Here's the beef, all 4.5 pounds of porterhouse
By IRV LEAVITT ileavitt@pioneerlocal.com Aug 3, 2009
Owner Bruce Bertucci presents the uncooked 72-ounce porterhouse at Bertucci's Italian Steakhouse in Highland Park.
Chuck Wenk, the crusty old columnist of the Highland Park News, was visibly taken aback when Bruce Bertucci brought out the raw 72-ounce steak to be photographed.
"It looks like it could have been running around a few days ago, doesn't it?" he asked, gazing guiltily at the mass of bovine muscle.
Beef this big reminds you that meat comes from something that lived and possessed a brain capable of thought, even if nothing more cogent than, "Hey. There's more grass over there."
I had invited Wenk to Bertucci's Italian Steakhouse, 246 Green Bay Road, Highwood, for our latest giant food fest because he's good company and knows just about everybody in town.
Wenk in turn brought his grandson Tucker Deeter, 19, because he himself didn't plan to help much with the 4.5-pound load of red meat. Wenk didn't get to be 84 by being stupid.
Deeter is a polite college sophomore who says "thank you" every time you look at him. He, too, couldn't help thinking of the big porterhouse as a significant part of an animal that once trod the earth.
"What part of the cow does it come from?" he asked. "The leg?"
The young accounting major can't be blamed for not knowing that legs yield connective tissue-packed cuts like round steak that need slow cooking or they'll turn the consistency of Frye Boots.
A porterhouse comes from the saddle area, an amalgam of the filet mignon, the sirloin and the T-bone. Good stuff.
The trick to preparing Bertucci's behemoth is to cook what amounts to five big steaks stacked atop one another without making the outside tough and the inside raw.
The chefs sear the steak for about five minutes and put it in a convection oven for the next 40. Then it sits 10 or 15 minutes to allow the juices to settle.
While we were waiting, we ate tortelacci, little three-cheese ravioli-like nuggets that came in three different sauces, one better than the next. Like a lot of the dishes at Bertucci's, they're made from recipes of Bertucci's late mother Lena, handed down from the great cooks of Modena in northern Italy.
Bertucci added the giant porterhouses to the menu three months ago, and sells about three a week.
"I don't figure on making much money on this," he said. "I just wanted to put a big item on the menu. I needed something that people will talk about."
Our Bertucci's trip was different from most previous Mega Bites expeditions.
With hamburger or ice cream or cold cuts, you don't really need too much. With filet mignon, you can never get enough.
Bertucci carved slices off the filet, like a woodcarver takes down the outside of a log.
The meat became rarer further in, but never raw. The texture was tender but complex. It tasted beefy and subtle and expensive.
As the pieces of filet just kept coming, it felt like stealing.
Come to think about it, maybe that's because the steak goes for $79.95, and I passed the bill along to Pioneer Press.
When I looked at my initial slice from the other side of the bone, my first thought was No Fair. This is Only Sirloin.
But while a filet is soft and tender, sirloin is dense and chewy, in a cave man sort of way. None of it went to waste.
As we were eating, Bertucci, 61, and Wenk traded stories about gambling and high living in Highwood back in the day, though it seemed unclear if that day was actually in the past.
When nought was left but the giant T-bone, I tried to think of a way I could gnaw on it without looking like a pig.
I considered slipping out and curling up with it in my car.
But the waitress asked to show it to some guys in the bar who had never seen a bone that big outside the Field Museum.
I followed a short time later, and met John Stibolt, a regular who recently tried the big steak himself when Bertucci gave one away to pass around the bar.
"That was tasty," he recalled with relish.
Bertucci said that as far as he knew, only one person had bought the steak for himself alone, "and that guy took home half of it."
But bartender Mark "Bronko" 0, 29, said that a couple of weeks before, he had put a whole 4.5-pound porterhouse away after work, solo.
"Some of my buddies put me up to it," the former Division III football player said.
"After a while, I got a little pale from all that beef.
"Still good."
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