Gluten-free Fancy. Lupe of Happy Valley 2019 Update.

The Gluten-free Chicano Cooks

Company or Courtship: Elegant, Easy, Gluten-free Peppercorn Beefsteak With Rum Sauce and "that potato"

Michael Sedano

Courtship meals should be delicious, impressively elegant, and easy to make. Unless a dining companion is addicted to wheat and barley, there’s no reason for meals not to be gluten-free, like this meat & potatoes menu of Peppercorn Steak, “That Potato," and some left-over or packaged cole slaw. By limiting the serving of potato, this is low-carb deluxe dining.

Pepper-encrusted beefsteak tastes just like the name says. Buy an expensive beef cut like rib-eye or filet mignon for best flavor. 

Whole black peppercorns freshly cracked into rough pieces similarly make a major taste difference. 

With this dish, .7 pounds of expensive beef can serve four adequately. A single medallion of filet mignon would make the right romantic candlelight portion.

“That potato” is a fancily prepped baked potato daubed with sour cream. The name remembers Hamburger Hamlet restaurant's "those potatoes" dish, crisply fried shredded hash browns covered with chilled sour cream.

Serving 1/3 of a medium-size papa per plate reduces the carb intake. Extra sour cream on the table to garnish is the diner’s decision. Ditto halving the "that potato."

Process: Prep steak in morning for best flavor.
375º oven.
Use leftover pineapple-cabbage slaw.
Prep Potato.
Prep Pan.
Coat steak.
Pan-fry steak, crust on both sides.
Finish cooking in oven.
Make rum sauce.
Slice and serve.

Microwaving makes papa prep easier. Use more peppercorns. Note coarse crush.

Sharp knives are the cook’s secret. The microndas is a second. Put the washed russet potato into the microwave for one minute on high. Let it sit for a minute. Now it is easily sliced by your sharp blade. If you microwave longer for faster bake time, let the papa cool five minutes before cutting into it.

Cut deeply into the russet potato drawing the blade slowly and don’t cut all the way through. Make cuts ¼” apart, or finer along the whole length of the papa. When you’ve made a first pass, push the potato against the cutting board. Effective slicing gives flex to the vegetable. Slice a little bit more if instead of flex you feel breaking tuber.

If you cut all the way through, oh well. You’re serving 1/3 of the papa per plate. Some people shove a toothpick into the divided papa to make it appear whole, if presentation is a value.

Wrap the sliced potato halfway in aluminum foil to make a boat that holds the oil and lets you transfer the potato later. Drizzle olive oil generously along the length of the russet. Flex it a bit and sprinkle salt (and garlic powder, optionally), into the crevices.

Bake the potato for an hour or more. 

Put the papa onto a small dish and keep it in the oven while you work the steak.

Use good hot pads. After an hour in the 375º oven that cast iron pan is hot! Turn off the oven and keep the door closed.

Add butter and olive oil. Set the flame to high. 

Place the steak on the iron and let it sit there for five minutes. Lightly salt the meat. Gently lift an edge with tongs and check the sear. The surface will be brown and crusty and lots of pepper will be on the pan surface.

Turn and brown the other side so both are crusty and brown. 

Return the frying pan to the hot oven for ten to fifteen minutes where the meat finishes cooking. Beef is "done" when the surface pushes back against a light touch. You can make a tiny slice in the center to check color.

Hold the finished beef in the oven, in another vessel, while you make the rum sauce.

Remember the pan is hot.

Drop two tablespoons of butter onto the pan and stir into the pan juices. Keep the flame medium or low.

Use any rum you choose. Dark rum has distinctive flavors some enjoy. White rum is just fine. I used an expensive gift rum.

Carefully pour ¼ cup of rum into the pan. Stir and boil, smell the alcohol waft off the surface. 

If you want to, use a match to ignite the boiling rum-butter sauce. Swirl the pan carefully. If your flames get scary, cover the pan with a lid.

Boiling evaporates all the alcohol. Burning is faster and spectacular if you have company in the kitchen and you turn down the lights.

Turn off the flame.

Pull the steak from the holding oven. Slice the steak across the grain and distribute to your plates. Dribble a couple of tablespoons of rum sauce across the slices. If you have sauce remaining, put some into dipping plates for each diner.

Carb count (link)
Rum, 0g
Beef , 0g
Butter, .01g


Potato, russet, 60g one 4” papa
Olive oil, 0g
Sour cream, 2 tbs 2g

Cabbage slaw, 5g/cup
Mayonnaise, 3 tbs = 4g
Pineapple, ¼ cup canned, 10g

Serve

Cut "that potato" into thirds and daub a tablespoon of chilled sour cream across the slices. The leftover is tomorrow's breakfast starch, reheated with cheese.

Three or four slices per diner is a lot for small eaters, or if they rarely eat beef. 

Make your peppercorn steak once before you make it for company. There's a rhythm you get into and the second time you'll be so smooth, if courtship's one motive for the meal, after bringing this meal to the table, you'll dine sitting across from a starry-eyed companion.

¡Provecho!

Lupe of Happy Valley 2019 Update

I’ve been watching Happy Valley Lupe since serendipity led me to her wall marking the border where Lincoln Heights meets El Sereno and Montecito Heights. She’s hanging in there in 2019.

Back in 1971, just out of the Army, I found a job going around Southern California to low-SES schools doing reading and math testing for a national study. 

Lincoln High School was on my assignment list and I was excited to see for myself. Only four years before, kids walking out of Lincoln helped launch the movimiento. I planned to get there early enough to cruise the area.



Finding the school was easy from the Santa Ana Freeway. Exit Broadway, head away from downtown, pass Las Cuatro Milpas, El Tepeyac, a couple of markets, and there’s the school on the left. 

I cruised past and pointed my wheels toward the streets behind the school.




At first, I didn’t see Lupe, struck by the mourning Ixta and Popo painted across a retaining wall. Above them next door, a couple of kids played against a rickety wooden fence keeping them from falling ten feet to the sidewalk. Below them on the wall guarding their home against sliding into the street, the Virgin of Happy Valley. A cobra to Lupe's left marked her barrio.

I parked and took out my camera. While I looked for angles--Ektachrome rationed the exposures--a couple of kids walked down the steps and took positions at the street sign to watch me.

I walked over and we had a great conversation, I took their foto but never shared it with them. Now they're all gone.

That moment stayed like that for thirty years.

Thirty years later, in 2014, I drove from Our Lady of Guadalupe church on Mercury and Huntington Drive toward Happy Valley. Cresting the hill, Happy Valley remains a cozy hamlet up against the now-tony Montecito Heights. 

Coming down the steep grade, there's a modern elementary school but still lots of open land on the heights.

Popo and Ixta disappeared into a white expanse. Lupe stands but the house where the kids played is now a vine-covered lot. The hillside is moving, iron straps hold the retaining wall together where it splits at the seam.

Alfredo Lascano stands where those kids were

Last weekend, expecting to see a new apartment building where Lupe held back the moving hillside, I crested Mercury Avenue and came downhill toward the school. There is Lupe, still holding her wall.

Lupe's face has been repainted, along with bright new colors. The Cobra was Christianized, but that's been overcome with healing vibes. 

Someone--an art critic, quien sabe?--gave Lupe a scar across her nose. Lastima, but now there's a reason to visit sooner rather than later, see who's guarding the spirit of this place, giving her a face?