Lessons from Dario Cecchini, the world's most famous butcher

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Right from the start

EVERY great steak starts out with a great cut of meat. At Gussman's, Cecchini chooses a loin and takes it to the work table. He changes out of his bright orange hunter's vest and dons the white coat of his profession. He steels his knife a dozen times to hone the edge and then cuts two mammoth steaks, each about three fingers thick.

"My philosophy is that you have to have the meat the right thickness so the heat will have time to get to the center of the meat and melt the fat."

He looks at the pair of 2-inch-thick steaks lying on the sheet of butcher paper, gets a mischievous grin and cuts another, even thicker. "And that one is for me."

The meat selected, he heads for the kitchen. Cecchini is cooking this afternoon at the Rustic Canyon home of Bruce Marder, who is a partner with Cecchini's friends Marvin and Judy Zeidler in several restaurants, including Capo and Broadway Deli. The home, which Marder shares with his wife, Defne Tabori, is a modern wooden structure stretching along the creek at the base of the canyon. The kitchen is long with plenty of work space -- perfect for Cecchini's demonstrations and orations.

The first dish he prepares is tàrtara -- a Tuscan twist on steak tartare. Normally Cecchini prefers to use a tough, lean cut of beef for this, but because Gussman has given him a hunk of fillet as a gift, he can't refuse it. He trims the meat of any visible fat and cuts it into 1-inch slices. Then he cuts the slices into cubes and then he begins chopping by hand, reducing the meat to a crumbly mixture without turning it into a paste.

He puts the meat in a bowl and adds minced parsley and garlic, pinches of paprika and ground chile and a lot of olive oil. He seasons it with salt and black pepper and a squirt of lemon juice, then tastes and seasons a little more.

Then he spoons a big dollop onto warm crostini. The flavor is subtle, even a little bland at first; then you realize that instead of a big bang of seasoning, what you are tasting are aspects of the meat you might not have noticed before. Cecchini's fiancée and translator, Kim Wicks, moans and says, "This tastes like home."

Indeed, Cecchini makes a huge batch of this every morning and sells it throughout the day at his butcher shop. It's not classically Tuscan, he says, but it could be.

"This is modo mio [my way]," he says. "What I am trying to do is exalt the flavor of the meat without covering it up. The ingredients are Tuscan, but the way I combine them is mine."

Marder apologizes that he has Meyer lemons, not Italian ones, and Cecchini waves him off. "Garlic, rosemary, thyme, lemons, fennel, these are all profumi di Chianti, but you can find them here too. They're also profumi di California. It's the same, yes?

"You don't need to use Italian lemons. You don't need to use Italian rosemary. You don't need to use Italian meat. If you have good ingredients, you can find the balance."

Next, Cecchini makes spalla di maiale -- pork steaks cut from the butt, seasoned heavily with fennel pollen, sautéed in olive oil and served on a bed of Tuscan kale that has been cooked in the same oil. It is simple and it is elegant -- perfect home cooking.

Then with the meat trimmings from both dishes (a great butcher never wastes a thing), he makes an impromptu dish he calls borbotino -- a kind of hash of scraps and bits. Chopped pieces of beef and pork trim are cooked together; a massive quantity of shallots is sautéed; the two are combined with several beaten eggs. It's like an Italian version of mom's casserole of leftovers.

Finally, the big moment arrives. Those monumental steaks, which have been sitting on the counter for five hours, have warmed nearly to room temperature. "You have to get the cold out of the meat for the fibers to relax," Cecchini says. Ideally, he'd have given them 12 hours.

Without seasoning or oiling the steaks, Cecchini lays them on the grill, and they sizzle happily. Five minutes on one side, then five minutes on the other. The fire is hot enough that it sears a nice crust on the outside but moderate enough to allow the thick steaks to cook through without burning.

Then the master stroke: Cecchini sets the steaks vertically on the grill, resting them on the flat part of the T-bone. It looks like a Stonehenge for beef cultists, but Cecchini explains that it's so the bone will conduct the heat deep into the center of the meat.

When the steaks are done, he transfers them to a platter, dashes them with coarse salt and drizzles them with very good olive oil. Basta.

After plates of Marder's ravioli filled with burrata and nettles, the steak is carved, revealing a perfectly medium-rare center. It's served with caramelized beets and carrots, braised leeks, smashed potatoes and an eggplant and tomato stew made the way Tabori's mom does in Turkey.

In Tuscany, the accompaniments would almost certainly be simpler: braised white beans, roasted potatoes and whole onions roasted in aluminum foil.

But Cecchini, laughing loudly, drinking wine and chewing beef while he tells stories, doesn't seem to mind at all. Butchers and philosophers alike take their feasts as they find them.

Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times
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