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Steak... a delicious meal that’s sometimes a budget buster. Alton sets out to change that by exploring some of the overlooked cuts of the cow. Applying a little technique to these sometimes unappreciated parts of the bovine anatomy enables any cook to create top drawer flavor without spending top drawer dollars. Alton builds fajitas from Skirt Steak and demonstrates a simple sixteen minute cooking technique for broiling a Sirloin Steak. From a map of the cow through the right technique and even tips on proper cutting, Alton reveals how to deliver delight without delivering yourself into debt.
Episode Info
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Episode number: 7x7 Production Number: EA1G10 Airdate: Wednesday September 10th, 2003 Writer: Alton Brown
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Recap
Alton sits before a small table on which rests a steak dinner, incongruously in the middle of a meadow. He has no doubt John Wayne, that fundamentally American man, ate steak. Steak suggests wide open spaces, big skies and big... wallets?!? Of course John Wayne ate it! He was a millionaire and steak is the favorite chow of the rich and famous since the days when refrigerated boxcars and feedlots took the meal away from the cowboy and brought it to the rest of us...Read the full recap
Episode Notes
Cards
- Father’s Day is the biggest beef-eating day of the year, with over 80 million pounds consumed.
- A carpetbag steak is a large sirloin steak, slit and stuffed with oysters.
- The juiciness of meat is determined by its doneness: the rarer, the juicier.
- Beef is an excellent source of B vitamins, iron, and types of fat that may help prevent certain cancers.
- American grocery stores sell about 10.7 million pounds of skirt steak per year.
- Legend says Henry VIII knighted a rib of beef, thus giving us “Sir Loin.”
- Fajita comes from the Spanish word faja, for “girdle” or “strip.”
- Large restaurant broilers are called “salamanders” because legend has it that the newt-like animal is born of fire.
- The United States makes up 1/15 of the world’s population but consumes 1/3 of the world’s meat.
The episode title "Raising the Steaks" is a play on "Raising the Stakes," a gambling term that means increasing the amount of the wager. Many of Alton's episode titles are pop culture references or puns like this one.
When Alton is eating his fajita, the caption reads "Professional eater on closed course. Don't try this without a napkin." It refers to the often messy nature of fajitas and many other Mexican and Tex-Mex favorites, and lightly mocks the many automobile advertisements featuring professional drivers executing fancy maneuvers. Most such advertisements contain a disclaimer of the general form "Professional driver on closed course. Do not attempt." Presumably, the car maker's legal department holds the viewers' common sense in low regard.
During Alton’s military analogy (for which he dresses as an eight star general), a crawler appears. It reads, “What the General is trying to say is: Start with low heat and finish with high heat.”
The very end of the episode features a blooper from the "army men" scene. Alton reaches for the men but miscalculates and knocks many of them over. Then he can't contain his laughter and literally rolls on the floor!
Episode Quotes
Alton: I think it’s safe to say... John Wayne ate stake. And if there’s a meal more fundamentally American, I don’t know what it is. Think about it: steak is a meal born of wide open space, big skies, and even bigger... wallets. Of course John Wayne ate steak! He was a stinkin’ millionaire! A movie star!
Alton: We should really take some time to look at those oft overlooked cuts that, when deftly handled, can deliver delight without delivering you into debt.
Alton: In the next half hour, we’re going to prove that steak doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg in order to be... Good Eats (Good Eats theme plays. This is a rare late episode where Alton supplies the “Good Eats” in his dialogue. Usually he leaves the sentence dangling and lets the theme song supply its end.)
Alton: The real money steaks – the tenderloin, rib eye and whatnot, come from the middle of the cow, on the back. Why? Well, because it’s the furthest from the horn and the hoof.
Alton: Marinade-meat contact is key here, so I don’t like to do my marinade in a dish or a pan. I like to do it in a zip top bag – the biggest one you can get ahold of.
Alton: Acid can help you tenderize your own food. That’s because acids taste tangy, and tangy tastes tell our saliva glands to do their stuff. And saliva is full of enzymes.
Alton: How you slice skirt steak, or even flank steak for that matter, matters almost as much as how you cook it. For instance, if you were to take a slice with the grain, it might look very appetizing. But, when you put that in your mouth it would be a lot like chewing on a bunch of pieces of garden hose wrapped up in plastic wrap.
Alton: Sirloin names to look for, depending on your region: top sirloin, top butt steak, center cut sirloin, hip sirloin steak.
Alton: Now, we’re not trying to suggest that skirt and sirloin are the only cuts of this… critter that are worth trying, but we are saying that these two are definitely… (looks at “cow” behind him nervously) ...you know there are probably a dozen homemade sauces that would be perfectly at home on this meat but that’s another episode of… (looks at cow again)… I just can’t say it, you know, with… him… watching.
Cultural References
Alton’s snooty British waiter accent and comment that the steak is "wafer thin" suggests the waiter from a memorable scene from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. After morbidly obese Mr. Creosote has eaten about all the restaurant’s stock, a waiter sells him on an after dinner mint by claiming it’s “wafer thin.” The waiter dives for cover, knowing what's coming. If only poor Mr. Creosote had known...
Episode References
While discussing primals, Alton reminds viewers that he touched on the same topic during the premiere episode, Steak Your Claim.
Alton will discuss a prime cut of beef - the tenderloin - in a pair of episodes from season nine. Tender is the Loin I and Tender is the Loin II will explain how to manage a rich man's fare on a more modest budget by doing some of the butchering yourself.
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