IT'S F***ING RAW!: EP.2 Pittsburgh Rare
Ordering steak is a lot like ordering a martini, there are many ways of doing it and some of them can tell you a lot about the person ordering. For example, a safe but somewhat boring and unadventurous person would probably have classic medium-rare ribeye (sorry Tom) or straight-up dry vodka martini, while someone who is trying to be cool but has zero to no taste would ask for “Shaken, not stirred”. Meanwhile, if you come across someone who orders a well-done fillet minion you can be 99% sure that they are the “familys’ disappointment” and, in my opinion, should never be loved by anyone.
I myself, prefer my martinis like UKs favourite war-criminal, Winston Churchill used to and have them “with ice-cold gin, and a bow in the direction of France, while observing vermouth from across the room”. The same simplicity applies to my choice of steak, I like it somewhere between rare and still grazing, with sear a shade of vantablack. This style of steak is called “Pittsburgh rare”, or “black and blue” as it is called in Pittsburgh itself. And after this unnecessarily long introduction, fuelled by my martini-craving, let’s dive in to the history of this East-Coast gem.
Unlike with steak tartare, the geographical origins of Pittsburgh rare are simple, but the legend behind its creation is fused with the industrial spirit of the city itself. To give some background: after the Big-Bad War, the Western world started realising that “maybe us, humans, are all not so different and should work together to build a brighter future (except for when the other humans are Communists, then we should start building apocalyptic weapons for mass-destructions against them)”. Riding this wave of post-war unionism, Pittsburgh became a busy city, booming with immigration and building on an already successful Big Steel economy. The immigrants brought with them not only cheap labour but also food from their homelands, making it a city of flavour for a brief while. However, somehow over years this culinary diversity evolved, in a truly American fashion, into fries, lots and lots of fries on everything, including on salads, in sandwiches and even in pierogi. However, what does a burned on the outside and raw on the inside steak has to do with any of this?
Well, the way the legend goes is that this is how the steel mill workers would cook their lunch: by throwing their steaks at walls of 1000°C hot smelting-furnaces, from which they’d fall off in seconds and then be thrown once again to sear the other side. Cool story, but realistically it probably never happened this way. Just think how dirty the furnace walls are, especially in 1950s steel mills. And I doubt anyone would risk dropping a steak on an even dirtier factory floor. Besides, steak is expensive, and it is unlikely that mill workers could afford to have it as their regular lunch. However, there is some truth to this legend. Those who worked in the mills confirm that they would often use their work environment to heat up their lunch, by wrapping it in tinfoil and placing it on hot industrial blow pipes for a few seconds. Some say that they even used to cook sausages, chitlins and other meat the same way, and maybe even a steak or two.
The first time “Pittsburgh rare” made an appearance on a menu, was in The Colony Restaurant that opened in 1958, the owner of which has his own legend behind the origins of this style of steak. According to him, somebody ordered a steak which chef somehow managed to mess up by charring it on the outside but still undercooking it, and instead of apologising to the guest and bringing him a new one, he decided to one-up Pee Wee Herman on “I meant to do that” scale by claiming that his creation is “Pittsburgh style” and adding it to the menu. It is a cool story but considering that the term was around in early 1950s, I doubt The Colony Restaurant can claim its invention.
The last potential origin comes from a rumour that this way of cooking was invented in a by some guys who used to run a slaughterhouse in 1930s in Pittsburgh and during depression decided to open up their own restaurant where they would offer extremely wealthy guests to pick a cow and the cut they wanted, after which the unfortunate cow would be relieved of its tastier bits and the cut of choice would be seared to kill off the bacteria while keeping the rest of the meat at cows body temperature. As much as I like the concept of eating fresh, I find this story the most dubious since restaurants don’t tend to open during economic crisis. Besides, it takes about 3-4 hours to butcher a cow and I doubt anyone would leave good reviews after waiting that long, unless they didn’t kill the cow and instead performed a highly precise steak-removal surgery.
I personally, think that the first Pittsburgh rare was indeed cooked in steel mills, but while placed on tinfoil or maybe through use of an improvised grill. And maybe the chef from The Colony Restaurant used to be a mill worker and cooked it the way he was used to seeing food cooked, hence he put it on the menu, or the restaurant was simply catering to the local tastes, who knows.
Regardless, this thing is delicious and is extremely easy to cook. All you need is high heat, steak of your choice, salt and pepper, maybe a glass of wine if you are feeling fancy (or maybe a bottle). Slap that bad boy on your hot skillet for 30 seconds each side and enjoy with your date. I ended up cooking this on Valentine’s, unfortunately my girlfriend decided to abandon me to go see her family (uugh), but my good friend Tom came down, so we had Brolentine’s instead. I picked a couple of sirloins and cooked them “Pittsburgh Style” for Jonny and myself, while Tom (who is in no way boring) went for a great Ramsey-style ribeye. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a 1000°C industrial furnace, and ended up with just “blue” and no “black”, but it was delicious, nevertheless. I tried making again a week later with my girlfriend present, but despite keeping the pan on flame for 10 minutes and cooking it for extra 30 seconds on each side got the same delicious, but non-black result.
