Yasashi Samurai Expert Steak

Back in my whiskey-soaked bachelor days in Manhattan and Tokyo, I used to savor steak-for-one as a mid-week treat.  The marination generally involved a bottle of beer and generous amounts of Worcestershire sauce.

In my Life of blissful marriage, I have tweaked the recipe to suit my most important diner. . . my wife.  The Japanese ingredients make the beef more succulent to the toothe . . . so I deem this “yasashi”, meaning kind or tender.  And hey, it’s a steak, so we need to serve props to the Samurai.

Butcher Eiko in Seattle (if you don’t know the name of your local butcher put yourself in incarcinus carnivorus for five minutes), reco’s rib-eye as the cut to make it happen.  And on the pairing, we go high impact with The Bully Cabernet from our friend Chris Gorman and value with TJ’s Organic Zinfandel.

Ingredients

1 lb. Rib-eye (if bone-in add another ¼ lb.)

Cooking sake or “mirin”

Soy Sauce

2 tbsp. grated fresh ginger

2 tbsp. toast sesame oil

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 tbsp. brown sugar

1 dried red spicey pepper, chopped

Kosher salt and coarse ground black pepper to taste

In a shallow earthenware casserole blend equal parts mirin/sake and soy sauce to create a marination lake of one inch.  Add the ginger, garlic, brown sugar and red pepper and give it a mix with a whisk or fork.

Carefully lay the rib-eye into the marinate, making certain that it is covered completely.  Cover tightly, and refrigerate for 24-48 hours.

When you are ready to cook the steak, remove it from the refrigerator and allow it rest on a cutting board for 20-30 minutes.  Coat it with a generous seasoning of kosher salt and pepper.  Pre-set your broiler to Hi, and grab your most trustworthy cooking pan.  I use a sturdy cast iron skillet, and it always delivers.  Non-stick pans usually don’t have the stamina to go through this. 

Place the skillet on your cooking range and add a tablespoon of high-heat, zero-trans fat oil, and crank of the heat until the smoking point. Add the rib-eye and cook over the range for four minutes.  Next, transfer the entire skillet into the broiler, cooking on high there for an additional four minutes.  This will yield a medium-rare steak that is pleasing to most palettes.

Remove the steak and “tent” it for an additional five minutes.  Slice it into strips with a sharpened chef’s knife and serve with gohan and simple, leafy salad.  Oishii! (“yum”).