with Lothar Zagrosek conducting the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the Berlin Radio Chorus heard on a CD recording we had purchased soon after it was released in 1997

Color has returned to the table, especially in this appetizer.

• a couple handfuls of delicious, very juicy ripe shishito peppers (normally sold before they are mature, and still green in color, they move toward orange and then red as they mature) from Berried Treasures Farm, washed, drained, dried, then sautéed over medium high heat in a seasoned 13.5″ cast iron pan for a few minutes, stirring, until they had blistered nicely, then seasoned with Maldon salt
• slices of a farmer-ground half white and half whole wheat She Wolf Bakery miche, to help soothe the impact of the hotter of the peppers

The main course was also simple enough, but also no less exciting for being so, and it was pretty easy to assemble.

• one 11-ounce steak (a cut called ‘culotte’ here, ‘coulotte’ in France, ‘picanha’ in Brazil), from Sun Fed Beef/Maple Avenue Farms in their stall at Saturday’s Chelsea’s Down to Earth Farmers Market, just down the block from us, brought to room temperature, cut into 2 pieces, seasoned on all sides with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, seared for less than a minute on the top, or thick, fat-covered side inside an oval enameled heavy cast iron pan, the 2 long sides cooked for 3 or 4 minutes each, then the ends and the narrow bottom side seared, each very briefly, removed from the pan at the moment they had become perfectly medium-rare, arranged on 2 warm plates, each topped with a pat of defrosted ramp butter made last April using some small, first-of-the-season woodland ramps from Lucky Dog Organic Farm, a bit of juice from an organic lemon from Whole Foods Market, and some Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’, the steaks then allowed to rest for about 4 minutes before being served

• just under a pound of Japanese sweet potatoes, from Lani’s Farm, left unpeeled but washed thoroughly, cut as for short french fries, tossed inside a bowl with olive oil, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, 3 large unpeeled cloves of rocambole garlic from Keith’s Farm, and a pinch or two of crushed dried habanada pepper, roasted in a 425º oven in a  large much-treasured very-well-seasoned Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic oven pan for about 35 minutes, or until crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and a little chewy on the edges, some Maldon salt thrown onto the pan after it was removed from the oven, the frites arranged on the plates with some sunflower greens from Windfall Farms arranged at their side
• the wine was a California (Lodi) red, Karen Birmingham Reserve Zinfandel Lodi 2015, from Naked Wines

• the music was a magnificent new recording of the complete cycle of Mahler’s ‘Des Knaben Wunderhorn’, in a piano transcription by the composer, with the coloratura soprano Diana Damrau and the baritone Ivan Paley beautifully accompanied by Stephan Matthias Lademann; the 2-CD set is billed as the first to present Mahler’s piano version of his Knaben Wunderhorn songs with two voices

 

[image of boy with horn, uncredited there, is from BBC radio]