Adam D. Roberts's Blog, page 14

Hail Mary Pizza

Have you ever had the experience of eating at a restaurant, one that you sort of took for granted, and as you’re chewing mid-meal you realize that this isn’t just a good restaurant, it’s a great restaurant, and the whole world should know about it only you don’t want them to because that’d make it harder to get a reservation, even though this restaurant doesn’t take reservations?

That’s what happened to me last night at Hail Mary Pizza in L.A.’s Atwater Village (the village in which I live). In the space that once housed the beloved restaurant Canele, something exciting is happening. I knew it when I tasted the tomato salad, but I also knew it when the pizzas hit the table. Actually, I knew it when I stood at the counter ordering.

Do you see what I see? Food up on the counter, like a cafe in Europe: there’s cookies, cake, whole peaches, tomatoes, melons.

Things that I would normally find irritating at any other restaurant, I found charming here: bad air-conditioning. Counter-service only. Fetch your own plates and silverware.

The wine was really good: a chilled Lambrusco that was kind of the perfect thing on a hot summer’s night, with all of this spicy food.

And then the food. Check out this tomato salad:

That tomato salad was something else: sure there were the requisite heirloom tomatoes, but then there were big slivers of toasted garlic. There was a zesty, bright dressing that had some heat to it. And then all of those herbs. It’s the best tomato salad I’ve had this summer, and I’ve had a lot (including the one that I made myself).

Then there was the corn:

A riff on Mexican street corn, this was grilled to perfection, then slathered with a Calabrian chili butter, and then topped with a giant mound of Parmesan. It was outrageous. I don’t even like biting into corn on the cob (we were going to a party after and I didn’t want to have corn in my teeth!), but this was worth it.

But we haven’t even gotten to the pizza yet. The main pie you see above — okay, I’ll post it again — was called the Pep-Pep.

That had spicy pork chorizo, pepperoncini, tomato sauce, and mozzarella. It was the most exciting pizza I’ve had in a long time: mostly because of the heat (those chilis were spicy), but also because the dough that they use at Hail Mary is fermented with wild yeast and it makes such a difference. The same sort of fizzy funk that you get in a natural wine, you get in the pizza crust here. It rivals Mozza, as far as I’m concerned, for best pizza in L.A.

But we’re not done: we also got the Aye-Dunno, which had onions, gorgonzola, Mornay sauce, and — strangely enough — lettuce and ranch dressing piled on top.

There was some debate at the table about this lettuce on top of our pizza — “This would be better without the lettuce,” someone might have said — but I loved the boldness of this presentation, the weirdness of it. And also how much it made sense: people dip their pizza crust into ranch dressing, here was the ranch already on top of the pizza.

For dessert, we shared a salted chocolate chip cookie (excellent) and a brownie (just okay) but I think the star dessert would’ve been the Basque cake. I’ll get that next time. (Sorry for this blurry picture.)

In summary, let’s not tell too many people about Hail Mary, but I think there’s a world where a food critic could discover it and make it a thing and then we’ll never get to go there again. We’ll just keep this between us.

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Sausage with Corn, Sausage with Clams

The other day I bought a package of Hickory Smoked Sausage (at Cookbook, I told you I’d be talking about that place a lot) and it came with four sausages that I stretched out over two dinners, both of which — if I do say so myself — were pretty terrific.

The first involved serving the sausage as its own thing, which almost made me do it as a separate post since the corn salad that I served along with it was really the star. Let me tell you how I made it.

It’s kind of shocking how easy it is to turn an ear of summer corn from good to amazing; funny enough, it involves shocking.

Here’s what you do: boil water. Salt it heavily. Drop in your husked corn. Boil for four minutes. Shock in ice water.

Ta-da!

The cooking somehow makes it sweeter and the shocking helps it retain its freshness.

Use a sharp knife, cut the kernels off, and put them in a bowl. At this point you could add anything: I added a minced shallot and halved sungold tomatoes, along with olive oil, a splash of white wine vinegar, salt, and Aleppo pepper.

After tossing it, I realized that I still had a large, red heirloom tomato, so I cut that into cubes and added it too.

To finish, I chiffonaded some basil and stirred that in.

Admittedly, that picture should be the lead picture and this post should be just about that. Where the heck is the sausage? Calm down! I heated up a pan and melted some butter and toasted some buns in it.

Then I wiped out the pan, added a splash of grapeseed oil, and added two smoked sausages and cooked them until they were good and charred all over.

I put them on the buns, slathered with mustard, and served alongside the corn salad. I was going to put them on the same plate, but the corn salad got very wet, so this is a very unattractive picture. I’m not sure why I’m including it.

But this was a really great summer dinner that tasted like we were eating it outdoors, even though it all happened inside.

If you’re good at math, you’ll recall that I bought a package of four sausages and I used two of them, so there were still two left.

Which is why last night, I put them to work with a pound of clams that I picked up at McCall’s.

I always put clams in a bowl of cold water with a spoonful of flour to help draw out any grit. These clams were called “savory clams” which, according to the person who sold them to me, just meant they were a little brinier.

To cook ’em, I sliced the two remaining sausages, smacked some garlic cloves out of their skins (leaving them whole), and sliced up a bunch of pickled Peppadews.

(That wine was for drinking; I’d be using half a bottle in a second…)

This is so easy and so incredible, you really should try it. All you do is heat a large skillet — big enough to hold everything, and one with a lid — with a splash of olive oil. When it’s hot, you add the sausage. Let it brown on one side, then stir all around, and add the garlic.

When everything is good and toasty (and not burned) add half a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc (be careful: I lower the heat before I added a liquid to a hot pan). (Also: I should say here that the sausage gave off a lot of fat, so I poured some off before adding the white wine.) I also added a splash of the Peppadew liquid, for a little zip. Then I added the sliced Peppadews and brought everything to a boil.

On Instagram stories, I called this a “flavor jacuzzi” because that’s what it was. I cooked on a low boil until the liquid reduced by half and the garlic was super tender (a knife went through each clove easily).

At this point, you add the clams. This is so easy, it’s kind of hilarious. You just lift the clams out of the bowl into the pan, put the lid on, and crank up the heat. Literally a minute later, you’ll have this:

The second the clams open, I take them out with my fingers. You don’t want to overcook the clams.

And that’s basically it: you can let the liquid reduce a bit more once the clams are out, but you don’t want to reduce it too much or you won’t have anything to dip your bread into.

Ladle the sausage and Peppadews and garlic and broth over the clams in bowls.

Serve with bread to soak up all that liquid (the bread’s the most important part). Also a crisp Muscadet works great here.

And there you have it: two dinners from one package of sausages. Package of sausage. Sausages. Copy editor, please work on that.

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A Monday Night Picnic

I’m very suspicious of tomatoes. Even in July, I raise an eyebrow when I see a beautiful heirloom: “Nice try,” I’ll say. “But we all know you’re not at your best until August at the earliest, most likely September.”

But yesterday I journeyed to Cookbook in Echo Park (you’ll be hearing about that place a lot: it’s pretty much the best food store in L.A.), and there they were: tomatoes that seemed to be peak summer tomatoes. How did I know? The colors were bright, the textures had just the right amount of give, I popped a sungold into my mouth and it exploded with sunshine.

So I knew I had high-quality summer tomatoes to work with, but how to turn them into dinner?

Fun fact: our kitchen isn’t air-conditioned and it gets hot in there. So I decided to make a Monday night picnic that required zero minutes of cooking.

In addition to what you see above, I purchased two cheeses — a goat cheese from Spain, and a sheep’s milk cheese from upstate New York — and a baguette. I had olives and hummus from the farmer’s market at home.

When it was time for dinner, I dealt with the tomatoes first. I sliced the big red ones into slices and wedges, cut the green ones in half, and plated them on my two nice Heath Ceramics plates (I only bought two, for nights where it’s just us) and drizzled the tomatoes with incredibly good olive oil that I just got from Monsieur Marcel at The Grove (the manager there let me taste a few and I picked Titone from Italy: it’s grassy and burns your throat a little).

I drizzled a little Balsamic over the top (this was also fancy Balsamic — I sound so Ina — that was a gift), Maldon sea salt, and pepper. Then I chiffonaded basil, put that on top, and added the sungold tomatoes whole.

I mean, you’ve gotta admit: that’s pretty gorg.

As for the rest, I sliced the baguette into slices; I cut the cheeses in half; I spooned some hummus on to the plates and piled on some olives. Cracked open a bottle of ice cold rose, lit some candles, and there you have it: our Monday night picnic.

Seriously, this tasted better and more refreshing than anything I might’ve cooked. Do yourself a favor and keep those burners off, this summer. Make an indoor picnic.

It’s time to trust tomatoes again.

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P-Town

For the past three years, we’ve been going with a group of friends to Provincetown, Massachusetts. Located on the very tip of Cape Cod, P-town (as its known) is a gay-friendly paradise: beaches, bike-riding, BenDeLaCreme: P-town has it all.

There are certain rituals that are very important to those of us who go back to P-town year after year. The first, and most important, is Frosé.

What’s Frosé? WHAT’S FROSE? Frozen rosé of course!

We get it at The Canteen, which is pretty much our favorite place to eat in P-town. You order at a counter and then bring your food out back, where picnic tables are set up on the beach.

(I promise there’s a pretty view of the water, I just forgot to take a picture of it.)

Besides Frosé, there’s lots of seafood-y things to order at The Canteen. On our first night there, I had a lobster roll which definitely hit the spot. Even better: on our next visit, I had the fried oyster roll.

If that doesn’t look like summer on a bun, I don’t know what does.

Maybe the best bite of all, though, was this massive Gay Pride rainbow cookie.

Loyal readers of this blog will know that rainbow cookies are my favorite cookie, and this one proved that sometimes bigger IS better.

After The Canteen, our next favorite place to eat in P-town is Liz’s Cafe.

Liz’s reminds me of the kind of cozy, small town diner that Vito Spatafore escapes to on The Sopranos when he’s discovered as gay and that hunky bear makes him Johnny Cakes. The food at Liz’s always hits the spot; we like it best at brunch, when the food can cure even the worst hangover.

I always try to get a little sweet and savory on the plate:

Our third P-town fixture is The Red Inn where we traditionally go for Happy Hour drinks (it’s got a terrific view) and where we often wind up eating dinner.

This year, though, my friend Justin Chapple turned us on to a spot that was an instant favorite and certain to be at the top of the rotation next year: Pepe’s Wharf.

As you can see: the view here is unimpeachable, and the food is also top notch. Plus, they have a drink here that — shocker of shockers — is even more addictive than Frosé: it’s Fraperol. That’s right… basically a frozen Aperol Spritz. (The bitterness helps temper the sweetness better than Frosé.)

Justin recommended I get the colossal shrimp, and they didn’t disappoint.

And the coconut cake caused a fight between me and Craig, but let’s not get into that.

Otherwise, we’re big fans of Pop & Dutch: a sandwich shop on the island’s west end.

Here’s my green goddess chicken salad on a brioche bun.

And every day, when we wake up, we go to Kohi Coffee for a cold brew and a view.

Really, though, Provincetown is about the nightlife. We saw many a wonderful drag show: highlights were Dina Martina’s (if you’ve never seen her show, you must) and BenDeLaCreme’s “Ready To Be Committed” which had us in stitches. Turns out, Ben went to high school with our friend Jonathan and we all got to hang out with Ben after the show:

Our favorite place to drink in P-Town is definitely Gifford House: on the top floor you have a porch and a piano bar where Billy Hough enchants with his covers of songs by St. Vincent and Depeche Mode; downstairs you have a cavernous space where I may or may not have attended an underwear party. (What?! It’s possible.)

The most essential bite in all of P-Town, though, is definitely a slice of pizza at Spiritus after a night of revelry. Spiritus is where everyone congregates when the bars close. And the pizza is actually very good (or is that the alcohol talking?):

What else? You’ve got to trek to the beach. You should take a bike ride through the Beech Forest (though I opted out this year). Dinner at Strangers & Saints is also very good, especially if you get to sit out front and watch the people go by on Commercial Street.

Mostly, though, you’ve just got to get a group of friends together and go to P-town.

Next year’s trip can’t come fast enough.

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A Tale of Two Lasagnas

Hi, so we’re going to Provincetown next week and I’ll be off the grid and I wanted to leave you with one more post before I go. Here’s one about two lasagnas.

Our friend and neighbor Kyle had a birthday last week and I offered to cook him a dinner. I could tell he was excited about the idea of a meat lasagna, but one of the guests didn’t eat pork, so I had two options: 1. Disappoint Kyle and make a big vegetarian lasagna (no meat!); or 2. Make TWO lasagnas, one meat, one vegetarian. I’m thinking, by the title of this post, you’ve already figured out which path I chose…

The funny thing is: I was afraid that two lasagnas would be wayyyyyy tooooo much food. I was using Ina recipes (natch) (do people still write “natch”? I always cringed when I saw it, I don’t know why I’m doing it) and they both fed 8 to 10. We were only 6. What was I thinking?

Well, in the back of my mind, I figured: it’s never a bad thing to have too much food. You can send people home with leftovers! And whatever people don’t want, we could eat the next day or freeze. Too much food is a good thing.

And guess what?

PEOPLE ATE SO MUCH LASAGNA.

Either I’m friends with a bunch of greedy eaters or — more likely — there’s no such thing as too much lasagna. There were even lasagna groupies watching me in the kitchen:

(That’s Yoshi, Kyle’s dog. He and Winston are best friends.)

For the record: the meat lasagna was the more popular of the two. It was 100%, entirely eaten.

And before you ask, here you go: the meat lasagna recipe (it calls for turkey sausage, but I use pork) and the vegetarian lasagna recipe.

Here’s everyone at the table, before they ate over FOUR POUNDS OF CHEESE.

Sorry that pic’s a bit blurry: I think my lens was smudged.

For dessert, I made one of my favorite all-time recipes: this flourless chocolate cake. It’s so easy and so good. Here’s our friend Jerome helping me whip cream for it:

(Always make your guests whip the cream by hand: it’s interactive and makes it taste better because they see how much work goes into it.)

And here’s the birthday boy with his cake:

Happy birthday, Kyle!

That’s all for this week, folks. I’m off to P-town: I’ll be back on the blog again after the 14th. See ya!

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The Mind-Blowing Quesadilla at Salazar

I was just about to tell you about this quesadilla at Salazar in Frogtown here in L.A. — I’d just posted the picture — when the room started wobbling and the pictures on the piano started rattling and Winston gave me a worried look and I realized I was experiencing my first feel-able L.A. earthquake.

Wow, that was unsettling! I do feel a little woozy: it’s hard to talk about quesadillas. But I’m going to soldier through, just for you.

There was a period in my life when I disavowed brunch. We were living in New York and we’d go to this place, I think it was called Good(?), and we’d wait for an hour and then spend a fortune on eggs, toast, and coffee. I said to myself: “From now on, we’re just eating brunch at home!” and ever since then, basically, I make the eggs, toast, and coffee myself.

But every so often, you just want to get out and experience the world on a Saturday. We live in Atwater Village and our outdoor brunch options are pretty minimal, which is why Salazar is so great. It used to be impossible to get into (it was the hot restaurant of the moment, when it opened) but now it’s settled down a bit and we go there quite often on the weekends: it’s pretty much my favorite brunch spot in L.A.

Plus: we can bring Winston! (Not pictured: Winston.)

All of the food at Salazar is pretty great. Their guacamole is top-notch:

And they have horchata, which you can add coffee to and agua Frescas that you can add booze to. Here’s a booze-less watermelon agua fresca:

But we are here today to talk about Salazar’s quesadilla, which is easily the best I’ve ever had.

What makes it so good? Well: the flour tortillas are made in-house and they’re fluffy and fresh, almost like savory pancakes. But flakier and crispier. Actually, forget the pancake metaphor: they’re more like flatbreads.

And then it’s stuffed with a filling of your choice (I chose “pollo asado”) and lots of cheese and presented with two dipping sauces, one a rough, roasted kind of salsa, the other an avocado dip. Here it is, once I cut into it:

It’s a massive event, this quesadilla, but it rivals all of my favorite carb-heavy meals in L.A.: the pizza at Mozza, the pasta at Alimento, the soup dumplings at Din Tai Fung.

So do yourself a favor and, if you live in L.A., treat yourself to a quesadilla at Salazar.

I survived an earthquake just to tell you about it.

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Taste The Rainbow Chard Frittata

Craig and I have a routine we do on Mondays. He pours a glass of wine and asks, “Want some?” and I say: “I don’t drink on Mondays.”

It’s not that funny, but it happens almost every Monday. “I don’t drink on Mondays.” It’s basically my catchphrase. I say it because I do drink wine on weekends, and frequently on nights that aren’t Mondays, but on Mondays I give my body a break. That was until yesterday.

A new friend asked me out for Happy Hour drinks and not wanting to be a party pooper, I decided not to text back “I don’t drink on Mondays” and, instead, I met him at a bar near my apartment and had two $5 Old Fashioneds.

Man, they were strong! I can normally hold my liquor, but these got me very sauced very fast. When I got home, I realized I needed to eat dinner and Craig was at a dinner with different friends (probably drinking, even though it was Monday).

I quickly recalled that I had rainbow chard in the refrigerator from the farmer’s market and I had just watched Chef Sarah Grueneberg* cook Swiss chard on Ming Tsai’s PBS show this past weekend, so I decided to follow suit. (*She was so good on TV, she should have her own show.)

I sliced the stems into thin slices and cooked them, along with an onion, in lots of olive oil in a non-stick skillet.

Here’s where things got dicey: I sliced all of the leaves and then added them to the skillet with a big pinch of salt and a splash of water, stirring everything around, and covering for a bit.

Yeah, I know, that was a lot. But give me a break: I was tipsy!

Miraculously, that all cooked down — I added more salt and lemon juice as it went along — and then I added six eggs that I beat with a fork, along with more salt and pepper.

On top of the eggs, I crumbled big chunks of goat cheese and then — once the edges were set — I popped the whole thing under the broiler.

Only took a minute or two before the top was set and there I had it: a beautiful rainbow chard frittata with goat cheese.

I sliced a few wedges for myself and served it with a big piece of seeded sourdough bread from Cookbook in Echo Park.

This frittata was so good; one of the best I’ve ever made. It just tasted so green and deep and the goat cheese gave everything a perfect tang.

Not to toot my own horn, but I’m pretty proud of myself for making this in the state I was in.

Maybe I should drink on Mondays after all.

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The Miracle of Mustard-Brown-Sugar Salmon

Sometimes you encounter a recipe that’s so simple, it’s not even a recipe, it’s a mere idea… a notion. Such was the case when Sam Sifton linked to this recipe for “Roasted Salmon Glazed with Brown Sugar and Mustard” in The New York Times Cooking newsletter.

Listen how easy: are you ready? Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Mix mustard and brown sugar together. Put it on well-seasoned salmon. Roast. Eat. The end.

You think I’m kidding? Okay, check it out.

Here’s the brown sugar and the mustard (I used grainy Dijon) that you mix together in equal parts. Make as much as you want and adjust it according to your taste (spicier, sweeter, etc).

Line a cookie sheet with foil and take two equally sized pieces of salmon and lay them on there, skin-side down. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and then slather on your mustard brown sugar mixture (admittedly, I used a lot. But that’s just how I roll.)

Into a 400 degree oven it goes. I used a probe thermometer to make the cooking time easy: when the salmon hit 130, I took it out. (About 20 minutes.)

Meanwhile, I’d blanched and shocked some green beans and, no I didn’t toss them in pesto: I tossed them with olive oil and lemon juice, salt and pepper, and then sprinkled them with Dukkah from Botanica because they needed a little kick. (Winston agreed.)

I also mixed some thick Greek yogurt with a splash of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, salt, pepper, and lots of chopped herbs (dill, tarragon, parsley).

And then I just lifted the salmon from the cookie sheet on to the plates (leaving the skin behind; if you like crispy skin, this might not be the recipe for you. Or you could start it in a skillet, I suppose, skin-side down, and slather the mixture on and finish in the oven? The sugar would probably burn, though.)

Behold!

This dinner was such a hit. Craig LOVED the salmon. He did very loud “mmmmms!” and several days later he (unprompted) asked: “When are you going to make that salmon again? It was so good.”

So there you are: a simple recipe that’s not even a recipe. Just memorize it. Got it? There you go.

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Lots of Broccoli Rabe, A Little Pasta

As much as I like cooking for other people, I REALLY like cooking for myself. It’s a chance to really tap into how I’m feeling in a particular moment, what I’m craving, and then to give myself exactly that.

There’s an actual an art to knowing what you want (believe me, I talk about it a lot in therapy). And one thing that I almost always want is pasta. If you’ve been following me for any period of time, you’ve probably noticed that I make a lot of it. Why pasta? Why is that my thing? I think it’s a blank canvas deal: you can dress pasta up any way that you want. Craving meat? Make a meaty pasta. Craving cheese? Make a cheesy pasta. And on Saturday night I was craving vegetables, so I decided to make a veggie-heavy pasta.

Craig was still in Palm Springs (at a film festival) so I had the night to myself. There was broccoli rabe leftover from the Three Smoke Alarm Sausage and Chicken incident, so I just pulled that out of the fridge and got to work.

Step one: hack the bottoms off of the broccoli rabe because they’re tough.

Then you just chop up the rest into big chunks.

Set a big pot of water on the stove, salt it heavily (I pour directly from the box), and bring to a boil.

Then in a large skillet, add a big glug of olive oil (let’s say 1/4 cup) and 6 to 7 cloves of garlic thinly sliced. Throw in a few anchovies, they’ll add so much flavor. Crank up the heat and add a big pinch of red chile flakes.

Once the garlic starts to turn golden, add all of your broccoli rabe at once (careful: it’ll sizzle!). See lead pic.

Meanwhile, drop your pasta into the pasta pot. Because I wanted a higher ratio of vegetables to pasta, I used only half a box of fusilli.

Stir your broccoli rabe all around so it gets coated in all of that delicious oil. Then add a ladleful of the salty pasta cooking water and cover your broccoli rabe pan.

The timing should work out so that when your pasta’s cooked, your broccoli rabe will have wilted down into this.

Isn’t that crazy how much it cooks down? Taste it here: doesn’t it taste AMAZING? (Mine really did. Bitter and salty and deep.)

Lift your pasta (still al dente; a minute less than package directions) into the pan with the broccoli rabe.

Stir all around with another ladleful of pasta water on high heat until the pasta absorbs all of that flavorful liquid.

Off the heat, add a big pile of grated Parmesan (1/2 a cup or so?).

Stir that in and here’s where you really start tasting and doctoring. I think I added lemon zest here (you can kind of see it in the picture if you squint), black pepper, salt, lemon juice, until it tasted so good, it was almost surreal.

Into a bowl that went and there I was in my happy place: in front of the TV with pasta (mostly vegetables!) watching Wine Country on Netflix. I wish the same kind of happiness for you.

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A Summery Steak Dinner

Sometimes people ask me if I barbecue and I say “no” and when they ask “why not?” I say: “Because I don’t really like my backyard.” And it’s true: we share one with our neighbors in our fourplex, and they’re all very nice, but it’s not very private and it also kind of looks out on to a gas station. So the idea of being back there for a long time with a pair of tongs and a brewski doesn’t really excited me much, even in summertime.

But that didn’t stop me last night from “grilling up” some steak. (“Grilling up” in quotes because, ya know, I wasn’t really grilling.) This dinner really was a triumph, if I do say so myself; I was welcoming Craig back from the Palm Springs Shorts Festival, where he spoke on a few panels. He was already glad to come home (Palm Springs is 105 degrees right now), but with this dinner he was even gladder. Let me tell you how I made it.

First things first: I bought two rib-eye steaks from McCall’s Meat and Fish. I recommend rib-eyes for home steak-making because they’re so laced with fat, they’re hard to screw up. (A leaner cut of steak can more easily turn tough.)

Take the steaks out of the fridge to come to room temperature while you’re prepping the potatoes.

Okay, the potatoes: listen how easy. Preheat your oven to 425 and open a packet of small red and white potatoes and put them in a cast iron skillet. Take a head of garlic and WHOMP it on the board so it splits into lots of little cloves. Throw those cloves, skin still attached, in with the potatoes and then glug on olive oil. Really, you can’t add too much here: think of this as potato garlic confit (but if I had to guess, I’d say 1/2 a cup). Sprinkle with lots and lots of salt and pepper.

Pop into the 425 oven and shake every so often; in 45 minutes (or up to an hour), the potatoes will start to shrivel, grow tender inside, and the bottoms will get crispy. Here’s what they look like when they’re done:

Make sure to hit them with more salt at the end (a lot of it falls off into the oil while cooking).

As for the garlic, you’ll serve that up with the potatoes and then you and your co-steak-eater can pull the garlic out at the table and marvel at how creamy and garlicky it is.

Now, while those potatoes are cooking, you can make a horseradish sauce for your steak. Behold the components:

You’re going to ask me “how much of each?” and I’m going to say: “As much as you want!” Seriously: start with about 1/2 a cup of sour cream. Then add big dollops of horseradish and mustard, stir around, and taste. Do you like it? Does it need more pop? Add more horseradish. Chop up a bunch of chives and stir those in too.

Now for the final bit before the steak: herbs. I bought a bunch of herbs at the farmer’s market yesterday morning — parsley, tarragon, chives — and I chopped a bunch of them up to sprinkle on everything at the end. I recommend you do the same.

As for the steak, it’s really this simple: take your biggest cast iron skillet, put it on a burner, and crank up the heat to high. While that’s blasting away, take your steaks out, pat them dry, and sprinkle them with an indecent amount of salt and pepper.

When the pan is very, very hot, you can add a little splash of grapeseed oil or other neutral oil (NOTE: I once told people to do this and someone wrote to me that their oil caught on fire! That person had their pan too hot; so don’t go crazy getting it hot, or do go crazy getting it hot and just don’t add oil. The fat in the steak should keep it from sticking).

Add your steaks and don’t touch them. You should hear a loud sizzle and you need to let them sizzle away like that for about two minutes; then you can peek underneath with tongs and if they’re GOLDEN BROWN (not at all gray, we’re talking GOLD) it’s time to flip them over. I forgot to take a picture when this happened, but it’s in my Instagram stories, so here’s a screenshot:

[Note: that knob is melted from the time I made 300 latkes. Now I think of it as a latke souvenir.]

At this point, you can add butter, garlic, and thyme to the pan and start spooning it over the steaks, basting it with the fat while it finishes. I thought I was going to finish in the oven, so I put the garlic, butter, and thyme on top thinking it’d all melt together:

But then I stuck a thermometer in and saw the steaks were already at 135 (medium rare) so I just took them out of the pan and let them rest on a plate for a good ten minutes.

The final thing that I did was that I took some lettuces from the farmer’s market (I buy raddichio and little gem leaves from a bulk bin and fill a bag each week and it’s kind of perfect) and tossed them with olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper.

The final plate had the steaks — which I sliced against the grain, once rested — the potatoes and the salad, all sprinkled with lots of herbs. And I served it at the table with the horseradish sauce and a Bordeaux recommended by Lou of Lou Wine Shop who said it would taste like blackberries. It did.

So no, I didn’t get to stand outside like Tony Soprano, watching ducks float around in the pool while grilling steak. But I did make a summery steak dinner that hit the spot in all the right ways and I didn’t have to look at a gas station while I made it.

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