Porterhouse Rules - Recap

Sitting in a fancy restaurant called “Maison de Boeuf”, Alton reminds viewers that John Wayne ate steak – a lot of steak. But Wayne would have reacted badly to the high prices restaurants charge these days, angry enough to demand “fill his hands.” That's when a pair of waiters appear pushing carts bearing covered serving platters. Under the first cover lie what Alton calls “table scraps”, but the second offers more promise: a 24 ounce porterhouse steak: NY strip on one side, and tenderloin on the other. Between them, a “gnaw-worthy” T-bone enhances the flavor. The waiter regales Alton with the restaurant's careful preparation: precise dry aging and a 1600° F oven to sear the steak to perfection. Casually curious, Alton asks about the price. The answer prompts a spit take; Alton then orders the shrimp cocktail – to go. The disappointed and disdainful waiters leave.

Alton recaps: at a $120, this savory dish is five dollars an ounce! That, he says, is gustatory grand larceny! For that same sum, Alton proposes to prepare a similarly delicious meal with side dishes, a nice bottle of wine and even two tickets to the movies! The ultimate date meal? Maybe... but for Alton, it's just... Good Eats!

Prime beef is the best of the eight beef grades (choice and select are lesser grades familiar to many). To receive a prime grade, the steer must be young: 18 – 24 months old. And the flesh must be deeply marbled, which means the meat contains a goodly amount of fat in streaks and flecks (similar to the inclusions found in fine marble). A very few top end butcher shops sometimes get prime beef, but most of it goes to restaurants; there is little left over after satisfying their demands. Alton's actually okay with that; he prefers the choice cuts which are a bit leaner and to him taste beefier. Select is rarely associated with fine steaks.

The porterhouse is precious chiefly because of its location: along the back, far from hoof and horn, muscle that does little work. Meat, Alton notes, is like real estate: the three most important qualities are location, location, location. Muscles that work hard get tougher, and the hardest workers are those muscles near hoof or horn. It is important to know that not all tenderloin is the same. While there is little connective tissue and only the approximately “T” shaped spinal bone, the tenderloin tapers, and towards one end begins to transition into harder working muscle.

At Buckhead Beef in Atlanta, Alton surveys an array of cuts from the same animal, noting how they change radically from one end to the other. Snapping on his “man in black” glasses, he takes on the role of an FDA agent to offer the government's view: the T-bone may be prepared from any short loin item; the maximum width of the tenderloin shall be at least ½” when measured parallel to the length of the backbone. That qualification eliminates a few cuts on the very end near the narrowest part of the tenderloin taper. Alton sets those two aside; they'll be sold as bone-in strip steaks.

So what kinds of T-bone qualify as porterhouse? The minimum width of the tenderloin must be at least 1.25” when measured parallel to the length of the backbone. That cuts the choices down to four of the displayed pieces of meat; those with the widest loins.

Alton next points out that the cuts where the tenderloin is biggest also incorporate some chewy connective tissue which is not good eats. He backs away from those to cuts nearer the middle of the loin. These are still porterhouse. They have smaller tenderloins but they lack the chewy connective tissue. For twenty dollars a pound, these are the cuts he wants.

A well-educated steak hunter needs to know a few other terms besides the grades and the USDA definition of a porterhouse. One of these is “natural”. This describes minimally processed beef unaltered by artificial flavors, colors or preservatives. Since meat that contains additional ingredients must bear a list of them, the term “natural” is not terribly important.

Some beef is also branded (and not in the “hot iron” sense). Such brands typically carry a list of criteria the beef must meet to bear the brand. These may mean better meat, but this is not always true. The consumer must know what the brand's requirements are.

Certified organic meat comes from cows that consume only organic feed and have not been treated with antibiotics, and they must be certified organic by the government. This beef will cost more, but may not be any better tasting.

Grass finished is a meaningless term because there is no government standard that applies to it. Grass fed, a similar term, describes meat from animals fed exclusively forage (once they have been weaned). Most animals start their lives eating forage, but are “finished” with corn: confined in feed lots and fed the corn to fatten them up and standardize their flavor. Alton regards such meat as bland, preferring the grass fed sort, which he regards as natural since this is what cattle evolved to eat.

Alton produces a twenty-four ounce (green weight) piece of meat. If separated and squeezed and processed (Thing, Jr. does this while Alton narrates), the result would be roughly eighteen ounces of water and the remainder meat solids. If one could somehow remove at least a portion of that water, this would intensify the flavor of the meat. Top drawer steakhouses do exactly this with a process called dry aging, using climate controlled rooms. Alton doesn't have such a room, but he does have a refrigerator and a few basic pieces of kitchen gear. With an ice pick, he makes ten holes in a disposable pin tin, five on each side and aligned. He threads bamboo skewers through these holes to produce a sort of grate. Wrapping a porterhouse steak in a paper towel, he rests it on this rig and stashes it in the coldest part of his chill chest (near the bottom). A day later, he swaps the paper towel for another and stashes the meat for another three days. All the while, enzymes work inside the meat and water leaves.

Inside a living organism, cellular processes operate continuously. After death these grind to a halt but most of the chemicals are still there. Rigor sets in and the meat toughens. Against a backdrop reminiscent of an early talkie film, Alton explains how enzymes can operate like a wrench, disassembling the structures that toughen meat – as long as the proper conditions hold. Dry aging creates these conditions; as the water leaves, the enzymes begin dismantling the cells.

At the end of the aging process, the meat has lost roughly 10% of its weight. Alton removes the paper towel and rests the meat to his rig, allowing to come to room temperature for about an hour ahead of cooking. Sure, it's raw meat, but an hour isn't sufficient time for bacteria to do much harm – and cooking will destroy them regardless. (Alton chases away a bacteria puppet sniffing around his cut of meat.) To prepare the meat, Alton sprinkles kosher salt on it; this draws water and proteins to the surface where the cooking heat will turn it into a tasty crust.

At Atlanta's Coastal Wholesale, Alton considers his thermal options. While many Americans associate steaks with grills, most restaurants cook steaks under powerful broilers that use gas flames to heat ceramic elements. These radiate heats up to 2500° F, and sear meat beautifully. But they are costly – even small units have four figure price tags. Luckily, Alton knows how to fake it.

To fake it, Alton finds a level spot and covers that with a fireproof mat (available at the hardware store). Onto that he rests a cinder block and then a grill grate. For Weber kettle users this would be the lower of the two grates. He measures a pound of charcoal into a lighting chimney (these are sold at many stores), and spritzes newspaper with cooking oil before crumpling it into the lower chamber of the chimney. The oil burns slowly enough for this kindling to ignite the charcoal. In about fifteen minutes, the charcoal will reach cooking temperature.

While that heats, Alton grabs spring-loaded tongs, insulated gloves and one of the few unitaskers he tolerates: a fire extinguisher. Oh, and a chair apparently made from the lower bowl of a kettle-type charcoal grill. When the coals are ready, Alton lifts them aside and taps them on the fireproof mat to shake off any ashes, then brushes any ashes from the grill. He slides his steak onto the grill and then covers it with the chimney, creating his own high-temperature broiler! Ninety seconds later, he flips it and cooks it for another minute and a half. This is as much time as the steak will tolerate at that temperature; any longer would burn and blacken the surface. To finish the steak, Alton lifts the grill and steak to the top of the chimney and covers it with a metal bowl (one he doesn't much care about), cooking each side for another minute. He's cooked the meat for a total of five minutes, and reached an internal temperature of roughly 123° F. It will coast up to medium-rare while it rests. Alton rests his meat on the rack so that the juices do not dissolve the outer char. Resting allows the temperature and pressure to equalize inside the meat. Cooks who skip this step discover that cutting the steak too soon liberates the juices, and creates a dry piece of meat.

Where does the name 'porterhouse' come from? Well, in the eighteenth century a particularly dark beer became popular with the porters of that era, so popular that it eventually took their name. As Alton narrates, various dock workers sit around him, creating a fictional porterhouse. Porter was a heavy and surprisingly nutritious beverage one might regard as the energy drink of its day. Establishments that catered to porters (and sailors, pilots and others of the docks) became known as porterhouses, and men went there for a pint of the signature drink and a hunk of something roasted. According to historian and “king of butchers” Thomas F. Devoe, a river pilot entered a porterhouse owned by Martin Morrison and located on Pearl Street in the city of New York. Morrison was out of his usual fare, so when the hungry river man asked for meat, Morrison cut a hunk from the back of a loin and fried it up. It was well received. From that point on, Morrison asked his butcher to cut his roasts into “steaks for the porterhouse”. Move a few words around, and the rest is history.

After purchasing meat and charcoal, Alton's got nearly a hundred dollars left over from his original budget! With that money he purchases himself some liquid popularity, buying a round for his “porterhouse”. He hopes he has convinced viewers to put the porterhouse steak back on the home menu where it belongs. Buy grass-fed meat, age it in the refrigerator and really put the heat to it with a homemade charcoal broiler. It's really that simple – not that the owners of a “Maison de Beouf” would admit it.

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