Anchovy Garlic Steak

I was watching the food network's Cooking Live Primetime the other day, and a steak recipe caught my eye.

This page is based on the Grilled Rib-Eye with Anchovies, Mustard and Garlic recipe presented by Janos Wilder of Janos Restaurant

It called for marinating a 2.5" rib-eye steak for two days in a mixture of garlic, mustard, anchovies and oil. Then the meat is grilled.

Yes, yes, I know that lots of folk don't like anchovies. Images of overcooked salty slabs of fish on mediocre pizza will turn just about anyone off to it. However, many people who don't like the little fishies do enjoy things that contain anchovies (but they don't know they are swimming around in there). For example, a good Ceasar salad, and many steak sauces have anchovies as a base flavor. A good anchovy provides salt and a flavor of its own.

As a little test, after I put the steak into the refrigerator to marinate, I coated some lamb chops for tonight's dinner. Although it didn't marinate for more than 15 minutes, the coating was quite delicious grilled. So, given a thick steak, and two days of marinating time, I was looking forward to the results. Click on the small photos for a larger view. Now on to the steak...

I got a lovely cut of meat from our local butcher. It's not rib steak, but he said it's similar, with less fat. The steak is 3" thick and weighs about 2.75 lbs. The butcher suggested two thinner steaks, but when I explained about the 2 day marinating, he cut me the steak/roast you see here.

The marinade

3.5 ounces canned anchovies in oil
4 tablespoons whole grain mustard (I used a sweetened spicy mustard)
4 tablespoons fresh garlic
4 tablespoons olive oil
Freshly ground pepper

Puree the anchovy, mustard, and garlic in food processor or blender, to form a paste then blend in the olive oil in a stream. Grind some pepper onto the steaks. Rub the steak thoroughly with the marinade and let the steaks marinate in the refrigerator for 2 days.

On Friday I got a nice surprise, a Mushikamado grill arrived from the Kamado company. It has a circular hole cut out in the grill, where a cast iron pot can go. I'll make photos of it in that configuration, when we cook our next chili. But for today, I thought it would be fun to initiate this grill with the steak and potatoes.

I prepared the potatoes by coating them with olive oil, and some coarse salt. I brought the Kamado up to about 550 degrees and let the potatoes bake for about 30 minutes (I put them back on later).

I then raised the tempertature inside the K to about 750 degrees to sear the steak. The photo on the above left is as it came out of the marinade, the one on the right is after one turn.

After searing each side for about 4 minutes, I returned the potatoes to the grill, turned down the temperature to about 475 degrees and let the meat cook. It took about another 25 to 30 minutes for the internal temperature to reach 125 degrees... I was targeting 140 for the final product and let it rest on the cutting board for 10 minutes or so... the carry-over cooking took care of the final temperature. I didn't want to ruin this by overcooking it.

As expected, when I cut into the meat, the slices near the edges were medium to medium rare, and as I got closer to the bone, it went to medium.

This meal went over very well with Lauren and the boys. I kept hearing Lauren mumbling something about "heaven". The crust was quite wonderful, the meat was very tender. Scott spent quality time munching on the bones. The potatoes were crisp on the outside, tender on the inside. Lauren made a nice salad, and we had some "onion board" as a bread.

Take a great piece of meat, and a flavorful marinade... I'm glad the results turned out as nicely as they did. Joshua said "you can't taste the anchovies!". Rest assured that the little crunchy bits owe their flavor in great part to the little fishies. < vbg >

I thought it would be nice to include a photo of Matt, the owner of Oradell Prime Meat Market (above left). When he asked how the dinner came out, I decided to make a little montage of some of the photos. He immediately put the photo on a stand on his counter, and folk have been asking about it on a regular basis (I also gave him some reprints of this page to hand out the recipe). I'm looking forward to hearing the results from others who give this recipe a try.