TUSCAN COOKING

Typical Recipes, Second courses:

Florentine steak - Bistecca a la Fiorentina

PREPARATION:

The meat must be at least two finger-widths high of choice sirloin and fillet (with the bone; equivalent to a porterhouse steak) and it must be from young animal.
As Prezzolini writes in his Life of Machiavelli, "cut from the young steer, with the rib attached, you look like a slab of brocatello marable, red and veined with white". To cook the steak, opinions widley vary. Some recommend rubbing it with oil, salt and pepper first. Some consider this blasphemy and, like the famous nineteenth-century Italian epicure Artusi, "if you dress it beforehand with oil or other, as many do, it will taste like snuff and will be nauseating". Therefore, place it as is on the grill aver a glowing charcoal fire (there are also different "schools" a to the correct kind of wood: holm oak, olive or other. But these are subtleties that no longer suit our lifestyles). It should be turned only once and the grill must leave its mark on both sides. When it is nearly done, season with salt and pepper (never beforehand, since it would dry the meat) and, as soon as you see that the salt has stiffened, serve with a pat of fresh butter on top. 30min.