aging isn't always a bad thing

A while back, my friend, Mike, tried to sell me on a method of cooking steaks. He went on to tell me that he lets the steaks sit in the refrigerator for over a week (a method called dry-aging). My first thought was - Gross! Can anyone say e-coli?? But after listening to him go on and on and rave about this method, I became curious. After all, he was still kicking and he's never had food poisining.

So last week we decided to try it. We took out the steaks from the freezer and allowed them to defrost in the fridge. Our intentions were to defrost them on Monday, age them for 3 days (much less than what Mike suggests) and cook them up on Thursday. That was the plan - but what ever goes according to plan? Instead of 3-day aging, the steaks sat there all week. Mony had become ill last week and the thought of eating a steak was not appealing at all. So we waited it out, thinking that we would just chuck them if they started smelling foul. Oddly enough, after a week in the fridge they looked great and smelled perfectly fine.

With the intention of having them for dinner tonight, we took a look at them after work. The moisture from the steaks had disappeared and the steaks looked very dry.
We were wary.
We were very wary.
But we went ahead with it...
and we are so glad we did.

This was probably the best steak we've ever cooked - and don't even get me started on lack-luster restaurant steaks that are supposedly dry-aged and charge you an arm and a leg. This cut was a rib-eye but tasted as good as a porterhouse. So incredibly juicy and flavourful. This is what steak is supposed to taste like....

On the side, we grilled some romaine hearts. I had read an article in June's edition of Gourmet magazine that talked about a grilled romaine cesear salad. We didn't use a cesear dressing but instead used a simple vinaigrette made with red wine vinegar and artichoke tapenade.

It was a great Monday meal -- even though we didn't even come close to finishing our steaks. Who cares? Tomorrow's lunch is going to make everyone in the office jealous!