Eating Our Cow

Sirloin Roast, A Day Later

I really admire the poster Bridgestone on LTHForum.com. He posts about various meals he makes. For one thing, I appreciate that is ouevre is Sweden, a place with a much different coastline than Chicago but a not dissimilar climate. For another thing, I love how the meals are always so complete with the veg and the drink (usually a beer and a snaps or schnaps). Look at the repast in this fish dinner. This meal has the requisite snaps and two beers. Finally, he chronicles so well, the process, from ingredient to table. It's about all summed up in this telling of his Julbord 2006. I always want to make posts like Bridgestone. Except when I remember my camera, the meal's already a bloody mess.

Too damn bad, because this bloody mess of a sirloin was so nice. I wish I had captured it's various stages. Stage one would have been the look on my wife's face when I unwrapped the meat on Wednesday. Certainly one of the thrills of our 1/2 local cow is that we are not exactly sure what we get when we open each package (besides the burger). I had thought this sirloin roast was kinda the tri-tip. I expected a thick/wide piece of meat. Instead it was more of a true roast shape, a beef-football. There was no way I could get dinner on the table at a reasonable time with that hunk of meat on Wednesday.

Yesterday, I gave myself more time. Stage two meant having enough time when I found out I had only a 1/2 chimney's worth of charcoal. Luckily, Serrelli's near me sells the real stuff. Stage three would be encrusting the meat with a good rub. Stage four would be me cooking it directly over lump charcoal, rotating every 15 or so minutes. Frozen meat is not supposed to char up, but that was not so. With the burnished deep red-brown from the cooking/rub it did look like something Cedric Benson would fumble. Stage five would be the cutting. Inside, the pointy ends met the kid's needs while the fattest part was French red. It all had pure non-supermarket extra beefiness. My only quibble was the line of sinew running about 2/3rds through the bottom of the roast. It made some slices near impossible to eat. I wish I had trimmed that away (if possible). Next 1/2 cow, I'll do that, as there's no other cut like this with this package. Stage six will be the leftovers as good sandwiches.

Bridgestone would have shown the final ensemble. On the grill I roasted up the last of our asparagus and the first of our purple new onions. As the meat rested I made a lemon intensive salad from Farmer Vicki's arugula. It worked well to cut the richness as did the salsa I made from Vicki's parsley, Forest Park French Market (Geils) jalapenos and garlic and Italian olive oil. All together it would have made a nice picture.

Well sated, I waited a while to dig into left over rhubarb-sour cherry (the later coming from the freezer) crisp that my wife and daughter made last week. If I had taken pictures, you'd really be impressed.