Fork and Gobble It: Old School in the New School

Fridays on the BottleBlog will feature a food-related article, wine pairing, or travelogue. Today, Wine Manager Mark Ricca reminisces about his time spent with a master butcher while he was in restaurant school.

Jack Ubaldi was a passionate man with vision. An Italian immigrant who came from the Umbrian region of Italy in 1917, he followed his father into the meat trade. He became a master butcher and owned and operated the Florence Prime Meat Market on Jones Street in the West Village in NYC. He was also my butchering instructor when I attended the New York Restaurant School in 1984. A small institution teaching classes to the aspiring restauranteur, NYRS was located just off Herald Square in Manhattan. Jack had sold the store, retired, then came out of retirement to teach the butchering course at NYRS. His skills were first rate and the kind you really don't see anymore in this age of pre-fabricated meat. His approach was straight up and very matter of fact. He loved to teach and ended each class with a meal cooked from the meats we'd used in class that day and usually a bottle of Italian table wine such as Montepulciano d'Abruzzo. He wrote a book on purchasing, butchering, and cooking all types of meat simply titled Jack Ubaldi's Meat Book. It was written in the same plain talk, no-nonsense style that Jack taught in. If you look around you can still find it, although I believe it to be out of print.

Although I studied with Jack for about four months, I didn't discover his biggest contribution to butchering until last year. Jack is credited with a particular beef steak cut from a larger cut called the bottom butt.

Initially he referred to it as a triangle steak because of the look of the piece it was cut from, but as he began to sell it in his store, his customers wanted to know what to ask for when they came back for it. Jack thought the steak resembled the quarter moon logo for Newport cigarettes and coined the name Newport Steak. The beauty of it was that it came from a less expensive cut and the way Jack cut and trimmed the finished product (which still remains a secret) yielded a moist and flavorful steak.

Last year after being reminded, yet again, of the fact that I studied with Jack yet never knew about this steak, I finally decided I had to try it. Jack passed away in 2001, but the Florence Prime Meat Market is still there on Jones Street and still sells hundreds of Newport Steaks. We picked up a few and grilled them up and now they are a regular item on my home menu. We did this most recently a couple of nights ago.

It was freezing rain and although I am a trooper when it comes to the grill, I just wasn't up to battling the elements that night. These steaks would be pan seared in a cast iron skillet and finished in the oven. The Newport Steak itself is a flat, well marbled piece of meat folded together to form a nice round steak. I tie it together with a piece of butcher's twine to keep its shape while it cooks.

It is very well suited to grilling or pan searing because of its generous and even marbling. I season them generously with coarse sea salt and coarse ground black pepper. I brought a large skillet to smoking hot and laid the steaks in to sear them.

I seared them for about two minutes per side (for rare) and then roasted them for another two minutes in a 400F oven. I took the steaks out of the pan and allowed them to rest while I prepared a quick pan sauce. Shallots and garlic went into the pan and sauteed for a minute or so, then a quick splash of red wine. That was reduced to a few tablespoons and finished with a couple of pieces of butter.

I like pommes paillasson with steak and my wife goes gaga for them, so those were cooking while the steak was at work.

My wine for that night was a little more reserved. I know a lot of people think big California Cabernet with a meal like this, but I had a bottle I'd been dying to try. Chateau d'Arsac, a Bordeaux property in the Medoc region, has been doing a project called The Winemaker's Collection. They invite a known winemaker to oversee the production for a single vintage. The idea is to see what difference is made when the same vineyards are under the control of a different set of competent hands. The first vintage, 2005, was under the supervision of world re-known consulting enologist Michel Rolland. The second vintage was made by Dennis Dubourdieu, a professor at the University of Bordeaux, and a well known consulting enologist himself.

Less intense than a California Cab, this was elegant, complex, and complimented the steak perfectly.

I raised my glass to the memory of Jack and his wonderful edible legacy. Artisinal butchers are a vanishing breed. The work they do is fueled by love and passion for what they do and the customers they serve. Hopefully they won't go away altogether.