NY strip "roast"

When I was at the store the other day I watched the butcher set out some massive NY strip loin steaks. They were about 2-1/2” thick. When I went closer to see if they were as good as they looked from a distance, I saw that not only did they look very good, they were on sale for $10.99/lb. Now that is a good price, especially for a well-marbled and trimmed NY. Even though that wasn’t in my meal plans for this week I picked one up – I never let a meal plan keep me from buying great ingredients :-) Since this piece of meat looked like a small roast, I decided to treat it that way. I’ve told you before how I like to brine chicken and pork before I cook it. Brining isn’t appropriate for beef – I can’t exactly tell you why, I really do need to go read up on that, but my instincts tell me that. And I trust my instincts when it comes to matters of culinary import. However, there is another way to seal in flavor with beef and that is by koshering it. All that really entails is coating it with kosher salt and letting it sit in a way that allows any juices that come out drain away. You end up with a nicely seasoned piece of meat. I don’t do it for religious reasons, but removing any blood from a cut of meat is good for flavor, too. I “drifted” some salt over the meat and set it on a rack in a quarter-sheet pan, then covered it loosely with plastic wrap. That went into the fridge for a few hours until I was ready to bring it to room temp before roasting. With a small piece of meat, you really need to have a hot oven so that there is an opportunity to get some browning before the meat is cooked. That meant 450 degrees, and I let it heat for another 15 minutes after it beeped ready. I rubbed the meat with a little olive oil and sprinkled it with ground green peppercorn. It went back on the rack/pan on its “side” so that it was taller than wide. The meat roasted for about 25 minutes, until the internal temp was about 122. Then I tented it with foil to let it rest and the internal temperature even out though the meat. I cut it in thin slices crosswise, so the pieces were about 2x2. Nicely medium-rare. We had a salad with a balsamic-Gorgonzola vinaigrette I whisked up, used a little Dijon mustard in it. Some aromatic popcorn rice and the rest of the whole braised mushrooms I talked about the other day. The juices were great drizzled over the meat. Tonight we are having pulled pork and salted cabbage. Sort of a Hawai’ian kalua pork and cabbage meal. I cooked the pork shoulder yesterday in a covered pot in the oven at 250 degrees for about six hours. Dave was kind enough to pick out all the fat and shred it for me. Of course, that was for him, too!