T-Bone

 

Non-serious grillers need to step aside for this Grilled T-Bone Steak with Garlic-Chili Oil. This is from Grilling for Life by Bobby Flay, page 162 and it one of the best grilling recipes in any of Bobby's books. Try this and you will soon be considered a serious griller yourself, if you are not already! The oil-glaze was just Olive Oil, fresh thyme, red pepper flakes, roasted garlic, kosher salt and ground back peppercorns. I just stirred all that together and set it aside while the T-Bones hit the grill. I also sliced up some red and yellow bell peppers, covered them with some olive oil spray and ground in some salt and pepper. I put the bell peppers in my open grill skillet. You can see that the skillet is covered with small holes that allows the heat and the occasional flame up into the skillet. I kept tossing the skillet to move the peppers around over the heat and you can see the result - nicely charred roasted peppers. The T-Bones went to the grill with only a brushing of olive oil and a dusting of kosher salt and ground pepper. As always, we turn the streak only once. This is the Eleventh Commandment - thou shalt not turn a steak more than one time on the grill. The 12th Commandment is - never pierce a sausage with a fork while on the grill - but that lesson is for another day. The steaks hit the grill grates on the side that has the greatest amount of salt and pepper. This will insure that a crispy steak crust will develop. When the steaks turned, I added a brushing of the Garlic-Chili oil and let those flavors smoke right in. From the photo you can see the thyme and red pepper flakes grilled into the meat. That pepper crust and that oil-glaze made this one of the best steaks to ever come off my grill. I placed one of the T-Bones into the skillet with the peppers for the photo, but that is also what it looked like on the plate - plate perfection!

Wisdom of the Grill. The T-Bone is really two steaks in one, so this is the steak you want when you really want a big steak. The "T" shaped bone separates the two steaks of a T-Bone. On one side, the larger side, is a New York Strip. Many times a New York Strip or a Strip Steak is all the steak you need and it stands alone. The other side of the T, the smaller side, is the Tenderloin. The difference between a T-Bone and a Porterhouse is the size of the Tenderloin section. Just like grillers have their own specialties and techniques, there are variations in the definition between T-Bone and Porterhouse. A steak house may call a steak a Porterhouse, because it implies that it is larger than a T-Bone, when in fact what they serve is a T-Bone. Since the definition is somewhat unclear, I looked it up. The US Department of Agriculture's Institutional Meat Purchase Specifications states that the tenderloin must be at least 1.25 inches (32 mm) thick at its widest to be classified a porterhouse. Similarly, the USDA says that the tenderloin must be at least ½ inch (13 mm) thick for the steak to be classified a T-bone. I don't use a tape measure in my grilling, so by any name, use the Bobby Flay grilling methods and the Garlic-Chili oil from this recipe and all you will need to call it is - good!

Paul