Carnivoracious

Vegetarianism aside (way, way aside), there's simply something hard-wired into our DNA that likes eating cooked meat. This article is an excellent description of why. Enjoy.


The New York Times
April 12, 2006
Got a Crowd Coming Over? Think Big Cuts of Meat
By MATT LEE and TED LEE

IN the spring our entertaining ambitions seem to grow along with everything else that is sprouting. Friends emerge from deep winter thirsty for human contact, white wine and open windows, and we find ourselves bumping into people we know on the street more often. Houseguests, on the way to holiday gatherings, multiply.

By the time the dinner hour rolls around, that quiet supper for four can easily have mushroomed into a party for 10 or even 16.

Tripling the size of a soiree on short notice can be fun, but it is impossible to do without a veil of panic. This year we found a way to boost our confidence: by mastering the cooking of a few large cuts of meat.

They feed hordes, are simple to prepare, and inevitably arrive at the table to an ovation tinged with awe. These large cuts lead to great leftovers, too.

The centerpiece of a large informal dinner should be showstopping, but not showy — or bankrupting. And while it seems the height of luxury to tell a friend, "Of course, bring your six houseguests to dinner!" you can say so with little self-doubt when you pick the right meat.

We bypassed expensive choices like crown roast of lamb and standing rib roast in favor of three humbler cuts: fresh ham, whole beef brisket and bone-in leg of lamb.

With these, the larger the cut, the more meat you get for your money. If your favorite market is the kind of store that offers deeper discounts for untrimmed cuts, you can save even more with a minimum of knife skills.

The first big cut we tackled, bone-in leg of lamb, was the most common of the three we tried, and the costliest. A gorgeous specimen, it weighed nearly 12 pounds and set us back $40 and change.

An informal survey of our contemporaries revealed that few home cooks attempt this cut. They are intimidated by the silvery membrane between fat and flesh, and by the need to remove the hipbones and tying the resulting flaps of flesh with twine, all to facilitate the carving of presentable, large slices. Once you have a butcher trim these out, the reasoning goes, you may as well buy chops.

Surrender is not advisable. The membrane comes off in five minutes of trimming with a sharp knife — no specialized skill is necessary — and we leave the hipbones in. The meat around these bones cooks more quickly than other parts of the cut, and may not be as moist come carving time. But because so much of its surface is coated with the marinade, it is exceptionally delicious (especially with a spoonful of the intensely minty sauce, touched with garlic and vinegar, that we serve with it).

After trimming the fat, we rubbed the leg all over with a marinade. We chose one with Moroccan flavors: lots of lemon zest and lemon juice (a quick substitute for preserved lemons); the red chili paste called harissa; garlic; toasted coriander; and olive oil. We let it cure for about four hours before roasting.

The outside of the lamb should be seared gently, so we heated the oven to 450 degrees, then turned down the temperature to 350 upon placing the lamb in the oven. After an hour and 45 minutes (basting with pan juices every 25 minutes or so) it was beautifully done, the outside gently browned, the inside perfectly pink.

The bonus was lemony, fiery pan drippings, spooned over naked couscous. As with all large cuts of meat, when the main dish is spectacular, the side dishes can be as mild as couscous, white rice or mashed potatoes.

A whole beef brisket, which is a boneless breast, consists of two cuts separated by a layer of fat: the smaller cut is called the first cut, or flat half, and the thicker one is the second cut, or point half. Typically, the cuts are sold separately, trimmed of fat.

We kept ours whole by design. Our experience with brisket, limited mostly to the barbecued version in Texas, gave us the impression that brisket is prairie-dry, if flavorful, but almost never delectable. We suspected that if we braised the entire brisket we would not only have more protein to serve, but the layer of fat that encased the two cuts would baste the beef as it cooked, giving it the unctuousness we craved.

Even trimmed of its outer layer of fat, our brisket was brontosaurian.

We chose to spin our recipe toward Spain and Italy by rubbing the meat with crushed chili pepper and the Spanish smoked paprika called pimenton, and by slow-cooking it in a simple tomato-garlic-rosemary braise.

We began with a sustained blast of high heat, to almost sear the outside of the meat, then cranked it down to 325 degrees for a slow roast, tightly sealing the brisket in its roasting pan with foil to retain as much steam as possible. After three hours (and a couple of back flips) the brisket emerged beautifully browned, slightly reduced from its previous bulk, and swimming in sauce and melted fat. Making the sauce is as simple as sifting out the tomato and the onion from the pan with a slotted spoon and puréeing them in a blender. The fat is (mostly) left behind. The sliced hot brisket, with a dollop of its tangy tomato sauce, is as expressive of beef as a well-marbled porterhouse.

A LEG of pork, called fresh ham to distinguish it from the cured or smoked variety, was the final cut we tried. It yielded the most bang for the entertainment buck by far.

A 16-pound fresh ham is truly monumental. At the supermarket three customers stopped us on the way to the checkout line to marvel or inquire. The cashier looked up and said, "You know how good a deal that is, right?"

At $1.59 a pound, we did.

Since the pork was nearly twice as large as the other cuts, and would take the longest time in the oven, we aimed to keep kitchen prep to a minimum.

Some butchers and pork lovers like to leave the skin on, for its crackling qualities. To us, there is a reason footballs were once made with pigskin. It is not very appetizing and too tough to chew.

So we trimmed the skin off the ham, revealing a layer of snowy white fat about a quarter-inch to a third-inch thick that would render into pan drippings while getting crispy on top. We scored it all over and seasoned it with a toss of kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper and fresh thyme.

We were concerned that with such a large cut the meat at the narrow end would be dry before the thicker parts were even cooked. But when it comes to doneness, fresh ham can be very forgiving.

The temperature of a ham roasted for four hours may rise a few degrees once it is removed from the oven, so we cooked ours until a thermometer inserted into the thickest part registered 155 degrees, then let the ham rest for 15 minutes before carving. It yielded the variety of doneness needed for a big party: well-done white meat, pink slices for the medium-rare crowd, and crispy fat and dark-meat bits from the shank for those who like to snack.

Carving fresh ham is easy; you do not need a special knife, though you will want to choose the longest, sharpest one in the drawer. If you have an electric carving knife, this is a great time to use it.

To cut the ham into perfect slices for serving, grip the exposed end of the shank bone with one hand (if your prefer, use a clean kitchen towel); with the other, cut vertically — perpendicular to the bone — from the top of the ham until the knife hits bone.

Continue cutting slices about a quarter-inch to a third-inch thick (thicker slices tend to leave intact more trim of the crispy, seasoned fat), until you have cut enough for a few servings. Then make a single horizontal cut, parallel to the bone, that releases all the slices you have made.

As we said earlier, there are often leftovers with large cuts, which are critical to have around for a quick lunch or snack when you have houseguests.

We had seven people staying over the night we made the fresh ham; the next day at around lunchtime one of them plucked the ham bone from the fridge and began carving. Others took a trip to the market for tortillas, salsas, cilantro and sour cream, and soon we had assembled a taco party for nine.

Still the ham kept giving. The next morning we made pork hash, pan-frying morsels of ham with diced red potato, onion, garlic and a finely diced jalapeño chili, until the potatoes got crispy and browned on the bottom.

The softly poached eggs we draped over the top and a shake of Tabasco were the finishing touches, and we wanted to call the seven guests back just to appreciate the third act.
###