My mother used to make this and her original recipe also called for beef lung – no longer permitted by Dept. of Agriculture. I added the cubed beef to make up the difference. I never saw this on a restaurant menu.
Preparation: Season liver, brown in oil and set aside. Season heart/beef , brown in batches and set aside. Remove any liquid so meat browns and doesn’t steam. Don’t overcook.
In the same pot, add more oil, sauté onion and garlic until soft. Add tomato paste and caramelize. Add stock, deglaze and stir well and add bay leaf. Return meat, mix with onion and add oregano. Simmer covered for 1/2 hour, adding more liquid if needed. Taste for seasoning. Add the browned calf liver at the end.
Porterhouse, the king of steaks, has a strip steak on one side of the bone and a tenderloin on the other.
Sprinkle with lots of salt and let it (1 ½ to 2 inches thick) sit at room temp. Heat skillet very hot with a little oil. 3 minutes on one side and remove to board, crust side up.
Cut the loin and sirloin in thick slices straight down and perpendicular to the bone but leave ends attached to the bone.
Dot with lots of butter and put it back together in the pan curst and butter side up.
Place under a preheated broiler for 3 minutes. Spoon melted butter over it and remove from pan or it will continue to cook.
Roasted Tomahawk Steak
Ingredients:
1 -2 ½ to 3 inch thick tomahawk steak *
Salt and black pepper
3 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
Preparation:
Blot room temperature tomahawk dry with paper towels and season with pepper and lots of salt; let rest for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 400°. Dot roasting pan with 3 tbsp. butter.
Put1 tbsp. oil in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat. When it’s good and hot add steak to skillet. Cook until seared on all sides (including edges), 2–3 minutes per side. Transfer to the roasting pan. Roast in the oven, turning halfway through cooking and basting with the melted butter, Cook for 10 minutes for rare.
Place in a serving platter and pour the melted butter fron the pan over it. Cover loosely with foil and let it rest for 10 minutes before serving. Serves two.
* A tomahawk steak is a rib steak with the entire rib bone intact.
My great aunt Caroline could cook weeds and make them taste good. She had a dish her guests would often hope for at lunch. She’d sauté chicken hearts and mushrooms in olive oil with crumpled dried pepperoncini – simple ingredients which came together as something very special. The mushrooms were gathered by my Uncle Tony in his forays into the wilds of Staten Island to places only he knew.
When he went to pick wild mushrooms he’d be gone all day and Aunt Caroline would say, “He thinks I don’t know, but after he gets the mushrooms, he plays poker with his friends. As long as he brings me the mushrooms, I don’t say anything.”
The first time I can remember her serving the chicken hearts, she looked at me and without asking if I’d prefer it, cut a couple of slices of crunchy Italian bread and spread it with cream cheese and Welch’s grape jelly.
“Robbie’s ‘Merican,” she said to my mother, “so I made him a sandwich I saw on television.” I was glad to get the cream cheese and jelly but eventually acquired a taste for her chicken hearts.
Ingredients:
1 lb chicken hearts
1 lb sliced mushrooms (your choice)
¼ cup olive oil
Dried peperoncini to taste
Salt and black pepper to taste
Preparation:
Wash, dry and season the chicken hearts with salt and black pepper. Sear them in oil in a very hot pan and remove. Sauté sliced mushrooms in the remaining fat & oil. When done return the chicken hearts. Break up 3 or 4 dried peperoncini into the pan stir and serve when the peppers soften.
Roasted Beefsteak Sirloin with Blood and Butter Sauce
Adapted from Chef Waldy Malouf’s beefsteak recipe at the (now closed) Beacon Restaurant.
Throwing a “Beefsteak” is an old New York City tradition. It was a night of beef, beer and cigars with no vegetables or silverware.
For more on the beefsteak tradition see: ALL YOU CAN HOLD FOR FIVE BUCKS, written by Joseph Mitchell and originally printed in The New Yorker Magazine, 1939
Ready to serve
Ingredients:
1 whole boneless sirloin, approximately 8 pounds; ask your butcher for a No. 180 strip loin (pretty expensive)
Coarse S&P
2 onions, chopped
2 cups beef broth
8 ounces (2 sticks) butter
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
Sliced white bread
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Season sirloin heavily with S&P. Place in a roasting pan, fat side down and roast for 30 minutes. Turn meat over, fat side up, and add onions to pan beside meat. Roast another 30 minutes.
Remove roasting pan from oven. Turn oven off and leave door ajar to cool slightly. Transfer beef to a rimmed platter, leaving onions in pan. Loosely cover beef with foil and return to oven to keep warm. Carefully spoon off about two-thirds of the clear fat in roasting pan (leaving any dark juices beneath) and add beef broth. Place over high heat and boil until reduced by half, about 10 minutes. Add butter, Worcestershire sauce, and any juices that have collected in platter of beef. Return to medium-low heat and simmer for 10 more minutes. Strain sauce into a warmed pitcher or serving bowl.
To serve, slice sirloin into 1 1/2-inch-thick steaks and then cut each steak crosswise into strips 3 to 4 inches long that you will be able to pick up with your hands. Serve sauce very hot. Dip meat into sauce as you eat. You can also serve meat with a stack of white bread.
Capozzelli di Angnelli Yes, it’s a lamb’s head. The padrone would get the loin, legs and chops and the peasants had to make what was left taste good.
Ingredients:
1 lamb head, split in half
Salt and black pepper
1 tsp oregano
½ lemon plus more for serving
1 clove garlic, minced
½ cup olive oil
Preparation:
Place room temperature halves on a platter and liberally season with salt and black pepper. Mix ½ tspn each, salt and black pepper with oregano, lemon juice, garlic and oil (save some oil to grease baking pan). Rub halves with marinade and allow to sit at room temperature for one hour.
Roast for 90 minutes in an oven pre-heated to 325o. Starting with cut side up, turn and baste with drippings every ½ hour. At the end of 90 minutes remove it from the oven and turn on the broiler.
Baste and place in broiler, eye side up, about 6 inches from flame for 2 minutes until lightly browned. When done, let it rest for about 5 minutes and serve with lemon wedges.
Soufritte
Preparation: Season liver, brown in oil and set aside. Season heart/beef , brown in batches and set aside. Remove any liquid so meat browns and doesn’t steam. Don’t overcook.
