All About Steaks

Last night on the Line I learned all about steaks.

First, I get this huge side of beef (well, maybe about 20 pound chunk of New York Strip). Then I found the scale, covered the tray where I laid the meat portion with plastic wrap.

Then, I got a red cutting board, sharp chef's knife, and 400 half pan for the steaks.
The goal here was to trim the excessive fat off the huge chunk of meat. Then, at first using an educated guess, I cut what I hope is a 10 ounce portion. Weigh it. Pretty close, a little over, but that's better than under. My co worker is training me, and he's pretty good.

After doing that whole chunk, we do another.
Then it's rib eye steaks. The goal here is a 12 ounce portion. A person can tell a rib eye by the way the fat swirls at the top, and the huge chunk has these lobes where it was trimmed from the ribs.

Once the restaurant opened, and steaks were ordered, the real challenge begins as order after order pours in for "Rare" "Medium Rare" "Medium" "Medium Well" and "Well". The New Yorks get salt and pepper. The rib eyes get a special rub. I mixed this rub which included about 8 spices.

A person doesn't want to over cook a steak. It can always be refired if the customer says its too bloody. Its just meat juice, there's really no blood in it. But, just do it.
But, if a steak is over done, no good. A person has to get rid of it. That's a lot of money down the drain.

Later that night I got introduced to the Saute station. More about that tomorrow.

I look at this Zion experience as more than a job. Jobs come and go, but this is a whole 'nother ball game. In a kitchen with just men ( women servers but no women cooks) seems like every day I have to prove myself, hang in there, no overly emotional displays.

As cooks, we can do some outbursts. Hell's Kitchen and Chef Ramsey saw to that.