Paul’s Ramblings

Every red-blooded male derives a certain amount of pleasure from devouring the flesh of a dead bovine; I am no exception. Florence has a big reputation for doing a great steak and I can vouch for that personally. Whilst training from Bologna to Florence we met a nice bloke, who makes a living selling antique watches, and he recommended us a good restaurant for steak. Unfortunately it was closed for August, like most of Italy, but the owner of a neighbouring cafe was able to direct us to the next best kept secret in well-trodden Florence.

After they have paraded the side of beef onto the butchers block the carve off a slice from each end for your selection. Naturally, I took the cut from nearer the neck, as it contains a tender round usually known as the rib eye; it weighed in at over 900g! I must stress for a moment that if there was one thing that made this steak truly special it was that is was dry-aged. Dry-aged beef is hung in a cold room with high humidity for a number of weeks, during which time enzymes in the meat work to tenderise the flesh and slow dehydration causes the flavours to intensify; this type of meat can’t be bought at the supermarket.

But if the meat wasn’t already perfect, they go and cook it in real style; over the coals. This adds a fantastic smokey hit to the meat.

Once the steak is cooked to perfection, which for me is rare, it is seasoned with salt and pepper and served with a side order of vegetables. The steak has the most intense and delicious meaty flavour, and is so tender. I can’t recall the last time I had a steak so good, it’s possible I never have.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 1:15 am and is filed under Food, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.