Father’s Day Nostalgia
Not too long ago I was chatting with Mike at Mazzeo’s Meat & Seafood, located in Guido’s Fresh Marketplace, telling him about the time my father apprenticed as a butcher, and I realized that story needed to be part of a tribute ahead of Father’s Day. There were few foods Dad didn’t like – I can only seem to recall a distaste for raisins and oxtail – and yet he once patiently removed all of the green and orange pieces of fettuccine from a plate of tricolor pasta for his (formerly picky) grandson, Wilson!
For this past week’s Berkshire Eagle column, I made a grilled salad that Dad would have loved – grilling both the steak and the romaine lettuce, with some blue cheese on top. The photo I took reminds me how Dad loved his meat rarer than rare, so much so that once my cousin, Paul, quipped, “A good vet could get that thing back up on its feet!” We miss him so.
GRILLED SALAD FOR DAD
by Elizabeth Baer
Over ten years ago when my father, of blessed memory, passed away in late May, I had already bought a Father’s Day card for him. And every year I find it, still in the drawer amongst my pile of greeting cards.
Dad would have been so thrilled to know I am now writing a food column. As much as he loved to eat, he also loved to cook, and the food-related memories are paramount for all of us. He taught one grandson to like tripe and took a pizza-making class with another. As a teenager, I was frequently in charge of putting together dinner for my sister and me when our parents were still at work or an evening function, and he was the one who taught me how to “doctor” a jarred pasta sauce to make it something he would be proud to serve. Pretty much every time he came to visit, he would extract a folded clipping of a recipe from the New York Times that he wanted us to make together. He even apprenticed as a butcher.
This in and of itself might not seem remarkable, until you learn that at the time Dad was a high-powered attorney in private practice, truly a lion of the NYC legal community (having previously served in the US Attorney’s office as chief of the criminal division, and later as a judge both at the state and federal level). But Dad wanted to learn more about meat, butchering, and the various cuts. So through someone he knew, he arranged to use some of his vacation time to work in the butcher department at a supermarket on the Upper East Side for a couple of weeks. I remember going there with my mother and sister to watch him in action, and I also remember the story of when he quickly hid in the meat locker when he spied the wife of a client who might be rather disconcerted to see their lawyer working at the butcher counter!
As I thought about him this year, I decided to devise a dinner that he would have liked. He did love working the grill, and also was quite enamored of anything spicy – the more his eyes were watering and his nose was running the better! I rubbed a flank steak with a spicy-sweet paste (though, truly, it was only mildly spicy, and the heat level will depend on the brand of harissa or other product you use), and served it atop grilled romaine hearts, drizzled with some vinaigrette, with some blue cheese crumbles scattered on top. I’m certain Dad would approve.
GRILLED STEAK SALAD
Serves 2-4
INGREDIENTS:
Note: Feel free to use a different rub or marinade if you wish. This recipe merely provides a template for a dish you can make to suit your own taste, or your dad’s!
1½ pound flank steak or skirt steak
2 tablespoons harissa paste
2 tablespoons real maple syrup
2 hearts romaine lettuce
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper
¼ cup blue cheese crumbles
½ cup vinaigrette, homemade or store-bought
DIRECTIONS:
About an hour before grilling, take the steak out of the refrigerator and pat dry. Allow to sit for about 30 minutes to come to room temperature.
Combine the harissa paste and maple syrup and mix to combine fully. Using a brush or food prep gloves, spread the mixture all over both sides of the steak. Allow to sit for another 30 minutes.
Trim the root end of the romaine hearts to remove any brown portions. Cut through the root lengthwise so that the core holds the romaine halves together. Drizzle each half with 1 tablespoon olive oil, ¼ teaspoon kosher salt, and several grinds of fresh pepper.
Heat the grill to high.
Place the steak on the hotter section of the grill and the romaine hearts cut side down on the grill, off to the side where the heat is not as concentrated. When the romaine hearts have charred a bit, after about a minute, turn and repeat on the other side. Remove from the heat and set aside. Cook the steak to your preferred level of doneness, remembering that the meat will continue to cook from residual heat as the steak rests.
Allow the steak to rest for 5 minutes before slicing thinly, making sure to cut across the grain. Place a romaine heart half on each plate and drape several slices of steak on top. Arrange about 1 tablespoon blue cheese crumbles and about 2 tablespoons vinaigrette over each. Depending on appetites, each person may want one or two, and the recipe can be multiplied if needed.