Time for a little food porn as I put finishing touches on the Preface post for a series on paleo for beginners that will be the mainstay of next week.
Last night I took one grassfed New York and one ribeye out of the freezer from my Marin Sun Farms CSA. Submerge them in tepid water and they thaw within about 30 minutes.
Since I intended to sear and cook them in cast iron with enough leaf lard that they don’t stick, then deglaze with red wine (a pinot noir), reduce, then reduce beef stock and thicken, no seasonings or spices. Do it after. As always, click on the images for hi-res.

New York and Ribeye
You really want to swish them around so there’s no stickage. Then, cover for 4-5 minutes. These are at medium high. Then flip ’em and go 3-4 minutes. For medium rare, I want to see some of the internal fat beginning to emerge from the sear. Done.

BS Before Sauce
Then I set to work on the sauce as this rests in a warm oven. I described the process here. In this case, I added about a half cup red wine to the pan (without draining), deglazed, reduced to a syrup, added about 2/3 cup or so of beef stock, reduced, and finished it with about 1/4 tsp of potato starch in a cold beef stock slurry to thicken.

AS After Sauce
In the end, zero spices or seasonings were required. Not even salt or pepper.
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I wish that you would write a cookbook, Richard!
I second Helen.
We just ate the last of the prime steaks from the side of grass-fed beef we purchased last June, and now I’m sorry (especially since we won’t get the next side until March). This looks delicious, although I’d use arrowroot powder to thicken the sauce, since I no longer eat white potatoes at all.
Oh – and both my bottles of olive oil came, a mere two days after I ordered them! I’m going to marinate and oven roast a grass-fed flank steak and try your garlic and thyme oil infusion this weekend. Would you object if I posted it as a full-fledged recipe on my site? I will, of course, give you full credit.
Post it on your site? You go for it.
How beautiful! YUM!
Richard,
Are you still using your Sous Vide?
Honestly, not since we moved in September. But I do need to fire it up.
Hi Richard, excellent food porn, as always. I love rear meat too.
Just to have a general idea of your daily macros, do you usually eat all the fat from those cuts, or you discard some of it?
Hit & Miss, Max.
Sometimes I go for it, sometimes I discard. Whatever my hunger tells me to do.
BTW, Max.
I’ve been thinking of editing my Food Porn category to read “Food Porn (we show pink).” Whaddya think?
Richard, overdone meat simply makes me want to cry. BTW, I consider your food porn the best out there because it´s the only one that shows rare meats all the time.
Hah!
Yeah, I used to go only by hunger without measuring anything. But to push body comp. to the levels I want to obtain I need to pay more attention. It is well known that by eating paleo to appetite everyone loses weight, unless you are force feeding yourself silly like a sumo wrestler. Maybe by going just by hunger and never cheating, after a couple of years I would get where I want, who knows. But I want to lose fat in months, not years. And I do cheat now and then, so the first scenario of eating paleo ad libitum is not likely to occur in our modern lives.
I feel identified with you because we both started really fat and right now we both carry more or less the same amount of BF. So that´s why I wonder how do you manage to keep on track regarding your body comp. goal while simply obeying your hunger.
The gym. So long as I’m holding the same and gaining, I know I’m on the right track. I push the protein, just not all the time and not obsessive.
So, if I am understanding correctly (english is not my 1st language), you assume that if your weight remains the same while gaining strength you are losing fat?
yea, essentially, Max, but int the average, over a good space of time. You want to be getting stronger while getting leaner.
Richard,
Your red wine reduction looked sooo good I had to give it a try last night. I totally F’d it up and it still came out pretty good. I can’t wait to give it a second go. Thanks.
Keep the food porn coming!