Yesterday we discussed the best cuts of steak to choose at a steakhouse. What if you want to grill at home?

Whether at home or at a restaurant, how rare or well done you like your meat can impact your choice of cut. As meat cooks, the fibers break down: That’s why medium-well-done meat is easier to chew than rare meat of the same cut. However, the more done the meat, the less juicy it is.

Some of the tougher cuts, like hanger steak, can’t be cooked rare: You need to go with medium to avoid the chewiness.

GRILLING TIMES FOR STEAK

In general, medium rare is considered to deliver the best flavor. However, your preference also depends on the size and thickness of the steak.
 
Filet Mignon

Filet mignon is best served rare or medium rare.

 
Porterhouse

Porterhouse is best served medium rare to medium.

 
Rib Eye

Rib eye is best served medium rare.

 
Sirloin

Sirloin is best served medium rare to medium.

WHERE TO BUY, WHAT TO BUY

For USDA prime beef, opt for the best local butchers rather than chain grocery stores, says Chef McLeod. Some grocery stores don’t even carry choice, the second best grade of beef (see the different USDA grades of beef). You won’t know unless you ask.

Request aged beef; however, not all butchers and stores sell aged beef. Call around to see who has it in your area; or order it online from companies like Allen Brothers.

Most butchers don’t carry the same quality of meat as a top steakhouse. Even thought they might like to, only 3% of the typical steer is USDA prime, and top restaurants compete that small amount of meat.

Chef McLeod advises to buy porterhouse or New York strip steaks: They’re the better offering at your local butcher.

Before you buy, he advises:

Porterhouse: filet mignon and sirloin, separated by a T-shaped bone (hence, its other name, T-bone steak). Photo courtesy AllenBrothers.com.

 
HOW TO COOK YOUR STEAK

 
If you have questions for Chef McLeod, use the Contact Us link on this page.

Check out the many cuts of beef in our Beef Glossary.

Chewy, juicy, flavorful: What’s your preference? We asked Chef Arturo McLeod of Benjamin Steakhouse in New York City and White Plains New York—someone who has perhaps eaten as much steak as anyone—for an expert point of view.

His immediate preference: “Porterhouse steak, for sure. Comprising both the strip sirloin and the filet mignon, the Porterhouse is the ‘King of the T-Bones‘— the best of both worlds.

Benjamin Steakhouse offers six cuts of dry-aged beef, from 36-ounce porterhouses to top sirloins to juicy and tender rib eyes to succulent filet mignon. This is part one of a two-part article. Tomorrow: how to buy and cook the best steak.

WHICH CUT IS RIGHT FOR YOU?

In alphabetical order, we present the chef’s choices: the four most popular steakhouse cuts:

Of all the prime cuts, filet mignon has the least marbling. This means that it is leaner and does not have as much flavor as the other cuts. But is also incredibly tender, with almost a buttery texture. Because this cut is so thick, it also takes the longest to prepare, especially when ordered medium-well to well-done. (Editor’s Note: Well done filet mignon? Say it isn’t so!)

Porterhouse

The most popular cut at Benjamin Steakhouse, the porterhouse includes the filet and the sirloin, with the T-bone in the middle (it’s also called a T-bone steak). The Porterhouse is best served simply, grilled with just a dusting of kosher salt. The largest cut, it can be divided among two, three, or four people—or one extremely hungry carnivore.

Porterhouse is the ideal meat for grilling because the center bone conducts heat in the middle of the meat. This enables the steak to cook more evenly and prevents the meat from drying out and shrinking during cooking. For people who don’t like to struggle with the bone: At Benjamin Steakhouse, the porterhouse is served pre-sliced and presented on a piping hot platter, so that it literally sizzles as it is being served.

Of all the cuts on the menu, the rib eye steak has the most marbling, which means it is fattier but also has the most flavor. It is this marbling that makes the rib eye the richest and beefiest cut. At Benjamin Steakhouse, it is also served on the bone.

Sirloin

Sirloin has medium marbling, so it still delivers a nice, juicy flavor. The flavor is not as robust as the rib eye, but it is much easier to trim. There are no large pockets of fat, making it an easy-to-cook, easy-to-eat cut.

Benjamin’s serves the sirloin on the bone, which helps it to cook more evenly. Chefs and customers alike agree that any steak cooked on bone—even though it’s on the side, not in the center as with porterhouse—produces a more flavorful piece of meat.

Porterhouse: Combining filet mignon and sirloin, it’s the best of both worlds. Photo courtesy Allen Brothers.

Check out the many other cuts of beef in our Beef Glossary.
 

IS AGED STEAK WORTH THE EXTRA MONEY?

The best steakhouses use only USDA prime beef, carefully dry-aged in specially built aging boxes. The beef is chilled to a precise temperature and humidity level, for a minimum of 28 days.

The dry-aging process enhances the flavor of the steak over time, as moisture evaporates from within the beef. It also tenderizes the beef by allowing the tissues to break down.

This is a time-consuming, and therefore expensive, undertaking, but for a good reason: The key effect of the dry aging process is the concentration of flavor. Dry aged beef needs to be seasoned only with kosher salt, to allow the well developed flavors of the steak to shine.
  
TOMORROW: Grill your own steak with Chef MacLeod’s advice on buying and cooking.

Invite Fat Jack and Oktoberfest to a fall beer
tasting. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE
NIBBLE.

It was a reminder that it’s time to switch to “fall beer.” Just as cooks make lighter or heavier recipes based on the weather, so do brewers. Some of the delights of the fall season are pumpkin beer and other spiced beers.

These beers aren’t sweet pumpkin pie, but you can certainly serve them with the pie. No matter how you serve them, you’re in for a treat: The pumpkin adds body, smoothness and richness to the beer, and the seasonal spices add complex notes.

One of Samuel Adams’ Small Batch Series, Fat Jack Double Pumpkin Ale adds 28 pounds of pumpkin to each barrel, along with allspice, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, The AVB* is a hefty 8.5% (by comparison, Budweiser is 5% ABV). Along with toasty smoked malts, this delectable brew salutes fall with layers and layers of flavor.

So when you’re next at the supermarket, roll down the beer aisle and see what fall treats await. Entertain your friends with a fall beer tasting to determine the best pumpkin beer, spiced beer, and other types you find.

CRAFT BEER TRENDS

Industry reports from chain stores selling beer across the USA show that:

 
DO YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF BEER?

Check out our Beer Glossary.
 
 
*Alcohol by volume.

†A SKU, pronounced “skew” and short for stock-keeping unit, is a number/code used to identify each unique product or item for sale in a store. Different sizes of the exact same product (8 ounces versus 16 ounces, for example) are different SKUs.

But it’s still warm out; and this recipe from Vermont Creamery, served with fromage blanc sorbet, is worth your attention.

MANGO GAZPACHO RECIPE

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. GAZPACHO: Place all ingredients except the orange zest in a large bowl or container overnight. Adjust seasonings in the morning. If the mixture is too chunky, pulse half of it with an immersion blender or a hand mixer.

2. SORBET: Mix all ingredients together in a bowl and put in freezer 2 hours before serving. Use a small melon baller or sorbet scoop. Place sorbet on top of gazpacho.

 
Find more of our favorite soup recipes.
  

Yet beyond snacking, versatile, popular grapes demand to be incorporated into recipes.

What kind of grapes? Many different subspecies are grown: Popular varieties include Thompson seedless. an early, green grape; red seedless. an early, red grape; Tokay and Cardinal, early, bright-red, seeded grapes; and Emperor, late, deep-red, seeded grapes.

But the grocery store typically doesn’t provide the details. It boils down to black, green and red grapes. You can do a taste test among them; we enjoy mixing up the colors in our recipes.

Seeded versus seedless grapes? Again, do a taste test. Seedless grapes are certainly more convenient, but you may prefer the flavor of the seeded varieties.

Make grape jelly can be a challenge, but here are 12 easy ways to enjoy grapes.

1. Freeze the grapes as snacks. Just pull them off the stems and place them on a cookie sheet in a single layer to freeze; then store them in a plastic bag. You get a grape sorbet effect without added sugar.

2. Freeze the grapes as snacks. Make grape sorbet.

3. Use frozen grapes as ice cubes. Add them to soft drinks or sweet cocktails.

4. Make grape Margaritas. This frozen grape Margarita recipe is delish.

Serve with cocktails: Blue Cheese & Walnut Dusted Grapes. Photo courtesy Whole Foods Market. Get the recipe.

5. Make grape hors d’oeuvre. Skewer them with cubes of cheese or mozzarella balls, wrap them in prosciutto, or make this divine recipe (photo above) for Blue Cheese & Walnut Dusted Grapes appetizer pops.

6. Add grapes to a salad. Take a look at this recipe for Curried Chicken Salad With Grapes, Pecans & Pomegranate Vinaigrette or this recipe. Or add them to a radicchio salad.

7. Make a Waldorf Salad. This retro dish, created for ladies who lunched at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, consists of chopped apples, grapes and walnuts dressed with mayonnaise, on a bed of lettuce. The original recipe, with neither grapes nor walnuts, was created for a charity ball in 1893. Here’s the recipe and more history.

8. Add grapes to fish and seafood. We love this recipe for Grilled Whole Fish With Minted Grape Relish.

9. Serve grapes with cheese. We love grapes with blue cheese. Or, serve them with a slice of this savory blue cheese cheesecake.

10. Use grapes to garnish. You can garnish just about any dish with grapes. For desserts, roll them in confectioners sugar for “frosted” grapes.
11. Pickle them. Serve pickled grapes with sandwiches, seafood and poultry. Here’s an easy pickling recipe.

12. Make a dessert soup. Purée the grapes with some grape juice (we prefer Knudsen’s) and mint; sweeten to taste. Garnish with frozen grapes!
Find more recipe inspiration from the California Table Grape Commission.