BEEF STEAK IN THE TUSCAN STYLE
RECIPE: Beef Steak in the Tuscan Style, with Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Makes 1.
Ingredients
1 1-pound Kansas City bone-in steak
1 tablespoon Tuscan extra virgin olive oil
Directions
Heat a cast-iron or stainless steel skillet over medium-high heat until very hot (5-6 minutes). Add the olive oil to the skillet, swirling it around. Immediately add the steak and press down on it with tongs until a crust forms on one side, about 5 minutes. Flip it with the tongs and cook the second side until it, too, is deeply browned, about 3-4 minutes more. Sear the fatty edge opposite the bone-in edge against the side of the skillet for 1 minute.
Remove the steak to a cutting board and let it rest for 3 minutes, no less, no more. Serve, drizzled with more olive oil as it rests, or brushed with the following optional finishing sauce.
Optional finishing treatment: You may brush the steak with this sauce after cooking it and just before serving it: a blend of 1 anchovy (in oil), mashed to a paste; 1/2 teaspoon oil from the anchovy tin; 1 small clove garlic, grated or mashed to a paste; 1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt; 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper; and 1 and 1/2 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Further, in true Tuscan style, serve the steak with a salad of dressed mixed greens garnished with flat-leaf parsley leaves.
Wine Pairings and why: One very simple, failsafe wine and food pairing is a tannic red wine and seared steer. The normally astringent, even bitter tannins of many red wines are quickly mollified by both the blood protein and the fat of red meat (especially when it is not over cooked). Tannin is an organic substance found in many plant tissues, including grape skins and stems and oak barrels. Add together these three latter elements and it’s a recipe for red wine. You already know tannin; it’s in tea leaves, walnut and almond skins; too-long-chewed Popsicle sticks. Tannin binds with fat and blood protein to make them seem less oleaginous; they in turn soften tannin’s astringency. They need each other and you need tannin.
But step carefully into this pairing if you finish the preparation with the suggested topping. Salt makes abundant tannin even more astringent, so choose less tannic, smoother reds such as Spanish Red Rioja, or a Châteauneuf-du-Pape or other Grenache-based red, perhaps even a well-aged red Bordeaux whose tannins will have mollified with time. Because this recipe comes from Tuscany, of course a Sangiovese-based red such as Morellino di Scansano or Vino Nobile di Montepulciano would be nice. Just be sure it is not overly “extracted.”