Anthony Bourdain and Danny Bowien share the best way to cook steak
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We sat down with Anthony Bourdain of "Parts Unknown" and Danny Bowien of Mission Chinese to discuss Bourdain's new film, "Wasted!" and the ever-changing food landscape. They both told us their idea of a perfect steak, with two very different answers. Following is a transcript of the video.
Anthony Bourdain: In a perfect world, a big, fat rib steak, fatty rib steak, on the bone, seasoned just with sea salt and pepper, black pepper. Either grilled at a decent temperature over charcoal or pan-seared in a mix of not much butter and olive oil, and basted with butter throughout. Finished in the oven just a little bit. Pulled out of the oven just short of its desired temperature, and allowed to rest - super important. No. 1 mistake that everybody makes is they take the steak off the fire, perfectly good steak, and whack right into it and, by doing that, ruin the entire thing. If you just let it sit there for 10 minutes, magical stuff is going on there, important things, if people just let that happen. It's really impossible, in my view, to improve on that. That is the way God intended us to cook steak.
Danny Bowien: My opinion is changed over the years, 'cause I was trained to be a chef, and, like, they're taught all these ways. You got to, like, rest your meat, do all this stuff to it - sear it, butter-baste it, whatever. I really just enjoy Korean barbecue. I like thinly cut short ribs. Like, I mean a really tough piece of meat that you should probably braise, cut thinly and grilled quickly and just eaten with, like, pickles and condiments. To me, that's a steak at this point. But I would eat that over going to eat, like, a big, massive - because also, like, when you Korean barbecue, it's oftentimes eaten with a lot of vegetables and things like that. And then it's also, like, very interactive and communal kind of dining.
Bourdain: I love that. That's my go-to utility meal.