Grilled Strip Steak with Jack Daniel’s Glaze
©2008 Harry Kenney
Simple recipe? Yes. Simple ingredients? Yes. Great taste? Hey! That goes without saying. What does need talking about is, simple as these are, what is a sauce? A glaze? A mop? What exactly is Jack Daniel’s? And while we’re at it, where exactly on the steer does a strip steak come from?
According to About.com “Mops are sauces you might (better) know as sop, bastes or mops.” I would have to add “glazes” to that list. (For instance the Asian glaze I use on salmon is like this; whereas the glaze I put on meatloaf stays there the first time, that is, one application and leave it.) First, let’s take a left turn. A marinade is a sauce made of either all wet ingredients or wet ingredients and some dry (spices and herbs), but it’s still basically a wet sauce. And into this marinade, your proteins, your meat, poultry or seafood is placed prior to cooking to add flavor. So all these other things — glazes, mops, bastes — are what you put on immediately before and/or during your cooking — as with this recipe.
Moving on, what the heck is Jack Daniel’s anyways? Why it’s Tennessee whiskey. Which is not to say it’s actually whiskey. Ok, it is, but it’s more like bourbon. To confuse you more it’s a “sour mash”. Here’s the deal. taken from Wikipedia: “Whisky or whiskey refers to a broad category of alcoholic beverages that are distilled from fermented grain mash and aged in wooden casks (generally oak). Different grains are used for different varieties, including: barley, malted barley, rye, malted rye, wheat, and maize (corn).”
Got that? Ok, let’s then look at American whiskeys and Jack Daniel’s in particular. “American whiskeys include both straights and blends. To be called ’straight’ the whiskey must be one of the “named types” listed in the federal regulations”. The most common of which are: “Bourbon, which must be at least 51% corn (maize); Rye, which must be at least 51% rye; Corn, which is made from a mash made up of at least 80% corn (maize).” All straight American whiskeys are defined by law to meet certain criteria (which we’ll skip over here). But not Jack Daniel’s which “is identical to bourbon in almost every important respect. The most recognizable difference is that Tennessee whiskey is filtered through sugar maple charcoal, giving it a unique flavour and aroma.”
Ok, that covers sauces and “Jack”. (Btw, if anyone ever says to you “You don’t know jack”, now you can say you do!) So what is strip steak? It is cut from the short loin (sometimes also called a strip loin), It’s a muscle that does little work, and so it’s extremely tender. Unlike the nearby filet mignon, the strip loin is a sizable muscle, which allows it to be cut into the larger portions to the delight of steak eaters. (See the public domain image here.)
One funny thing about this steak, it has more aliases than most criminals! It is known simply as the strip steak, natch. It’s also known as (big breath): top loin steak, New York steak, New York strip steak, Kansas City steak, Kansas City strip steak, hotel steak, ambassador steak, club sirloin steak, strip sirlon steak, shell steak and even the Delmonico. Yep, a whole lot of names for one single cut. Furthermore, in the UK and British Commonwealth countries this is known as “porterhouse”. But no, this is not the same as American’s are used to, Amercian porterhouse is a different cut, which to avoid any more confusion, I’m not going to get into. What matters about the strip steak is it’s expensive and it’s tender and delicious.
Note: This is a smoke alert dish! As you see in the photo, this baby will smoke. How do they do it in the restaurants? Obviously they have those big hooded exhaust fans directly over their grills and stoves. Whereas cooking at home, some of us do, many of us do not. If you can do this on an outdoor grill, all the better, in fact, that would be best. For me, as it was 16 degrees here in Philly when I did this the other day, I pretty much had no choice. Hey, you know the saying where there’s smoke there’s fire? Well here, where there’s smoke, there’s taste! … And a bit of a clean up. So, you’ve been forewarned.
Grilled Strip Steak with Jack Daniel’s Glaze
©2008 Harry KenneyTwo one-pound strip steaks
1/2 cup Jack Daniel’s
1/2 cup pineapple juice
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp worchestershire
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp ground gingerCombine (whisk) ingredients well. Place into small saucepan on medium-high heat. Reduce volume of liquid down to 1/4. Either get your outdoor grill ready or preheat your indoor grill. Let sauce cool enough that you can pour onto a plate and coat both sides of each steak portion in the sauce then onto the grill. Cook as you normally would. Each time you turn your steak, baste on with brush (or tablespoon if no brush) more of the glaze. Do not add sauce after you take it off, only before and during. Cook to your taste (preferabbly medium or medium-rare). Serve.
Sauce is enough for repeated bastings of both sides of two one pound steaks. Warning if done indoors this will create a good deal of smoke. Therefore outdoors is preferred, but you can certainly do this indoors. Your choice.
