Culinary Explorer
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Bistecca alla Fiorentina
Created by Chef Ally
The iconic Tuscan steak: two inches of well-marbled beef, seared over a roaring fire, rested until the juices settle, then sliced and dressed with nothing but olive oil, rosemary, and sea salt.
Start with the beef. Everything depends on it. In Florence, they raise Chianina cattle in the Val di Chiana, enormous white animals that have grazed those hills since the Etruscans. The meat is dense and deeply flavored, marbled but not excessive. This is what you are trying to honor when you cook bistecca alla fiorentina, whether your beef comes from Tuscany or from a farmer thirty miles away who raises animals on pasture.
Find a butcher who knows the source. Ask for dry-aged beef if they have it. The steak must be thick, at least two inches, cut on the bone. Anything thinner and you cannot achieve what this dish requires: a deeply charred crust giving way to a cool, rosy center that tastes purely of beef.
The technique is almost nothing. Salt, pepper, fire, rest, oil. The Florentines understand what I have spent my life trying to teach: perfect ingredients need almost nothing done to them. Your job is to find that beef, build that fire, then get out of the way.
Ingredients
bone-in ribeye or porterbone steak
Quantity
1 (2 to 2.5 inches thick, about 2.5 pounds)
flaky sea salt
Quantity
to taste
black pepper
Quantity
to taste
freshly cracked
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| bone-in ribeye or porterbone steak | 1 (2 to 2.5 inches thick, about 2.5 pounds) |
| flaky sea salt | to taste |
| black pepperfreshly cracked | to taste |
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