The other week at the farmers' market the
Prather Ranch dude caught me cheating with the
Marin Sun dude. So embarrassing! A smart meatdulteress would, of course, shop at each on alternate weekends . . . but my freezer is getting bare, and I wanted to fill it up with good meat before our every-six-weeks carnival of TJ's/Costco temptation, where I might otherwise give in and buy TJ's ground buffalo (grain-fed, alas) and other strange flesh at Costco. So I splurged at Marin Sun and picked up a roast and a couple of steaks, and skipped merrily over to PR for the regular buffalo and maybe a bonus steak. PR guy rang up my order, then peered over the counter suspiciously, spying my conspicuous bag of . . . someone else's meat. I turned scarlet with shame. In a fit of jealousy he insisted that I take a skirt steak and compare theirs with his.
So now I have two skirt steaks and two tri-tips. The prices differ by a couple of bucks per pound, but PR is pricier on one cut and MS is more expensive on the other -- a wash. As far as I can tell, Marin Sun is 100% grass-fed, whereas PR's is mostly grass-fed and finished on alfalfa hay, barley, and rice. Here's
a quote from PR Steve on that topic: "Our beef is grass fed for the majority of it's life, then finished on a mixture of barley, rice and alfalfa, which allows for more intramuscular fat and marbling and that gives the beef a 'beefier' flavor. One hundred percent grass fed can be a little too lean and can be inconsistent because grass is inconsistent, when it's dry the beef may not be as good." (Follow the link for a picture!)
FirstI did up the Marin Sun tri-tip (having run out of time to marinate the skirt steak). I decided to broil it and make crepes.
While composing the rest, I briefly marinated the steak in a little dish of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, rosemary, pepper, and rosemary salt:
Then, cherry tomato relish! I chopped up most of a pint of Eatwell's cherry tomatoes with a splash of balsamic vinegar, Eatwell's rosemary salt, dried oregano, a few sliced black olives, and a chopped green onion, also from (you guessed it) Eatwell. Later I added a pair of delicious ripe bell peppers that had gone under the broiler with the steak, peeled and chopped.
I made just enough crepe batter for two large ones. (Whisk together 1 small egg, 1 tbsp melted butter, 1/4 cup milk, 1/4 cup flour, and 1/8 tsp salt. Pour into hot nonstick pan, swirl to coat, and cook briefly on each side until slightly browned.)
While making the crepes, I broiled
the steak for a few minutes on each side. It turned out just about perfect -- medium rare.
And the finished crepe:
The steak in this was fantastic; juicy, tender, extremely flavorful. It tasted strongly of cow the way good goat cheese tastes like goat. I know that's a terrible analogy, but there doesn't seem to be a
tasting wheel for beef. Salt, rust, blood, grass?
A few days later I marinated and broiled the Prather Ranch tri-tip in exactly the same way. While doing that I put together a massive salad nicoise:
I boiled some new potatoes, beets, and a couple of (beautifully orange-yolked) eggs, and simmered some zucchini and yellow carrots. Also in starring roles are cucumbers, olives, salad greens, tomatoes, radishes, fresh figs, red peppers, and probably some other things I'm forgetting. All dressed with a nice dressing of mustard, crushed garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Mmm!
And with the steak draped atop:
This steak, though also excellent, was not quite as cow-y in flavor. It was a tiny bit less tender, but the most noticeable fault, relative to the other, was the loss in rich flavor. It's conceivable that pairing the first steak with tomatoes, and this with mainly other veggies, gave the first an advantage. I'll have to test this theory with the pair of skirt steaks.
