It’s Like Butta
I’ve never been as much of an avocado obsessive as this girl. I mean, I like ’em and all, I’ve just always wished they could be, I don’t know, a little creamier? And maybe with a tad bit more blood. Yeah. A medium-rare avocado. Is that so much to ask, nature?
Thank god for Alton Brown. When Gansie shared this recipe for avocado compound butter, I knew it had to be tried on a nice steak.
Alton Brown’s Avocado Compound Butter
6 ounces ripe avocado meat, approximately 2 small avocados
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 ounces unsalted butter, softened
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon freshly chopped cilantro leaves
2 teaspoons ground cumin
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Peel and pit the avocados. Place all ingredients into the bowl of a food processor and process until well combined. Place mixture onto a sheet of parchment paper and shape into a log. Place in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 hours.
Fire up a steak and top with the avo-butter.
I still don’t quite have a full kitchen yet – so I forwent (wd?) the lemon juice and subbed in paprika for cumin.
Result: It kinda just looks like guacamole, but it tastes damn good. On another note, my grass-fed steak from the co-op was NOT amazing, so I am gonna have to do some research about how to cook those. Insight, anyone?
what cut of steak?
and glad you’re coming around to the mighty avocado.
it was a weird shank thing – i thought it was gonna be meatier but it was mostly fat so I trimmed away that little steakette above
how’d you cook it – broiler?
obv.
does the grass-fed co-op offer any other cut of meat? it might be more helpful to get another cut, as opposed to figuring out how to cook one that isn’t so great.
wasn’t really the cut that bothered me…more that it smelled weird and was kinda chewy…I mean, maybe I shouldn’t blame it on the grass-fed, but I felt like it was a weird nature-y thing that I didn’t know how to deal with. Maybe I do need my food to have antibiotics in it after all.
very interesting that you think it had to do w/ a grass-fed cow. not sure if i’ve ever knowingly had that before. i’ll have to be on the look out.
but El might be right, id guess its the cut.
you guys are not hearing me. It was not the cut. It was the weird grass-fed stuff. I think my cow ate too much grass or something.
talk to me. whatd it taste like? and dont say grass.
It was one of those things were it just smelled so bad – like dog food – that it was hard to convince myself it tasted ok
I agree cousin BS, I really think there is something to be said for antibiotics. I never liked the steak i had in other countries which are supposedly “healthier” or “safer.” Phooey to that. No one wants that. Then again..maybe keeping the fat might help. My advice: try all fat, all butter and all oliver oil – all the time – in a pan. really CAN’t be bad at that point.
…and if you don’t know what oliver oil is or you cant find it at your local grocer then you can substitute olive oil for it. I won’t look down on you.
now that’s some advice. thanks, mo-town!
Many Americans love Wonderbread, and find traditional whole grain bread to be disgusting – even the really good tasting stuff. If you are transitioning from a junk food diet (even if it’s beef and carrots, “garbage in, garbage out” applies to the animals that you eat and so you are what they eat, and many factory farmed animals eat garbage or worse, making it healthy looking junk food) it may take a while to adjust to the flavors and aromas of real food.
For flavor, you could try marinating the beef, this will complement the stronger beef taste. In time you’ll learn to like the taste.
For chewiness, it’s all about cooking right.
“it was a weird shank thing – i thought it was gonna be meatier but it was mostly fat so I trimmed away that little steakette above”
Shanks should be braised, maybe four hours, crockpots are great for that. I never throw away good animal fat – it’s filled with fat soluble vitamins and flavor and the healthy type of fat. I recommend leaving it on. When I do trim fat I throw in into the pan or pot. You want the fat to be with the meat during cooking. The general rule is “slower and lower” – I had a problem with a gas grill a month ago and took two long hours to cook a big grassfed steak – it was great.
“I agree cousin BS, I really think there is something to be said for antibiotics.”
Yes, they are great for when you are sick. If you take them when you aren’t sick, it makes antibiotic resistant diseases – whoops! It is wrong and unsafe to feed huge quantities of antibiotics to animals in order to keep them alive due to the unnatural monoculture factory farming environment they are born into, suffer through, and die a brutal death from.
“My advice: try all fat, all butter and all oliver oil – all the time – in a pan.”
That is an excellent suggestion. I would throw in some grass fed lard too if you have any!