Florentine Steak

Bistecca alla Fiorentina or the art of grilling a good piece of meat and thinking of Florence.

 We added the subtitle to this blog post, because I as many others I suppose have been wondering, when passing through the many restaurants offering Bistecca Fiorientina, why?  a Florentine steak is not just a normal steak. Here's how we ended cooking a juicy steak in compensation for the Florentine steak we never had.

Having passed on the Florentine steak as we were there,  our thoughts kept wandering back  thinking of that juicy steak. Being based in Germany however, a T-bone is impossible to get and 4cm thickness is not so common. However, here's how we went about making a regular steak into a Steak alla Florentine:

Steak alla Florence
cooked on a very hot charcoal grill

Serves: 2
Prep Time: 80 Min
Cook Time: 20 Min

Ingredients
2 Large Steaks, preferably 4 cm thick and T-bone if available.
2 cloves garlic
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 lime

Adding Garlic taste to the Steak

Directions
Put the steaks on a large plate, rub the meat directly with cut garlic cloves, add salt and pepper and squeeze lime fruit over the meat to tenderize it. Add plastic film to the plate and leave it in the fridge for 1 hour. Start up the grill, it must be so hot, that you don't feel like holding your hand over it for more than one minute. 
Remove the steaks from the fridge and let them reach room temperature (ca. 20 min.) for best results. Now throw them on the grill, 10 min on each side. If you don't move them around, you'll obtain those nice cooking lines in the meat, which you might have seen in Florence. 

 
One of the best tests checking if steak is done is to feel it.
Raw meat is squashy and soft, and as it passes from rare though medium to well done, toughening as it goes, it becomes progressively firmer, and finally unyielding.

Side Dishes for your  Grilled Steak

Since you're already grilling, why not precook a big potato for ten minutes, wrap it in foil and put it in the coals for 30-40 minutes - tastes excellent.
Take a metal-grill stick and ad your favorite vegetables. We did onion, tomato and pepper.

Tomato, Onion, Red Pepper gets a nice smoky taste

Make a salad. Proposed dressing: mix a spoon of mustard, a spoon of honey, two spoons of vinegar ad salt, pepper and basilicum.

The meals goes down so well with a good Chianti, and if you know your way around, you can get absolutely decent ones for less than 5 Euros.



Buon Appetito everyone.

Mmm... a very nice meal.