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.