Dinner #4 - STEAK!

There used to be a place here in Houston off of West Gray called The Tavern.  Every Thursday night was "Steak Night" at The Tavern, and it was amazing.  Their steaks were aged for 30 days, seasoned, and cooked on an old charcoal pit.  Sadly, The Tavern moved in closer to down town to a smaller location with terrible parking, and closed a few months later.  In honor of "Steak Night" from The Tavern (and because Kroger had the Nolan Ryan steaks on sale), I decided to make...you guessed it: STEAKS!

I didn't want to just have the same old steaks we've had before, I wanted to try to recreate the tastes I've missed on those wonderful Thursday nights.  To do this right, I was going to have to age my steaks.  I had seen Alton Brown explain it once before, so a quick run to Google and I confirmed the steps.  I washed the meat, dried it, put a layer of salt on both sides, wrapped the steaks in a paper towel, and set them on a rack in the refrigerator.  The salt pulls the moisture out of the meat and the paper towels soak it up, so the meat becomes less hydrated and has a higher protein-to-water ratio.  The good meat flavor does not come from what the cow drank.

So, after work today, we came home and I got started.  I decided to give the steaks a nice thick rub of just black pepper and tossed them in a frying pan.  It didn't take long to get a good sear on both sides and get them to the requested temperatures (my wife likes a little pink left in the middle of her steak, I prefer no pink).

While searing and flipping the steaks, I brought a pot of water to boil and added in some nice baby carrots.  Once they were soft, I drained most of the water, added in some butter and honey, and stirred until it all melted together.  Sweet tasty goodness!  I used the leftover fat and grease from the steaks to cook up some mushrooms with a little Worcestershire sauce, black pepper, onion powder, and some flour to thicken it a little at the end.  If you're having steaks, then you've got to have rolls of some kind.  My personal favorite bread-like items are crescent rolls.  It turns out we had one last can in the refrigerator, so I rolled them up (1/2 plain and 1/2 with cheese in the middle), and started them baking.  I'm not sure if the oven wasn't quite hot enough or they weren't in quite long enough, but they didn't really puff up like normally.  They still tasted great though!