Chopped Steak
Chopped Steak
I had an opportunity to make chopped steak when having some folks over for dinner one night, and I realized that I needed to come up with a good recipe. After looking all over, I decided to combine some of the ideas I found and make a recipe of my own. The result? Not bad, not bad at all (according to my guests and my wife — who would tell me in an instant if I’ve veered off of the pavement on a recipe).
Something Better than Ground Beef
All the chopped steak recipes I found called for ground beef. Since the crowd I was serving were some of our best friends, I didn’t want to leave the quality of the beef up to the butcher — you don’t always know what they’re grinding up sometimes. To make sure I knew exactly what beef was going into my chopped steak, I started with Angus eye of round. If you want to get about 8 chopped steaks out of this recipe, get one that’s just over 5 pounds. Cut the meat into manageable slices. This made cutting the fat off a bit easier.
To the right is a picture of the pieces with the fat cut off. Notice there is still some marbling, so the meat will be moist; but it will also be very lean.
Grinding the Meat
I use a Kitchen Aid stand mixer that has a fantastic grinder attachment. For chopped steak, I wanted the meat to be a bit coarse. So, I used the coarser of the two meat grills (the one pictured to the right).
You’ll want to make sure to cut the steak into strips that will fit into the grinder. Here, you see a slice that fits neatly into the grinder.
The Flavor Mix
Flavor Mix Ingredients
|
Beat the eggs and mix them into the beef. Now, combine the wine and rest of the dry ingredients together and add to the beef. Use your hands to do this. You want to keep the beef a bit coarse, but you also want to work in the mix.
Add about 1 cup of bread crumbs. I usually chop up a couple of heels and extra bread that I have left over. If you have any of those Fresh Market French Rounds, add 5-6 to the food processor when you’re chopping up the rest of the bread — they add a nice bit of flavor to the chopped steak.
Also, add about three tablespoons of dried parsley or four tablespoons of fresh parsley.
Cutting the Steaks
After mixing the ingredients together, turn out onto a cutting board and form into a loaf. Cut coins out of the loaf, depending on how large you want your chopped steaks to be. I usually make sure mine are about one or more inches tall.
Form each of the chopped steaks and make a divot in the top. If you don’t, like hamburgers, they will plump up. You’ll need that divot in the top to hold the Gorgonzola cheese that you’ll add at the end of the baking process.
Arrange your chopped steaks on a cookie sheet, cover and place in the refrigerator. I suggest you leave them overnight, but I’ve prepared them in the morning and made them in the evening.
Baking
When you are ready to cook the chopped steaks, take them out of the refrigerator, and get a skillet hot. I seer the bottom first before I put them into the oven. Get the oven set to 350 (not convection).
Arrange the chopped steaks into a deep roasting pan. You’ll want to use one of these, rather than the cookie sheet you had them on in the refrigerator, because the chopped steaks may spatter a bit.
Make sure the chopped steaks don’t touch each other in the pan. See the picture to the right. You’ll notice the divots in the tops of the chopped steaks.
Topping and Finishing
About 45 minutes into baking, when the tops are brown and there is no more pink juice coming from the chopped steaks, it’s time to finish them. Take the roasting pan out of the oven and put it on the stove top. Put crumbled Gorgonzola cheese on top of each chopped steak.
Broil the chopped steaks until the cheese melts nicely into the divot. See the one pictured on the right for a close-up.