What You Eat Is What You Get

It tasted a lot better than this picture makes it look

I flirt with vegetarianism about once a year, mainly because I love animals. I buy meat directly from a farmer as much as possible and stick to organic, free-range meat when I can, but I feel enormous guilt over it. Lately, I’ve tried convincing myself that beef — like episodes of Doctor Who that I watch on the British schedule* or foie gras — is made through magic.

So why can’t I just stick to my morals and give it up? Because I love steak way too much. I bought some flank steak at Gene’s Sausage Shop a couple weeks back, thinking I’d use it for a recipe I pulled out of Wichcraft, Tom Colicchio’s excellent sammy cookbook that grew out of his restaurant of the same name. But tonight, I realized what I really wanted was a well-made, simple steak with some veggies on the side. And that’s what this was. I pretty much use the same approach for any kind of steak, although if I’m making something with significant marbling (like ribeye) I use my heavy saucepan rather than my grill pan.I also eat my steak rare, because if I’m going to eat a steak, I’m going to eat a steak.

I served this with a slice of homemade bread and steamed sugar-snap peas. I find that a light, green vegetable always complements a heavy steak really nicely, particularly something that’s got a little bit of a sweet crunch to it, like in-season peas or asparagus.

*I never thought I could recover from losing David Tennant, but Matt Smith’s pretty good, isn’t he?

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