O Holy God in Heaven

I pulled my sous-vide filet mignon out of the Instant Pot, fired up the Anbang smokeless grill (it works!), seared my steak after patting it dry, watched with joy as a bona fide crust formed after about 90 seconds per side (I seared the sides of the steak, too, but for less time), then split the steak open to see whether it was indeed at the proper medium-rare. It was. That had to be some the most amazing steak I've ever eaten. Kenji Lopez-Alt warns that you can't get as deep of a crust with the sous-vide-and-sear method, but he says the meat's juiciness and texture make up for it. No lie. Let me give you the visuals before I discuss this miracle. 

filet mignon, seared and basted with thyme butter

nearly perfect interior (was too impatient to let the meat rest, hence the juices)

absolutely delicious with chimichurri

I normally try not to be the guy who tells you how to live your life, but in this case, I'd say get yourself a sous-vide-capable piece of equipment now, then reverse-sear yourself some steaks! This is absolutely the most idiot-proof method for a nearly perfect steak. If a dumbass like me can do this, then you certainly can, too. I'd actually recommend you buy an Instant Pot instead of a Joule or Anova sous-vide device: those devices cost $200-$300 apiece (some off-brand devices sell for $140 or so, but I can't vouch for their quality). An Instant Pot will run you around $150 US, and it can do so much more than cook via sous vide. It's easily the better investment, considering its versatility.

So, let's go over how this went. First off: did the sous vide work? Yes, but not perfectly. This was partly because the steak I chose was actually broken into two pieces, and I didn't know this until I pulled the finished steak out of the sous-vide pot. Luckily, the break was approximately a 90-10 proportion, so we're talking about a small, runaway piece of meat. It wasn't consequential, and the little morsel was done to exquisite perfection, as it turned out. That renegade bit of meat was, in fact, the first piece of the steak that I ate, and I ate it with no dip and no garnish—straight from sous vide. It tasted amazing, and the texture was perfect. That said, the sous-vide process didn't heat the meat through totally evenly; some spots did end up slightly browner than others. I was shooting for a medium-rare steak, and overall, that's what I got, but the cook-through wasn't absolutely ideal. Still, I'd be happy and proud to serve such a steak to my friends, so I'm looking forward to Saturday.

I then re-coated the done filet in a thin layer of oil for the next step: reverse-searing it on my new Anbang smokeless grill. So—did the grill work? It gave off some metallic, new-grill smells when I heated it up for the first time, but the grill turned out to be super-easy to use, and the temperature shot up to the 560ºF range (I was aiming more for 400º-450ºF, or 204º-232ºC). Adjusting the temp was a snap, and I had my thermometer-gun nearby to check surface temperature. Once the temp was right, I put the steak on and heard a welcome sizzle, and sure enough, the grill's fan sucked almost all of the smoke off to the side and down. I was right under my apartment's fire alarm, too, and nothing happened. Mirabile dictu! 

Not wanting to burn any herbs, I elected to sear the steak first, then bathe it in thyme-infused butter afterward. This worked out perfectly. Too impatient to let the meat rest, I set up two dips that I'll be serving on Saturday: garlic butter and chimichurri. Both proved excellent. As I said, the steak was overall medium-rare, as steaks should be. Plenty of pink on the inside. No Donald Trump-style well-done steaks here! The texture was everything I could have hoped for, and while the result wasn't 100% perfect, I attribute that more to my being a newbie at this than to the process itself. I got the steak pretty damn near perfect on the first try, and all my new equipment worked just fine. What more could you ask for?

So my goal, on Saturday, is to do a surf-and-turf service. This will consist of a filet mignon served with a small salmon steak plus some jumbo shrimp—all of that on top of a bed of mashed potatoes that will be surrounded by an asparagus purée. For the veggies, there'll be pan-fried asparagus topped with bacon crumbles on one side, and pan-fried button mushrooms on the other, balancing out the plate in yin-yang fashion. With three proteins, asparagus two ways, and mushrooms (technically not a plant, so technically not a veggie), that ought to be more than enough for the main course. Charles is making both bread and cake to bring over, so his bread will accompany the meal, and I'll have butter ready for that.

I'm really ecstatic at how well the steak turned out. I've prepped asparagus, mashed potatoes, shrimp, and salmon before, and making an asparagus purée is a no-brainer (so is cooking bacon). The only question is timing because everything has to come together at once. I'll be making the mashed potatoes and asparagus purée first, then keeping them warm on Saturday by using my two slow cookers (I may have to unplug them or turn them off when I fire up the smokeless grill, but that shouldn't be a problem). I'll cook the asparagus, shrimp, and salmon in advance, right before my guests arrive, and keep them all wrapped up and inside my oven (on very low heat). I'll be cooking the steaks via sous vide so that they'll be done when the guests start coming in. I'll cook the steaks in front of my guests and put everything together in what I hope will be a decent-looking presentation (oh, and I can't forget the bacon crumbles; I'll make those in advance as well).

One bit of trivia before I leave you: as you see in the above pictures, my filet cut is pretty fatty. Korean meats are more marbled in general; I first noticed this with brisket cuts. If you want an American brisket cut from a Korean butcher, you have to ask for it specifically. American brisket looks like solid meat with minimal marbling and a substantial fat cap, plus one big layer of intramuscular fat dividing up the brisket's muscle groups—the point and the flat. Korean yangji—their term for brisket—is more or less the same cut of beef, but it's way more marbled. The same seems to be true of the filet I got from the local meat guy: it's quite marbled. I hope my guests will be okay with that.

Man, I'm looking forward to Saturday. Tonight's test run was amazing.