Mesa Grill Menu - Steak Rub & Sauce

The real, original, Mesa Grill in New York's signature dish (or, one of them) is a New York strip steak with the following spice rub and steak sauce.

It goes for USD 32 a crack down there on 5th Avenue (plus tax & tip). Another 7 for the twice baked potatoes, and 7 again for the corn salad. Sum: 46 + 9% = 50 + 20% tip = $60 per person! That, dear readers, was just for the main dinner plate. I guess I'm glad that I don't live in New York anymore! I don't remember it being so very expensive back in 2002.

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Mesa Grill Steak Rub

Serves: 8 (8 tablespoons, ½ cup)

Ingredients

• 2 T dried ancho chile powder
• 1 T spanish paprika (sweet, not hot paprika) (best is paprika from Vera [the little red tins])
• 1 T ground coriander
• 1 T dry mustard
• 1½ t dried oregano
• 1½ t ground cumin
• 1½ t black pepper, freshly ground
• 1½ t arbol chiles, ground up (you might use a mortar for this) (or use regular dried hot red chiles - from China or somewhere)
• 1 T kosher salt

Procedure

1. Mix together. That's it.

Notes

1. Use 1 T per steak (although they recommend 2 T I find that that much doesn't all stick to the steak anyway)
2. Rub on only one side
3. Keeps for 6 months in a zip freezer bag or some such thing so double or quadruple the recipe freely (doesn't have to be in the freezer though, nor refrigerated)

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Mesa Grill Steak Sauce

Serves: 2 cups

• 1 cup ketchup
• ½ cup prepared, ground, horseradish (the dryish sort; if it's liquidy you must drain it))
• 3 T honey
• 2 T Dijon mustard
• 2 T pure maple syrup
• 2 t worcestershire sauce
• 2 T dried ancho chile powder
• 1½ t kosher salt
• 1½ t black pepper, freshly ground

Procedure

1. Mix together. That's it.

Notes

1. Use the sauce to decorate the plate (do a better job than I did [see picture])
2. You can do a heaping ½ cup of horseradish without ruining the recipe; if so, add a tablespoon or two of ketchup (to give a runny enough viscosity to the sauce)
3. More ancho chile powder would be harmless as well; so make it two heaping tablespoons
4. For 4 steaks you could halve the recipe unless you're very heavy users of steak sauce
5. Keeps for a long as you'd keep ketchup and horseradish; nothing very perishable in it
6. Making this with a homemade ketchup would be more elegant

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Spice Crusted New York Strip Steak

Get some New York Strip steaks; 12 ounces (350 grams). Well marbled, with spots of fat throughout the meat, not just some stripes of fat within it. It will likely have a strip of fat along one side/edge - that's fine. An inch thick [2,5 cm]. If you're light eaters then one steak for two people. Spend some money to get good meat: it is, after all, the whole point of this dish.

Procedure

Salt (kosher) & pepper one side of the steak. Put a tablespoon of rub on the other side - rub it in a bit - let the excess drop off (if any).

Put some (olive) oil in a grill pan; high heat 'til about smoking then down to medium high; slap in the steaks with the spice side down. Think of 4 minutes for side 1, 4 minutes for side 2 - that gets you a good medium rare probably.

Summer in Toronto

At last a few nice days in a row and the barbeque's been fired up; at last!  The official national summer diet of steak, corn on the cob, baked potatoes and did I mention the steak?

I eat in a lot of fine fine restaurants, cook fancy food - but it's been a long time since I had a great barbequed steak.

This was great!  The first of many - I hope.

Steak Tartare [Tartar]

This here is meat. Not expensive meat; it's what we normally grind into hamburger meat (beef); a sirlion. Steak Tartare isn't made with the "top top" cuts because they're too lean.

In Spain we typically buy the meat at the butchers and they grind it to order. Not this one; I'll chop it by hand.

These are the ingredients for Steak Tartare. There's lots of them, I forgot to put the egg in the pic and photoshopped it in.


You can/should hand chop the beef. It only takes a minute (literally) - if you have a good sharp knife.


The finished product. Click on the pic to see it larger than life-size.


It's quite similar to making a hamburger but mixing the pickles and mayo with the meat instead of having them separate in the bun.



Inspiration: see: Les Halles Cookbook; Anthony Bourdain

Steak Tartare

Serves: 3

Ingredients

• 1 egg yolks
• 1 T Dijon mustard
  
• 2 anchovy filets, very finely chopped
• 1 t ketchup (yes, really - homemade if you've got it)
  
• 1 t Worcestershire sauce
  
• Tabasco sauce, more is good
  
• Black pepper
• 2 T corn oil
• 2 T Cognac
  
• ½ small onion, brunoise, fine [diced]
  
• 25 g capers, rinsed [1 oz]
  
• 25 g cornichons, finely chopped [1 oz]
  
• 2 sprigs of flat parsley, finely chopped
• 375 g fresh sirloin, chopped, by hand [12 oz]
  

Procedure

1. Put the serving plates into the fridge (hours before, if you like)
   
2. egg yolk into a smallish bowl
   
3. add dijon and smooshed anchovies
• mix well
  
4. add ketchup, Worcestershire, Tabasco, and pepper
   
• mix well (again)
  
5. Slowly... whisk in the oil (use a whisk if youve got it
   
• You're making a very light dressing/mayonnaise
6. add cognac
• mix yet again.
  
7. Reserve some onions for decoration.
8. Fold the rest of the onions, capers, cornichons, and parsley (don't mix - just fold in)
   
9. Add the meat to the bowl
   
• mix well, use your hands (or a spoon if you're the overly neat type)
  
10. Get the cold plates. Split the meat into 3 parts, form into disks (use a ring mold if you've got one, or a hamburger mold, or an old tuna can)
    
11. Decorate with the chopped onion
12. Eat it now; after all, it is raw meat
13. Really good with french fries

Notes

1. You don't need a really big bowl, There's not a whole lot of volume in this, maybe a half cup of sauce and then, later, the meat.

Carne: Meat for Lunch

Speaking of pictures, here's a simple one of lunch a couple of days ago. It's naturally raised (organic) beef from the fine people at Braman. Delicious; has real taste. Supermarket meat is bland in comparison. These are field raised, fed real food without chemicals, hormones or unnecessary antibiotics. Then, on the down side (for them) slaughtered (that is, killed); but in a supposedly more humane manner than the average cow. Probably that all makes the meat better for you - - and it certainly seems like the decent, humane thing to do; giving them the best possible life under the circumstances. If you're gonna eat meat do so in a way that is thoughtful of the end to end process. Thus endeth today's lesson.

Picture might be a tad fuzzy because I was using the macro setting - - but at too great a distance.

Preparation:

• Salt and pepper both sides
• A sprinkle, very slightly, a little chinese 5 spice powder
• Grill (oven broiler) side one for 7 minutes
• Side 2 for 5 minutes
• Eat

Sometimes food is not complicated.

Steak: Entrecôte: Solomillo de Buey: Filet Mignon

A quick lunch today. Fast; and easy cleanup.

Set the oven to 200 C (395 F)
Put a oven-proof pan on a burner, on high; with a touch (2T) of olive oil. Wait for it to start "smoking". This is gonna be hot. Not bacon wrapping of this filet is required. It will be cooked fast and hot and it won't be drying out; not to worry. Of course this does require a pretty thick piece of meat.

Lay the meat in the pan [tied with kitchen string to keep the shape]. Lower heat to medium-high. Wait for one full minute. Don't touch it. Surprisingly, even in a not non-stick pan, it probably won't stick. You want a real decent touch of colour.
You want a real decent touch of colour.
Turn over. One full minute on this side too.

Do the edges. This will take about 3 or 4 parts at maybe 30 seconds apiece. This is more for color than anything.

Into the oven. This is the part where professionals do it different than home-cooks. Usually at home you would just cook (sauté) it longer in the pan but that runs the risk of burning the surface. This finishing it in the oven bit helps you avoid that.

Five minutes for the first side. Turn over & do the other side. Remember… the pan handle will be VERY very hot. Use a towel. In fact it would be good to get into the habit of always touching metal handles only with a towel. This avoids the need for later skin grafts. - ouch.

Poke at it to determine doneness; give it a pretty good poke if it's a thick piece like this.. If it feels squishy it's (still) rare.

Which, in this case with a top-quality piece of meat, is exactly what you want. Not blood-runny but a good solid type of rare.

Serve with horseradish and Dijon mustard.