On one of those recent days when it almost, but not quite, rained all day, I was headed home from a lunch meeting, my inner locavore foodie in a very needy mood! My car, being fairly intuitive as those things go, somehow wound up on the curb in front of Pine Street Market in Avondale. Shopping at Pine Street is a bit of an adventure because you’re never quite sure what you’ll find. It depends on what the farmers brought!
Well, on that particular day, I was in luck! Ribeye steaks. Big, gorgeous, thick ribeye steaks. Owner and master butcher, Rusty Bowers, was all too happy to tell me about the steaks.
In addition to great offerings from local providers like Gum Creek Farms, Pine Street is now cutting a front quarter from Brasstown Beef, in house, each week. This helps keep the little folks like me in great food!
Brasstown has set quite a standard for sustainable, humanely raised, intentionally bred cattle, always on grass. Knowing this makes my food taste even better!
I also met Asa, who is especially tasked with cutting the beef at Pine Street. As they normally butcher on Wednesdays, Asa is happy to take special orders by Tuesday, each week.
The steak that followed me home that day was about 1 ½ pounds, on the bone, which makes for better flavor. It measured about 1 ¾ inches at the thickest point. One of these steaks is two portions at our house. (OK-most days!)
Allow yours to come to room temperature before cooking. We do meat in a cast iron skillet and finish it in the oven. When you turn on the oven to preheat to 400 F, drizzle steak with good olive oil on both sides and season generously with Celtic sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
When the oven is up to temp, heat an iron skillet on your stove’s highest setting until shimmering and just beginning to smoke. Sear the steak, about 1-1 ½ minutes on each side until crispy and brown and lovely. Holding it upright in the pan and searing the edge helps, too.
For steaks about this same size, place in the oven for about 12 minutes. This should give you lovely rare to medium rare beef. (The interesting thing about cooking ribeyes is that there are two different muscles and they cook somewhat differently so it takes a bit of practice. Your family will probably participate willingly!)
Remove the steak to a board, cover with foil, and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Cut according to your needs. Serve with rare-ish vegetables, a great local salad, and maybe some roasted organic potatoes or some rice. (Roast potatoes, sliced thin and drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper, at 400 F for about 30 minutes, until golden brown and getting crispy.)
Enjoy!
If your dog is like Sarah, he or she will deeply appreciate a wee bite of the trimmings. We save ours till after the table is cleared so she doesn’t know where they came from!