Well, it’s not every day that I open up a cookbook and see my butchers, Emil and Joe, staring back at me (downright dapper in their striped aprons). Such an event is a rare pleasure, really — one that I never imagined (or even thought about) having, but one I won’t soon forget.
And it’s not only Emil and Joe, but the lazy canal that slunks its way through Lambertville, the trout fishermen that I spy sitting along the water on my way to work in the early morning, and a beautiful ode to the Stockton Indoor Farmers Market — my market!! — spread among the pages of the Canal House cookbooks, a subscription cookbook-cum-food magazine, that comes out three times a year.
This is my home, and it’s not just me rhapsodizing about the beauty, and food, and good people along the Delaware River; Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton do too! That’s good company, indeed.
But even if you don’t live here, I imagine the Canal House cookbooks would be a rare pleasure, anyway. You’re invited into the lives of Hirsheimer and Hamilton, to where they live and what they eat; their memories, and snarky sentiments; their metaphors and declarations. The recipes are homey, familiar ones; recipes you can’t read without imagining friends around the table, happy faces, happy bellies; recipes that are a breath of fresh air alongside all of the restaurant chef books that are so popular now.
Take this recipe for steak with parsley butter. It involves little more than mixing some fluffy butter with herbs and grilling a steak. Anyone one can put the whole affair together in mere minutes. All you need is a bowl, a knife and a cutting board, and a grill (or pan) to cook the steak.
The hitch is finding the best the ingredients. It’d do good to search out a nice steak. If you live near me, you could get a rib-eye from Maresca, or a big old cowboy steak from Dee and Ben, which is what we opted for last weekend. Good parsley, too, will pay off big time — try to find some that’s a shade of deep, forest green, with pretty little white tips on each leaf. Homestead Farm Market sells my favorite parsley around here (the cheapest, too: a big bouquet of parsley runs around one dollar).
Without good ingredients, this recipe might not wow you; there’s few flavors here, so they really need to shine. If you have the parsley, but can’t find, or don’t want, the steak, this parsley butter works magic with a bowl of fresh pasta, or topped on fried eggs and toast, or in a myriad of other dishes. With the steak it’s particularly magical, and I’m a little blue that I didn’t invite friends over to share when Jim and I made this, as the cowboy steaks from Highland Farm Market can certainly feed a crowd. Recipes likes this want to be shared with a full table, if only so you can be that enviable hostess, cool as a cucumber after making such a deceptively easy dinner, and soak up all the oohs and ahhs from your guests.
Steak with Parsleyed Butter
adapted from Canal House Cooking, Vol. 1
feeds 2-3, with leftover butter
for the butter
8 tablespoons (1 stick) softened butter, preferably from a local dairy, or a high-fat European-style butter
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
Half a bunch parsley, leaves chopped
Salt and Pepper
for the steak
1 large (2-3 pound) bone-in rib-eye
Salt and pepper
An hour or two before cooking, take the steak out of the refrigerator and season liberally with salt and pepper.
Beat the butter in a bowl with a wooden spoon to make it smooth and a bit creamy. Add the garlic, shallots, and parsley, and season with salt and pepper. Stir to combine. The butter can be used right away, or covered and refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 1 month.
Prepare a hot charcoal or gas grill.
Grill steaks on the hottest part of the grill until a good browned crust has developed on the first side, about 8 minutes. To ensure a good crust, resist the urge to move or fiddle with the steaks while they are cooking, but if flare-ups threaten to burn the meat, you’ve got to move it to a cooler spot on the grill. Turn the steaks and grill the second side for 5 minutes.
Move the steaks to a cooler spot on the grill to finish cooking them, turning occasionally, until the internal temperatures reach 120F for medium-rare, and 140F for medium, 5-15 minutes longer depending on the thickness of the steaks and the desired doneness.
Pull the steaks off the grill and let them rest for 10-15 minutes. Cut the steak from the bones and slice the meat. Serve both the bones and the meat, and top with parsleyed butter.
Subscribe