London Fucking Broil!

Beef, in case you’ve missed it, is really fucking expensive now. I wanted to make steak and the rib-eye at the grocery store and the butcher shop was $10.99 a pound, making that like a $40 meal. So the second choice was this cut of beef I got when I asked the butcher for something cheap to stir fry with (here; look for “some beef that isn’t ridiculously expensive for a stir fry”). He didn’t tell me what cut of beef it was he gave me, but it was perfect — and cheap(er), too. So this time I asked him: it was the shoulder, or top round: “You know, London Broil.” OK, I nodded.

So now I’m looking it up: it’s the top round (which is what it looked like). It’s certainly not buttery and flaccid like a goddamn tenderloin but it’s also not too chewy and cheap tasting either. It is perfect for stir fry, by the way.

But tonight I was thinking we should try to sous vide it, reasoning that the exactness of the cooking might benefit from a precise temperature. I googled what folks cook it at and saw, basically, between 131 and 140. The 140 was reported to be a little too cooked. I did 131. It passed the kiddo test, in that a real life kiddo ate it, but I think it could have gone up a few more degrees. Oh, and I marinated it overnight in a mixture of miso, sake, soy sauce, spicy pepper, garlic and sesame oil; basically a preparation I found in Tadashi Ono & Harris Salat’s The Japanese Grill: From Classic Yakitori to Steak, Seafood, and Vegetables for either skirt steak or flank steak, I forget which. Miso, incidentally, is so versatile and great for enzyming protein and salty flavor. (Also, that book includes a traditional home cooking recipe for spinach with ground sesame seeds which I will get to some other time and which is so unassailably airtight that you’ll want it all the time.)

And while we’re at it, ladies and gentlemen, let’s give it up for mushrooms sauteed in the schmaltzy chicken fat rising to the top of chicken soup. Yum!