Mister_Cutlets
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The week has ended, and with it our time together. Thank you to all the wonderful people who have asked me questions, instructed my errors, and encouraged my writings. I will continue to lurk, and occasionally post, on Egullet. Thanks especially to Steven, who has been a most steafast friend and supporter.
And by all means, I would encourage everyone here, if they have further questions or comments of a meaty nature, to address them to mr-cutlets@mr-cutlets.com. Each week, the Mr. Cutlets web site will feature "Ask Mr. Cutlets" questions, which I will do my best to answer.
Thanks again, and here's hoping we "meat" again!
Your Friend,
Mr. Cutlets
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Mr. Cutlets has lived a long and varied life, in which the great events of the day have hardly made any impression at all. Born in a crowded tenement on the Lower East Side of New York City, Mr. Cutlets father was a famous wonder rabbi, and his earliest schooling was taken with an eye toward following in the footsteps of his tzaddik father. Fate intervened, however, when the yeshiva in which young Cutlets was studying burned down during the Irish draft riots of 1863, and was rebuilt next to an Italian social club. The opiate fumes of the roasting pork, succulent meatballs, and sizzling veal chops drove the imagination of the young Cutlets wild, and soon he found himself dreaming of a future in which no flesh was trayf.
The expansion of American industry in the Gilded Age gave young Mr. Cutlets the opportunity he had been looking for. A felicitous friendship with the young August Swift and later, Philip Armour led to a consulting position in the nascent meatpacking business, and young Mr. Cutlets first assumed the meaty mantle when directing the construction of New York's meat-market district, concurrently with his work tending to the poor of Chicago's stockyards, making sure that they worked long enough hours to get the country filled with meat. Soon Mr. Cutlets realized that the source of all meat was neither immigrant labor nor posh broadway restaurants, but rather the animal on the hoof in the distant west, the "Virgin Land" whose vast plains and infinite vistas would inspire Frederick Jackson Turner to define America by its vanished frontier a few years later. The frontier was still open then, however, and so Mr. Cutlets set out west by ox-cart, arriving in Abilene for the last of the great cattle-drives before the closing of the Open Range would transform the american beef industry forever. It was there that Mr. Cutlets developed the deep emotional bond with bovine animals that would mark his eating habits for years to come.
The Cattle Kingdom passed into history, and the vast herds of buffalo disappeared from the plains, partially as a result of Mr. Cutlets' eating habits in these voracious years. And when the last of "the big shaggies" were gone, Mr. Cutlets returned east to help advise the newly-elected President McKinley on meat issues -- a position he has fulfilled for every subsequent US President. The progressive era was a happy one for Mr. Cutlets; his name was one to conjure with, and statesmen and beef barons quailed alike at the thought of a hard word dropping from his pen. The haughtiest hostesses and the comliest coquettes alike primped for his tri-chinned attentions. But the Great War swept that world away, and the depression taught the meat-man a much-needed lesson in humility, as red flannel hash replaced canvasback duck at rector's. Although elderly by the time of World War II, Mr. Cutlets volunteered, and was given an exemption to serve by President Roosevelt himself. Four hellish years in the Pacific taught Mr. Cutlets the evils of which a vegetarian people were capable, and he returned to an optimistic country a thinner, more hopeful, hungrier man.
He assisted Pierre Franey in the creation of the Howard Johnson's revamped menu, and did much to help America stock its refrigerators with plump and fatty post-war meats. Although the optimism of the Eisenhower era waned, Mr. Cutlets authority in meat-matters only grew larger, and soon a group of troubled, alienated youths gathered around his feet at his opulent New York state mansion. Pronounced as a "Guru" by the media and as "Father Meat" by his starry-eyed stable of flower children, Mr. Cutlets passed his 110th year eating veal at a communal table, and spending his nights in the company of voluptuous innocents. Where beef, pork, and veal had formerly sustained him, he was now given over to new and ever more exotic meats -- tandoori chicken, as introduced to him by the Majarishi; and char-siu by his friends in the Red Guard. Eventually, misconduct by his charges -- of which Mr. Cutlets was COMPLETELY UNAWARE -- led to the dissolution of his fortune and the savaging of his once-spotless reputation. The seventies were a bleak time for Mr. Cutlets, and the Republican ascendancy did him little good in the decade that followed. By the 1990s, Mr. Cutlets was approaching his 130th year, and while still eating enough meat for a dozen men every day, his constitution began to fail him.
It was then that he conceived of Meat Me in Manhattan, as a way of imparting the love and study of meat to the 21st century, and of insuring his many widows, mistresses, and god-children a steady stream of income once he had been dumped into potter's field. There, he hopes, a rib-roast-red flower will grow, and children will trod upon the soil with a hot dog or satay stick held in their tiny hand. Though Mr. Cutlets must pass away, the human race lives on, and eats on, as long as there is an AMERICA to feed, and a single animal left standing to feed it with. His last days are illuminated by this furtive, elegant wish.
Signed,
[His Mark]
Mr. Cutlets
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Dave and Steve,
Those are good questions, but Mr. Cutlets is equal to the task. It's very hard to get a steak cooked right at home. Even if you have a good broiler, unless you cut the steak very thick, by the time the surface is really good and brown the interior is overcooked. And I don't like very thick steak; at some point it fades off into roast beef. So what I like to do is to heat some olive oil in my cast-iron pan, let it get very hot, and sear the steak on one side for a good 5-7 minutes at medium-high heat. Then I flip it over and finish it in a 300-degree oven. The steak comes out with a brown surface, the interior is cooked perfectly, and you even have pan juices and black bits, should you feel like deglazing the pan with a little red wine and butter. And why shouldn't you?
As for burgers, thousands of failed experiments have led me to perfect my method. If I can't buy them as perfect discs (and I can when I get my organic angus beef from the Union Square green market) I form them as best I can by rolling a big meatball and pressing it in wax paper until it has achieved a perfect disclike form. I know they tell you not to ever compress hamburger more than you have to, but this is the way I do it. It's not the last pressing the burger will get, as you will see. I get the cast-iron pan hot and drop the burger on it. I then lay a press on top (a flat weight with a handle). The bun goes in the toaster oven. After about two minutes, or when the surface is good and brown and little drops of warm red blood appear on the surface, I flip it over and lay a thick slice of American cheese on it, and cover that with a pot lid. I spend so much time browning that one side that, although I've pressed it into the pan with a weight, there is a danger of overcooking the burger once it's flipped. It's like an egg over easy -- as soon as you flip it, its basically time to take it off. That's why you need to speed the cheese along. Drop the burger on the bun and you're ready to go! At least until you need another cheeseburger. I don't cook more than a 4 or 5 oz burger, so that's not a long time at all!
does this help?
Mr. Cutlets
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I like it! Some day I plan to release an anthology record called "The Meaty Moods of Mr. Cutlets," which will include such meat-centric classics as
Pork Chops & Gravy -- The Ink Spots
Save the Bones for Henry Jones -- Nat Cole and Johnny Mercer
Pork Roll, Egg, and Cheese -- Ween
Gimme a Pigfoot -- Bessie Smith
Burger Man -- ZZ Top
and of course Constipation Blues, by Screaming Jay Hawkins, among others.
Your suggestions are welcome. The greatest meat song ever written, however, is surely "Burn Baby Burn" by The Dicatators, from the album D.F.F.D. Buy it!
Burn Baby Burn
I crave the flesh of the sacred cow
charred and dripping fat
I love the sight of a baby lamb
Spinning on the rack
I say, Burn!! Burn!!
Burn, Baby, Burn!!
My guitar player likes to knaw the bone
and suck the marrow out
He plays a Marshall stack twenty feet tall
and grills a porterhouse
I say, Burn!! Burn!!
Burn, Ross, Burn!!
[blazing guitar solo by Ross "the Boss" Funicello]
Plantkillers...Plantkillers.. Plantkillers try to rule my world
Plantkillers...Plantkillers.. Plantkillers try to rule my world
The grill's hot, my knives sharpened
Got a bass-o-matic
And a hunger pang
Why do the Sioux hunt the buffalo?
Why do they love the pig in Spain?
Why do the big fish eat the small?
Why do we even have to eat at all?
Cause,
Life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on......
Look at me now
Look at me now
Look at me now
I'm on top of the food chain...
I am the carnivore
I am the omnivore
I am the matador
That's what my teeth are for!!
Burn!!
Burn baby Burn!!
Burn baby Burn!!
Burn baby Burn!!
Burn baby Burn
Words and Music by Andy Shernoff
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Varmint,
Another great question! Meat and breading go together like peaches and cream. No matter how bad a piece of meat is, pound it, bread it, and fry it up, and Mr. Cutlets is game for multiple portions. But what kind of breading is best? And where can you get it?
For me, the perfect breaded meat is, unsuprisingly, cutlets. A think piece of leg or shoulder meat, pounded flat, pressed with breadcrumbs, and sauteed in butter and olive oil, is a meat-treat fit for a cardinal. Of course, once you start talking about breaded meats, you have to touch on pan-fried chicken, the acme of the genre, and chicken-fried steak, its most mysterious and enticing expression. And don't forget breaded pork chops, scottoditti, veal chops milanese, and all the other wonderful combinations of meat and breading.
I could discourse on this subject for days, and often do. What other meat is so singularly imbued with crunchy joy? From the festive pop and spatter of the sizzling fat to the crackling cruch of the crust, breaded meats impart a gorgeous color and taste that, like the Midas of legend, turn everything they touch to gold. A few of my favorites in New York? Glad you asked!
-- fried chicken at Charles Southern Kitchen in Harlem, with a big new branch to be opened on the Upper West Side soon.
-- breaded steak at La Dinastia on West 72nd street and other latin meateries around town. Breaded steak has a thick, brittle coating that fissures all over at the first cut, but it's none the less delicious for that.
-- New York lacks a really first-class chicken fried steak, although I like the version at the Delta Grill, on 9th avenue, with its airy breading and thick onion gravy. Nothing to make anyone forget Threadgills, though.
-- the veal chop milanese at Artepasta, also on the upper west side, always gives me a charge.
I know I'm forgetting many breaded meats...let me know your favorites?
yours,
Mr. Cutlets
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Wow, Pan, you must have a delicate palate! I've probably eaten ten thousand purdue and B&E chickens over the past twenty years, and never did I detect the taste of cod liver oil. To me it "tastes just like chicken," as they say in exotic-meat restaurants.
Yours Admiringly,
Mr. Cutlets
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they're theme restaurants dedicated to aping their betters -- e.g. "cap'n mcallisters original chowder-house," "the New York Deli," "Old Sambo's BBQ," etc. etc. Second Avenue Deli is a self-parody, in other words. Head to Katz's.
yours,
Mr. Cutlets
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I'm definitely in...although I've been to the Burger Joint at the Parker Meridien and came away unimpressed. What's the next meeting? Keep me in the loop! I can be reached at
mr-cutlets@mr-cutlets.com
I would be honored to come. Has you been to JG Melon yet?
Mr. Cutlets
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Ahem. To get back to the original subject, Peter Luger inspires imitators all the time. MarkJoseph is little more than a tribute restaurant. Most New York steakhouses are, to some extent. But few restaurants can afford to spend what Luger spends on prime carcass meat -- even if they had the connections and infrastructure PL has built up over so many decades.
That said, Nebraska restaurant comes about as close as you can get -- the guy who owns it loves meat and spares no expense to get the very best, even to the extent of losing money. Egulleteers might consider visiting his place near Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, or on Stone Street in the Finanical district. It's not quite the same as Peter Luger, but it's so close that the distinction blurs. Plus, it has real appetizers and better side dishes. But Luger seems to be the only place that can make those kinds of prohibitive food costs pay. Their peerless brand and their mail-order service help a lot, I'm sure. In the meantime, if you go to Nebraska, tell them Mr. Cutlets sent you!
yours
Mr. Cutlets
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Did Frederic Van Coppernolle molest Lynn Klopwitz? And who could blame him if he did! At one point I toyed with the idea of having "Cutlettes" appear with me in public, and she would have certainly been my first choice.
I think I had better speak no further.
soberly,
Mr. Cutlets
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Martin Yan never did that to Tammy. Or did he?
Mr. Cutlets
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That is a great steak. It's more commonly called a "center chuck steak" and I frequently grill it. I don't know why people say that it has to be braised. It's delicious cooked over hardwood embers. You do have to slice it up before you serve it, though, owing to that weird bone. As for the flatiron steak, it's probably my least favorite piece of the chuck -- but it is very tender, and if I ever go on a diet will probably eat it, sliced up and fried in butter, for breakfast every morning.
yours,
Mr. Cutlets
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I'm afraid so. Jugged hare at Rules? Pressed duck at Tour D'Argent? Perhaps if I were meat I would be a 12-point buck. But would you call me "dear?"
Just kidding! Tripe, obviously.
yours,
Mr. Cutlets
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I disagree. I think he was the worst TV chef ever. Of course, he does get points for molesting his young assistant. Doesn't he?
Mr. Cutlets
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Abe Vigoda?
Mr. Cutlets
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For Europe, some of the places I listed in my "favorite meals" question stand out; for the rest of America, you'll have to wait for my next book, American Meat. There will be plenty of barbecue in it, but also tales of my visits to an Armenian goat roast in Cleveland; Kreuz market of Lockhart, TX, The birthplace of brisket; Jiggs Smoke House, makers of the perfect jerky; Stroud's chicken in Missouri; and Burgerfest, in Seymour WI, where they Build the World’s Largest Burger every couple of years. I have never
travelled to Asia, Africa, or South America -- although the latter seems like a natural for me and I have been planning a trip for several years.
yours,
Mr. Cutlets
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Among TV chefs, my first choice for cooking a meat meal would be Mario Batali. It's funny, because I've never enjoyed his meat-cooking at Babbo or Lupa, which is pretty much an afterthought. But on Molto Bario, his meats are practically pornographic. Everything is simple, he uses plenty of economy cuts, cooks them on the top of the stove (which for a browning freak like me is always a plus) and there's none of that ongepatchke bullshit you get when he is creating event meals. The chef I'd most like to roast bone-in? It's hard to decide. There are so many! Everyone despises Emeril, but for sheer ineptitude, it's hard to beat Jamie Oliver. And of course the food guy from Queer Eye From the Straight Guy is about as much of a food expert as the Hamburglar -- who he kind of resembles. If we're eating people just because they look appetizing, obviously the conversation begins and ends with Nigella. But I don't want to go there! Let cannibalism be punishment, not wish-fulfillment! Eww!
If we're bringing them back from the TV past to kill, I might have to nominate Chef Tell, who used to say "I wish this was smellovision!" every five seconds, or that lisping hamhock the Frugal Gourmet.
Does this help?
Mr. Cutlets
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No question in my mind: Daniel Boulud. He is my man -- by far the meatiest of the city's top chefs by a country mile.
Decisively,
Mr. Cutlets
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"long pig."
Mr. Cutlets
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Suzanne,
An old aporism, quoted by Brillat-Savarin, holds that "poultry is to the cook what canvas is to the painter." The roast chicken is the most simple and perfect way every conceived to cook a chicken; and therefore the success with which one roasts a chicken is an ideal index of his or her abilities as a cook. Yet like so many other "simple" tasks, a deceptive number of variables hides behind that crispy brown skin.
These include:
-- What kind of chicken should you use? I love the regular purdue chicken, but kosher chickens like Bell and Evans or Empire are juicier and meatier, and in addition they live a happier life than their tortured brothers in the Purdue factory. Free-range chickens are said to be healthier, as are organic chickens. Some people like to cook a big fryer, while others want a monster chicken almost as big as a turkey.
-- what temperature should the chicken be roasted at? Some people are ardent believers in slow cooking at a low heat. Others, like Barbara Kafka, argue for roasting for short periods in a 500-degree oven. Both camps point to their own perfect chickens, but in fact both methods are capable of producing monsters.
-- What, if any, dressings should be involved? For years, people believed that it was necessary to shmear butter on a chicken, and to then baste the bird periodically with hot buttery shmaltz as it cooks. Others like to squeeze a lemon, whose acid is said to cause the skin to crisp nicely. Pepper, kosher salt, rosemary, paprika and other spices are suggested for the skin. In haute treatments, truffles are smuggled under the skin.
-- Many people swear by brining, which gives a wonderfully juicy, salty intensity to even a shopp-rite brand chicken, and elevates the best chicken to another plane.
-- Then there is the whole white meat / dark meat conundrum. The white meat is perfectly cooked and juicy long before the dark meat is done to a turn. So cooks flip and flop the bird, drop cheesecloth or tinfoil over the breast, using special v-shaped racks, and other techniques, including (in some sad cases) just roasting a freakish giant boneless breast in lieu of a chicken. Needless to say, I hope it never comes to this in your kitchen.
All of these issues are legitmate. The only completely fool-proof food is the baked potato, which you stick in a 400-degree oven for an hour and forget about. (Though naturally some people insist on gilding even this lilly, oiling the things down and wrapping them in tinfoil.) My own method for making roast chicken is fairly simple. I season the bird on both sides with cracked black pepper and kosher salt, roast a big bird (7-9 pounds) at high heat (450 or so) until the breast is exactly perfect and the skin is crisp, about 40 minutes. I take it out and let it sit for ten minutes, and then slice off the entire breast and serve it. The rest of the chicken is turned upside down and cooked for another 25 minutes, and served as a second course, with plenty of crispy thigh skin. Or you can serve both courses together by keeping the breast in a warmer of some sort. If you want to cook the bird in the classic, simple way, I would go with the barbara kafka method of a 500 degree oven for an hour. (I think she says an hour; you might have to check.) I brine if I have time, and I try to use the hot shmaltz to make a jewish version of pommes anna in the broiler with thin par-boiled potatoes.) I brine if I have time, and I use either purdue or kosher chicken, or (if I can get it) amish farm chicken. I steer clear of most free-range chicken, which isn't juicy enough for me.)
And then I sit down to eat.
yours,
Mr. Cutlets
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Dumpling,
I don't think I could even begin to answer that question. I've been eating five square meals a day since the first Cleveland administration, and every one of them has brought me a distinct delight. In recent years, off the top of my head, I might consider as candidates:
-- lunch in Paris, 1987, epigram of lamb for the first time at Michel Rostang. The apotheosis of lamb.
-- a boiled chicken in the alps with the Scrapple King. Bought for $3 at a grocery on the side of the road, consumed by a mountain stream.
-- pecan ribs and mutton at Ben's BBQ in Austin, stumbled across after a disappointing visit to the Iron Works.
-- Leg of Mutton with Stalin and Beria at the latter's dacha in 1952.
-- A pennsylvania pork roast in which a whole hog was spitted and cooked inside chicken wire. At the end, the host cut the coop wire off the pig with some wirecutters and pulled it off, with pounds of crispy brown pork fat and flesh stuck to it. "Do something with this," he told me -- and I did!
-- Last month I was walking down Avenue B and a fresh direct truck dropped a bagged, unsliced Jewish rye onto the street. The men didn't notice, so I spirited it away like a character in a Victor Hugo novel and took it home. I had some thick american cheese and some good bacon, and I cut thick slices and made a great, not good, grilled cheese and bacon sandwich.
-- An alpenwurst I once had in the street in Prague.
-- A long, draining Grateful Dead concert during my college days, during which I didn't eat for ten hours under the influence of LSD, and then found myself famished and exhausted at 3 am, with my pockets full of money at White Castle.
I'm sorry. I can't even begin to think of my greatest meals....there are just too many of them...and my eye is ever fastened on the next one.
yours,
Mr. Cutlets
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Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Mr. Cutlets
is the most unobtrusive of guests. Give me only a small space
at the table, and room to point my ear-horn, and I shall be
quietly content with my hamburger(s).
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I don't know, Varmint. As much as I love beef, I'd hate to see my team try to get back in transition with each man carrying around a pound of undigested beef. Uptempo basketball is hard enough! Maybe the 4 and 5 men could eat bloody steaks so as to give them the manly mojo needed on the low blocks. They should swallow up penetrating guards like so many tournados.
Hoopfully
Mr. Cutlets
p.s. check out my basketbal column at http://www.hoopsworld.com/boston.SHTML
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As far as I'm concerned, Picaman, chuck steaks are the biggest secret in the restaurant world right now. Nobody serves them that I know of, although I love them. What is a "7 bone chuck steak"? I never heard of that.
yours curiously,
Mr. Cutlets
Burger Club
in New York: Dining
Posted · Edited by Mister_Cutlets (log)
Maybe I will replace Bergerka in the burger club. I just visited Prime Burger, on 51st street, and found it solid but unexciting. Next up: Murder Burger in the Bronx. What's next for the burger club?
Mr. Cutlets