Corduroy Orange

Ribeye Steak of a Grass-fed Beef with Fingerling Potatoes and Asparagus

I spread the hot coals (actual charcoal, not briquettes) across only half of the grill so that I could use both direct and indirect heat.

The potatoes, coated with seasoned butter, went down first, over the coals while they were still at their hottest. Because they had the butter on them, I had to be careful as I added them to the grill so that dripping fat wouldn’t cause huge flare-ups. I shook the potatoes over the pan they were in (the pan I used to melt the butter) with my tongs before I added each to the grill. When a flare-up did occur, I covered the grill for about ten seconds to let it die out. This has to be done immediately upon the emergence of flames to prevent a sooty, black coating from being scorched into the skins. Because the fire was so hot, I didn’t wait long after I’d added the last spud before I went back and flipped the first. Its skin had already crisped up. When the potatoes’ skins were all fairly well seared, I moved the spuds over to the indirect heat side of the grill. Once they were away from the flame, I coated them liberally with the butter that remained in the pan.

I let them chill there for about 5 minutes before I added the steak to the hot side. I wanted the fire to die down just a bit, plus I like my steaks in the medium-rare range, so they don’t take a tremendously long time to cook. The steaks had been rubbed with salt, black pepper, white pepper, cumin, and chili powder about a half hour before I started cooking. I seared hatch marks into each side of the steak: once the grill mark had been established in one direction on each steak, I rotated the steaks about 90 degrees and left the same face exposed to the flame. When a diamond pattern had been marked by the heat, I flipped the steak over and repeated the process.

As the last of the hatch marks was getting established on the steaks, I removed the taters to their serving dish. When the indirect heat end of the grill was freed, I moved the steaks to keep them cooking as I put the asparagus (marinated in lime juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper) over the hot coals. They were q-tip thin, so they didn’t take long. A little bit of blistering on the skin and turn them—careful not to let them drop through the grates, keep them perpendicular to the interstices!

Once I rolled the spears, I removed the steaks to the platter to rest, and sprinkled them with just a touch of French grey sea salt and drizzled them with a touch of extra virgin Spanish olive oil. I arranged the asparagus around the remaining space on the platter, and dinner was served.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 6:02 pm and is filed under Cooking Tips, What I Ate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.