Vacuum Packed Meat

Last night Laura and I went by my mother's place to watch LOST as we're want to do. (Great episode last night - finally started drawing things to a conclusion... but so much more to learn!).

But I'm not here to talk about LOST. Before we settled in to watch, Laura and I went by my parents' neighbor's place. She makes her own sausages and we went by to pick up some fresh-made ones for Brian's upcoming birthday party. While we were there, she invited us in to take a look at her whole kitchen area.

Since they bought the house behind my parents', I've been wanting to head over and see what they added. They put an addition off the back that my mother described as a massive kitchen where she does all her cooking. Intrigued, Laura and I went in to see what it was all about.

She has tons of refrigerators lining the walls, each one filled with either meat to be prepared or packages of sausages ready to go. We picked out a few of her special recipes (a mild one and a moderately-spicy one) and then she started talking to us about other things she was starting to work with. And here's where I saw the coolest thing...

She's starting to package pre-marinaded flank steaks. I was kinda interested - I always like a good marinade and while flank steaks aren't the best, they're not expensive either. Then she showed me how she sets up the marinade.

There's a large metal drum, probably 5 gallons or so, into which she puts the steak and the marinade and seals it up. At the top is a valve. She affixes a hose and sucks all the air out of the drum. Evidently the meat expands when it's in a vacuum, so the marinade is able to permeate inside the meat. She then takes the drum and puts it on a couple of rollers that slowly spin the drum for about 20 minutes. Once that's done, she reintroduces air, the meat compresses, and the flavor's locked in. My mother swears by these things, evidently.

So Laura and I got three steaks, one of each of the flavors she makes. Tonight we'll be trying the lemon steak - my mom's favorite.

Kid in a Candy Store

Over this past weekend while up at Eric's place, he took Laura and me to a heavenly spot called the butcher's shop. I'd never been to an actual butcher's shop before, but it was amazing! It was a tiny hole-in-the-wall place where you walk back to the back and two guys are sitting there with massive knives just chopping up meat. You tell them what they want and they get it for you!

So naturally I was paralyzed with consideration. What did I want to order? Fortunately, two other people next to me came up and said, "Three NY Strips, 1" thick." So the butcher went back to the back and came back with a huge piece of cow. He tossed it on a band-saw and sliced off three pieces of 1" thick cow. Heading back to the cutting board, he proceeded to trim the fat until there were three awesome looking steaks.

Well, I just had to have some. So I stepped up and ordered the same thing. Now Laura and I have a couple of NY Strips ready to be cooked when we have a special occassion. My mouth is watering just thinking about them. I need to find a butcher's shop around here.