Summary:

1. Salt your steak prior to cooking, ideally 24 hrs before
2. Sear it, don’t overcook it
3. Let it rest 10 min before cutting it

I’m doing a whole post on steak because, well, steak deserves it. Steak can be intimidating for people... and it can feel high steaks (see what I did there) if it doesn’t go right. 

I don’t buy steak that is over $15.99/lb. Also know I WILL NOT buy the most affordable steak product, chuck roast. It’s not tasty, even when you cook it for hours. Or days. Not worth it. I also do not like short ribs, even boneless short ribs. I just don’t get it.  Ground beef has it’s own use and I don’t address it in this post. I very much appreciate ground beef. 

I’m usually purchasing a top sirloin or skirt steak. What I’m looking for is a cut with some “marbling” or fat, but not too much. I always end up cutting the extra fat off, so why would I pay for that? 

I usually cook steak 1-3 days after going to the grocery store, after eating the fish that I bought from the store. Fish goes bad faster, so it’s the first thing I cook after going to the grocery store. 

The best thing you can do to make your steak great is to salt it 24 hours prior to cooking it. Up to 48 hours is fine. Raw steak won’t keep for much more after that, though the salt helps.

The second best thing to do for your steak is to take it out of the freezer at least 15 min before you cook it. Ideally, the steak would be room temperature when you start cooking it. Room temperature steak means that the steak would cook more evenly and it’s less likely that you’ll have a burnt exterior and too-raw interior. 

You’ll want your pan over medium-high heat. Add a thin slice of butter or a squirt of olive oil once the pan is hot, then add the steak. Cooking time will depend on the thickness of the meat. For an inch of meat, sear 2-3 minutes/side, getting a dark brown seared color. That’s where all the flavor is.

Let the steak rest 5-10 minutes before you cut into it. If you cut in sooner, all the tasty juices will run out of the steak. Letting it rest seals in the juices and flavor. 

Pay attention to the smells of your pan and steak. As you make more steak, you’ll be able to trust your nose to know when to flip the steak. You’ll also start to get the feel for how stiff the steak becomes as it cooks. The more well-done it is, the stiffer the steak.

I go for medium-rare. It’s a celebration of the meat. A well-done steak has left flavor dimensions. 

Gordon Ramsay has a much watched YouTube video on how to make the perfect steak. How he moved the steak and bastes the steak with butter is quite sophisticated. You can graduate to that at some point, but the method above sure does work. I bet it would be closer to Gordon Ramsay’s if there was a 1/2 stick of butter and more salt on the steak. Just saying. 

If I’m feeling sophisticated, I’ll smash a piece of garlic and fry it in my little bit of oil, for a minute or two, before adding the steak. You could also add a piece or two of onion, fresh rosemary, or fresh sage. Dry herbs will burn. 
 
I’ve now taken to cooking a large piece of steak and having it ready to go for my next few meals. Cooked steak stays good for much longer than raw steak. If I know I’m going to be keeping some in the fridge, I super make sure to keep it on the rare-medium-rare side, so when I heat it up, it’s still good and not overcooked. When I’m ready to eat the steak, I cut it into bite size pieces and arrange it in a ring on a dish so the pieces warm up evenly. If it’s a weak microwave, I just zap it for 30 or 45 seconds. If it’s a strong microwave, I cook it for 90 seconds on power level 5 and see where that gets me. 
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Steak was made ahead.
Here’s how to do it.

I used kelp noodles for the first time with this bowl. It turns out you need to boil them until they’re soft like normal noodles! 

Ingredients

• Steak
• Noodles or buckwheat
• Veggies
• Cilantro and green onion for garnish
• Dipping sauce: Combine 1tbs fish sauce, 1 tbs lime juice, 1 tbs sugar if your diet allows it, 4 tbs water

Directions
Layer you bowl: noodles or buckwheat, arrange veggies around the sides, put your protein in the middle. Serve with dipping sauce. You’re set! 

Adapted from The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham

**Begin the night before

 Makes about a dozen four inch pancakes.
 
Ingredients

• 2 cups buttermilk
• 2/3 cup Old Fashion Oats (not instant)
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons oil 
• 1/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt

Directions

1. At least 6 hours before making the pancakes, mix the buttermilk and oats together in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate (overnight is fine).
2. Put the egg in a mixing bowl and beat well, then stir in the brown sugar and blend. Add the flours, baking soda, salt, oil, and the oatmeal- buttermilk mixture. Stir until thoroughly mixed.
3. Heat a heavy griddle or skillet until it is good and hot, then film with oil. Drop the batter by tablespoons (about 2 1/2 per pancake) onto the griddle and cook until lightly browned on each side.

Adapted from The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham
This is Elena’s go-to recipe for a weekend breakfast, though this recipe takes at least 3 bowls. Makes about 10 waffles.
 
Ingredients

• 2 cups milk
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 2 eggs, separated
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

 
Directions

1. In a measuring cup combine the milk and vinegar, stir, and let stand for 10 minutes. Put the egg yolks in a large mixing bowl and beat until uniform and slightly more pale (Quickest done with a balloon whisk but any whisk will do). Stir in the sour milk and set aside. In another bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt, and whisk until well mixed. Add the flour mixture to the yolk mixture and beat with a whisk until smooth. Stir in the melted butter and whisk until well blended.
2. Using a handheld mixer, beat the egg whites until stiff but still moist, (Again with a balloon whisk) for a few minutes. Gently fold the whites into the batter.
3. Add the batter to the preheated waffle iron and cook.

This is our go-to cupboard dinner. Ingredients are basic, but the result is delicious. Green French lentils are best, but conventional lentils also work.
 
Ingredients

• 1 small onion, peeled
• 1 medium carrot, trimmed, peeled, and cut into 4 to 6 pieces
• 1 celery stalk, trimmed, peeled, and cut into 4 to 6 pieces
• 1 garlic clove, smashed, peeled, and germ removed
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 1/2 cups chicken broth, vegetable broth, or water
• 1 cup white wine
• 1 shallot, finely chopped, rinsed, and patted dry (optional)
• Freshly ground pepper
• Grated parmesan for on top

 
Directions
In a medium saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and cook until softened, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes. Add carrot, water, lentils, bay leaf, thyme, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Simmer until lentils are tender, about 25 minutes. Remove bay leaf, adjust seasoning and serve.

Adapted from the Zuni Cafe, San Francisco
The Zuni cookbook describes this salad as “Sort of a scrappy extramural stuffing, it is a warm mix of crispy, tender, and chewy chunks of bread, a little slivered garlic and scallion, a scatter of currants and pine nuts, and a handful of greens, all moistened with vinaigrette and chicken drippings.” Yum.

Ingredients

• Generous 8 ounces slightly stale open-crumbed, chewy, peasant-style bread (not sourdough)
• 6 to 8 tablespoons mild-tasting olive oil
• 1 1/2 tablespoons Champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar
• Salt and freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 tablespoon dried currants plumped in 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar and 1 tablespoon warm water for ten minutes or so
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts
• 2 to 3 garlic cloves, slivered
• 1/4 cup slivered scallions (about 4 scallions), including a little of the green part
• 2 tablespoons lightly salted chicken stock or lightly salted water
• A few handfuls of arugula, frisée, or red mustard greens, carefully washed and dried

 
Directions
Preheat the broiler. Carve off all of the bottom and most of the top and side crusts from your bread (you can reserve these to use as croutons for soup or another salad). Tear bread into irregular 2- to 3-inch chunks, wads, bite-sized bits and fat crumbs. You should get about 4 cups.

Toss them with just a tablespoon or two of olive oil, lightly coating them, and broil them very briefly, just to lightly color the edges. If you’d like to toast the pine nuts (recommended) you can put them on your broiler tray as well, but watch them very carefully — they cook quickly!

Combine about 1/4 cup of the olive oil with the Champagne or white wine vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Toss about 1/4 cup of this tart vinaigrette with the torn bread in a wide salad bowl; the bread will be unevenly dressed. Taste one of the more saturated pieces. If it is bland, add a little salt and pepper and toss again.

Heat a spoonful of the olive oil in a small skillet, add the garlic and scallions, and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until softened. Don’t let them color. Scrape into the bread and fold to combine. Drain the plumped currants and fold them in, along with the pine nuts, if they were not already mixed with the bread scraps from the broiling step. Dribble the chicken stock or lightly salted water over the salad and fold again.

Taste a few pieces of bread — a fairly saturated one and a dryish one. If it is bland, add salt, pepper, and/or a few drops of vinegar, then toss well.

If you’re going to serve the salad under the roast chicken (recipe above), you can pile the bread salad on the serving dish you want to use and tent it with foil. If you want to serve it separately, do the same, but in a 1-quart shallow baking dish. Hang onto the bowl you mixed it in — you’ll use it again.

Place the salad in the oven after you flip the chicken the final time, for about 5 to 10 minutes.

Tip the bread salad back into the salad bowl. It will be steamy-hot, a mixture of soft, moist wads, crispy-on-the-outside-but-moist-in-the-middle-wads, and a few downright crispy ones. Drizzle and toss with a spoonful of the pan juices. Add the greens, a drizzle of vinaigrette, and fold well. Taste again.

Adapted from the cookbook from the Zuni Cafe, San Francisco

The original recipe falls over three-plus pages in a small font and includes a fantastic amount of detail, but it has been surmised here as best as possible.  For the best experience, serve Zuni Chicken with the Bread Salad below, but you can also use any of your favorite side dishes instead or serve it at a casual dinner party. The real genius here is a great roast bird with a little forethought, but no fuss. Serves 2 to 4

Ingredients

• One small chicken, 2 3/4 to 3 1/2-pounds (two small birds are better than one larger bird)
• One good handful of herbs, any combination of rosemary, parsley, basil, sage, etc. will do
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 to 1 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
• A little water

 
Directions: One day before
Season the chicken: Rub the chicken down with salt and pepper, not too much, but don’t worry since you will rinse it off before you begin cooking it. [1 to 3 days before serving; give a 3 1/4 to 3 1/2-pound chicken at least 2 days]

Remove and discard the lump of fat inside the chicken. Rinse the chicken and pat very dry inside and out. Be thorough — a wet chicken will spend too much time steaming before it begins to turn golden brown.

Approaching from the edge of the cavity, slide a finger under the skin of each of the breasts, making 2 little pockets. Now use the tip of your finger to gently loosen a pocket of skin on the outside of the thickest section of each thigh. Using your finger, shove an herb sprig into each of the 4 pockets.
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Season the chicken liberally all over with salt and pepper. Season the thick sections a little more heavily than the skinny ankles and wings. Sprinkle a little of the salt just inside the cavity, on the backbone, but don’t otherwise worry about seasoning the inside. Twist and tuck the wing tips behind the shoulders. Cover loosely and refrigerate.
 
Directions: Day of total time is 45 minutes to 1 hour
Preheat the oven to 475°F. Choose a shallow flameproof roasting pan or dish barely larger than the chicken, or use a 10-inch skillet with an all-metal handle (we used a 12-inch cast iron frying pan for a 3 1/2 pound chicken). Preheat the pan over medium heat. Wipe the chicken dry and set it breast side up in the pan. It should sizzle.

Roast the chicken: Place the chicken in the pan in the center of the oven and listen and watch for it to start browning within 20 minutes. If it doesn’t, raise the temperature progressively until it does. The skin should blister, but if the chicken begins to char, or the fat is smoking, reduce temperature by 25 degrees. After about 30 minutes, turn the bird over — drying the bird and preheating the pan should keep the skin from sticking. Roast for another 10 to 20 minutes, depending on size, then flip back over to recrisp the breast skin, another 5 to 10 minutes.

Rest the chicken: Remove the chicken from the oven and turn off the heat. Lift the chicken from the roasting pan and set on a plate. Carefully pour the clear fat from the roasting pan, leaving the lean drippings behind. Add about a tablespoon of water to the hot pan and swirl it.

Slash the stretched skin between the thighs and breasts of the chicken, then tilt the bird and plate over the roasting pan to drain the juice into the drippings. You can let it rest while you finish your side dishes (or Bread Salad). The meat will become more tender and uniformly succulent as it cools.

Serve the chicken: Set a platter in the oven to warm for a minute or two.

Tilt the roasting pan and skim the last of the fat. Place over medium-low heat, add any juice that has collected under the chicken, and bring to a simmer. Stir and scrape to soften any hard golden drippings. Taste — the juices will be extremely flavorful.

Cut the chicken into pieces, spread on the warm platter (on top of the Bread Salad, if using).
Capitalize on leftovers: Strain and save the drippings you don’t use, they are delicious tossed with anything or stirred into beans or risotto. You can also use them, plus leftover scraps of roast chicken, for a chicken salad.

It’s scary to consider cooking a whole fish because we’re used to perfectly cleaned and cut fillets from the grocery store. If you’ve considered getting a whole fish, it’s difficult to figure out where to start. Armed with a few tips however, and cooking a whole fish becomes second nature.

Fish are best bought at the seafood counter or a farmers market. You pick out a fish, ask the butches to clean, gut, and butterfly the fish, then you’re ready to go. A half pound fish is good for a light meal for two people. A 1 pound fish will be plenty for two people for dinner. As the fish increases in size, there is a greater proportion of meat. A four pound fish would be enough for 8 people, or 4 people for dinner then leftovers for a day or two.

In San Francisco, we were lucky to have a farmers market at the Ferry Building, which  has fish caught the same day from Monterrey Bay, at a reasonable price. Chinatowns also has live fish.

Ingredients

• 1 whole fish
• Flavoring to stick inside it

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 275.
2. Rinse the fish thoroughly in the sink. Fill the cavity in the fish with whatever you wish and some salt and pepper. Rosemary and lemon is a classic combination that can never go wrong. Feel free to use any pairing of citrus, even oranges, and herbs like parsley and dill. Other combinations include thinly sliced ginger with a splash of soy sauce and rice wine vinegar for an Asian take.
3. Bake at 275 for 25 minutes for a half pound fish. Increase time by 10 min for each additional half pound.

This recipe yields kale chips far better than any available in stores. They are delicate and do not store well, but there are never any leftovers. 

Ingredients

• 1 bunch kale
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• sprinkle of salt

Directions
Tear kale into bite-size pieces, discard stems. Add kale, olive oil, and salt in a big bowl. Mix and squeeze kale in your hand well until all kale turns a little darker. Arrange kale on an oven sheet in a thin layer, leave space between kale. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes, or until edges kale dries out and turns a green/brown. You’ll be able to smell it when they’re done. Repeat for additional batches.

Adapted from Fabio's Italian Kitchen.
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If you are a fan of Top Chef and know Fabio Viviani, please look up his story of “leeks tucked in bed”. If you are not a Top Chef fan, do not worry, as this is a wonderful recipe that is simple and yet will woo dinner party guests. The key to this recipe is blanching the leeks long enough – they should be nearly ready to eat when you align them in the pan. Serves 6.

Ingredients

• 8 leeks, cleaned
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 tablespoon mustard
• 1 tablespoon dark balsamic vinegar
• 2 cups Pecorino or salty Parmesan cheese, grated
• 6 slices prosciutto

 
Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350˚F.
2. Cut the top 2 inches off the leeks (the green part), and chop each leek into 1-2 in leek logs. Blanch them for about 10–12 minutes in boiling salted water, remove from water and drain. Arrange logs so they are standing up standing up on their ends like soldiers, close together, in an ovenproof pan. We used a cast iron skillet, but a 9’’ square baking pan would be good as well.
3. In a large bowl, mix the olive oil, salt, pepper, mustard and balsamic glaze. Add the leeks and toss them to coat. Pour over the leeks and be sure to get it into the “rings” of the leek logs.
4. Shave some cheese over the leeks, then lay the prosciutto over the cheese if you are using it, tucking the slices under the bottoms of the leeks so they are fully covered.
5. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the cheese or prosciutto starts to get really crispy. For serving,