Feel the Burn

We have officially reached the dog days of summer.  That’s an expression I’ve never really understood the origin of, but apparently it refers to the time during the late summer when “the Sun occupies the same region of the sky as Sirius, the brightest star visible from any part of Earth and part of the constellation Canis Major, the Greater Dog.”  The ancient Greeks and Romans associated this time of year with catastrophes, war, and sickness.

Well, we certainly have the sickness part.  As I write this, our terrific nation has reached more than 5 million total cases of Covid, thanks to a combination of incompetent leadership and a huge population of buffoons.  We’re lucky here in Oregon, where we have only about 20,000 cases and 350 deaths.  All we can do in the meantime is wear masks, sanitize our hands, and try to cope with this heat.

And, is there a better way to cope with the heat than with a refreshing bowl of gazpacho?  Tomatoes, cucumbers, and bell peppers swimming in a crisp, cool soup zinging with garlic and onion – perfect.  In its native home of Spain, it is often referred to as a “liquid salad,” which is odd to discover because I always thought it was an Italian dish.

Anyway, we’re gonna start with a pound and a half of fresh tomatoes that we’re gonna mark with an “X” using a paring knife, and then boil for 15 seconds before transferring directly to an ice bath.

That might sound bizarre, but this recipe is courtesy of Alton Brown, who is like a cross between a chef and a mad scientist.  This boiling technique makes the job of peeling these tomatoes a breeze – I don’t even need the vegetable peeler.

Touching peeled tomatoes is a very uncomfortable experience – they’re like eyeballs.

After peeling the tomatoes, we scoop the seeds out and roughly chop them.  We do the same thing to a cucumber.  Chopped bell pepper, red onion, jalapeno (from our garden), garlic, olive oil, lime juice, balsamic vinegar, Worcestershire, cumin, salt and pepper complete our ingredients.

We’re not done yet though – we scoop out a cup and a half of this mixture and puree it in a blender.

This puree gets reincorporated into our soup to give it some much needed textural variety.  It goes into the fridge to chill, and we’re done.

Except gazpacho by itself is not a complete meal – far from it in fact.  It’s time to utilize the high-quality steak that’s been sitting in our chest freezer for who knows how long.

Because the gazpacho is so flavorful, we’re gonna keep this steak really simple.  No fancy or complicated marinades or anything like that.  All we’re gonna do is make a classic garlic herb butter compound – we melt regular butter, stir in herbs, salt, and garlic, and use plastic wrap to shape it into a log and put it in the fridge to firm up.  Also let’s preheat our oven to 425°.

We’re gonna plop our steaks into a ridiculously hot cast iron skillet with some avocado oil (better for you than vegetable oil, and can be taken to the same high heat).

After five minutes of sizzling, we’re gonna give our steaks a flip.

Now is the time to utilize that garlic herb butter we made earlier.

Brush copiously

Instead of simply flipping the steaks and cooking them for another five minutes on the stove, we grab all of the potholders at our disposal and transfer the skillet to the oven.

After another five minutes, they look absolutely gorgeous and our fancy new thermometer tells us that they’re a perfect medium rare (135° internal temperature).

However, upon slicing them up, it appears that they are a little too rare for some members of the family (cough cough Jo and Maya).

To me, that’s gorgeous but not everyone can be as sophisticated as I am

So back into the pan they went for another few minutes until they were medium-well (or, as Maya termed them, “gray”).  Regardless, now we could all sit down to enjoy this feast.  But we would be remiss not to mention the fantastic focaccia Jo baked to accompany our meal.

All in all, this feast was amazing.  The gazpacho was perfect – refreshing and crisp without being too garlicky or oniony (a fate that often befalls gazpacho).  And the steak was savory and brimming with umami.

A fantastic meal was finished with an unexpected dessert:

Is there a better summer meal?  A cool, refreshing appetizer, a savory yet simple entree, and a dessert prepared and consumed outside.  What’s more summery than that?