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- Sloppy Steaks at Truffoni's!
Big rare cut of meat with water dumped all over it,
water splashing around the table!
Makes the night so much more fun!
After the club, go to Truffoni's for sloppy steaks,
they'd say no sloppy steaks,
but they can't stop you from ordering the steak
and a glass of water!
Before you knew it, we were dumping that water
on those steaks!
The waiters were coming to try and snatch him up!
We had to eat as fast as we could!
Oh, I miss those nights!
I was a piece of (beep), though!
- [Andrew] Hey, what's up guys?
Welcome back to Binging with Babish, where this week,
we're taking a look at the sloppy steaks
from I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson.
First for our, show accurate version, we're gonna heavily
salt and pepper a nice big ol' T-bone.
Let that sit at room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour
before introducing it to a super hot cast iron griddle.
Once it is as hot as you can feasibly get it,
go ahead and plop the steak down,
pressing it into the griddle to make sure that it's getting
even contact with the heat.
Let it sit undisturbed for three to five minutes,
flipping once you've started to get
some nice deep golden brownage.
Let it sit for another three to five minutes,
flipping it as necessary and holding it on its side
to render out the cap of fat.
And because this guy is so thick, I'm gonna finish him off
in a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven until he's registering
115 degrees at his thickest point.
The steak also made a distinct sizzle when Tim's character
poured water over it in Truffani's,
so I've got a preheated oven-safe plate here.
And of course, glass of water.
Here we go.
- [Jess] Please, no sloppy steaks.
- [Andrew] Come on, what do you think I'm gonna do?
Me? Sloppy steaks?
(Andrew stammering)
Here we go, let's slop 'em up.
Oh man, Tim is right, this is so much more fun,
especially when you're real piece of (beep) like me.
Okay, but in all seriousness,
we have a somewhat competently cooked steak here
in a whole bunch of water.
And it's definitely not something I would seek out,
but it's also not, like, ruining it either.
Steak is still good, as long as you eat around the water.
And once I fished it out and patted it dry,
it proceeded to become my lunch.
But that being said,
how can we make a delicious, intentional,
but still piece (beep) of friendly sloppy steak?
And I think the answer lies in a sort of tribute
to shabu-shabu.
We're gonna start out by making a dashi.
I've got four large kombu leaves here that I've soaked
in about four cups of water overnight.
Bring that to a simmer.
Once boiling, kill the heat and add one cup of bonito flake.
Cover and let steep for at least 10 minutes.
Strain that through some paper towels and a fine mesh sieve
for a nice clear dashi,
which is gonna be a nice foundation for our broth.
Grab a cup of this stuff and combine in a small saucepan
along with three tablespoons each mirin and soy sauce
and two teaspoons of sugar, which we're gonna bring
to a simmer and keep hot for serving later on.
Meanwhile, I wanted to serve this with a sort of
lotus root crisp bring a little bit of texture
to our soft and soupy party.
So I'm gonna appeal and slice some lotus root paper thin
on a mandolin, pick out my very favorite slices
and soak them for 10 minutes in a mixture of one quart
of water and a tablespoon each kosher salt
and rice wine vinegar.
Once they've hung out for 10 minutes,
we're gonna lay them out onto some paper towels
and pat them super, super dry,
because next up we're gonna fry them in some canola oil
that we've heated to about 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Unfortunately, this made the lotus root both curl
and cook unevenly, and I wanted really flat,
super evenly browned crisps.
So I'm gonna try out that trick that we learned
from the sloppy joes episode, thoroughly coating
the lotus root slices and oil before sandwiching
between two rimmed baking sheets, baking at 375 Fahrenheit
with convection for 15 minutes.
Ooh, that's too long, and they're stuck,
so let's try this again.
More oil, slightly lower heat,
and slightly shorter cooking time,
350 Fahrenheit for eight minutes.
Let's see how this works out, and they're not evenly cooked.
I think it's because my mandolin
is kind of a piece of (beep).
Eventually I did get one to brown evenly for me,
baking and rebating at one minute intervals
until I was left with a single perfect lotus root chip.
Next up, a sort of wasabi puree.
I couldn't get any fresh wasabi root,
so I got a third of a cup of wasabi powder here
that I'm gonna combine with half a teaspoon of sugar,
one teaspoon of mirin, and then I'm going to alternate
between adding water and oil, whisking thoroughly between
each addition to make sure that everything's emulsified
until we've reached our desired dollopable consistency.
This could take anywhere up to a half cup each water
and a neutral-flavored oil, like canola.
Then we are tasked with getting this liquid
into a cheffy little squeeze bottle, a chore that turned out
to be maybe the most difficult part of the day,
because we could not find a funnel small enough for the job.
So two to three days later, once we got the bottle,
I don't know, halfway full, our wasabi oil puree sauce
is almost ready to use, if I even decide to use it.
I'm gonna prepare for the final plating by peeling
some black garlic, which is a funky fermented garlic,
thinly shaving some black radish and carrot.
But what of the steak, you might be asking?
Well, here it is, a little more than a pound
of genuine A5 Wagyu ribeye,
the fattiest and most expensive steak on the planet,
this guy clocking in at just under $500.
Don't worry, absolutely none of this is going to waste,
I'm gonna eat all of it, but I just want
a little rectangular piece for our dish,
which I'm gonna cook on a ceramic yakitori grill
over a glowing bed of bincho-tan,
a special kind of white hardwood charcoal
that burns very hot for a very long time very consistently.
Top it up to the great, get it ripping hot,
we want our steak to be quite rare,
and we're dropping on one of our little cubes of ribeye
and cooking for about one minute per side,
until it gets a nice golden brown crust.
Use some big old chef's tweezers if you want to look cool
while you're doing it, and I'm primarily gonna sear the top
and bottom, but also gonna give the sides
a little bit of lovin', just so it doesn't look too raw.
Get the steak off the heat, let it rest for five minutes
before slicing and serving.
I'm gonna start by placing a shiso leaf
into my little Michelin star bold plate,
slice up the steak into bite size pieces,
and arrange them neatly atop the shiso leaf,
maybe fan them out a little bit,
so you see that rare beef action.
Then I'm flanking the beef with our tiny shreds of carrot,
radish, and enoki mushrooms, and then I'm topping each
individual bite of beef with a little dab
of our wasabi paste oil thing.
Very glad I ended up using that.
Place a single large salt crystal next to that,
that makes some tiny little shavings of black garlic
and arrange those on the other side.
And because, what the hell, we're really shooting
for the stars here, budget wise,
how 'bout some edible 24 karat gold, which should place
our dish firmly into piece of (beep) territory.
Once you've decorated it with your flavorless odorless
status symbol and figured out where you're gonna put
your one good lotus root crisp, you know what time it is,
it's time to slop 'em up.
We're gonna pour our piping hot...
I'm not entirely sure what to call this stuff,
down into the bottom of the bowl,
ao as to not disturb our delicate decorations,
and I know it's A5 Wagyu, so it's already gonna be
pretty great, but this is genuinely ridiculously delicious.
There's an excellent balance of salt and fat and acid.
Nothing's getting overwhelmed or lost in the background.
The lotus root chip tastes like a potato chip,
so that's nice.
Even after the delicious, delicious steak was gone,
the softened vegetables and peppery minty shiso leaf,
the broth, which I drank like cereal milk,
it's not quite shabu-shabu, it's not quite sloppy steaks,
it's sloppy shabu, or something.
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