INGREDIENTS:

Steak of your choice, my favorite is a Porterhouse and T-Bone steak
Sea Salt
Freshly ground black peppercorns (Tellicherry)
Butter for frying
Wild Bill's Meat Rub - optional
Special Butter - recipe below

SPECIAL BUTTER

INGREDIENTS:

8 oz. butter
1 1/2 lbs. soft dark brown sugar
1/2 tsp. grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 wine glass (3 1/2 oz.) of good rum (or 2 level tsp. of rum flavoring)
1 oz. of brandy or whiskey (or 1 tsp. brandy or whiskey flavoring)

In a frying pan over low heat soften the butter until just barely melted. Put all the other ingredients in a bowl and mix until thoroughly blended. Stir in the melted butter, place in a storage container, and let harden.

Fry your favorite cut of steak in butter (at a heat low enough so it doesn't scorch the butter, but just browns it), seasoning with salt and pepper to taste. While the steak is cooking, place thin slabs of the butter on top of 2 slices of whole wheat bread and place under a broiler until the butter is melted and just slightly brown. Two or three minutes before removing the steak from the pan, generously cover it with slabs of the special butter, then serve either on top of the toast (our preference) or with the toast on the side. The book recommends accompanying it with "a quart of strong beer with one tablespoon of dark vinegar in the beer", something I haven't yet tried.  Herter advises that "This special butter is also used to put into the mouths of babies for their very first solid food", but you'd probably need to run that past a mother first."

Pix below of plated Cumberland Steak with special butter close up shot taken on 03-21-09; served with steamed corn on the cob, mashed cauliflower florets garnished with fresh chopped parsley, cherry tomatoes, Texas style garlic toast, crunchy tossed salad and glass of wine.  The Cumberland Steak (Porterhouse) cut with the special butter was outstanding.  It was just too pretty outside not to fire up some charcoal and did the grill thing instead of the frying pan.  I deviated from the recipe a little but not too far off track!

I received this recipe from long time business acquaintance Chuck Erikson, Grass Valley, California of whom I have never met face to face but only talked to over the telephone, mail correspondence and with the new computer age, emails.  I purchased mother of pearl, red and green abalone shell material from Chuck when he was in Van Nuys, California during the early 1970's.  Chuck is a very talented craftsman with a couple of U.S. Patents for a product called Abalam.  Here in Chuck's own words concerning this recipe, "Want to try something different in a steak?  This one's a killer, one you'll never run across anywhere, but we do it quite often. The special butter can be refrigerated in a tightly closed container almost indefinitely, and the recipe makes enough to do perhaps 15 or so steaks.  It sets up hard, so we just use a small steel spatula or a sharp knife to shave thin slices off the top.  I suppose it would be easy enough to gently warm the container and thus release the entire brick, which could then be placed on a large covered butter dish to make slicing easier, but since the rum in it is aromatic and can evaporate I prefer a sealed container.  The recipe is from "Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices", Volume II, pp. 306-307, by George Leonard Herter (founder of the famous old Herter's sporting goods catalogue company), 1968, published by Herter's in Waseca, Wisconsin (now out of business, and out of print).  The steak was known as a "Cumberland Steak" (after Cumberland, England, home of the man who originated the recipe, James Rishworth aka "Jimmy the Painter) and many years ago was a menu item at George Diamond's restaurant in Chicago.

NOTE:  I purchased a used copy of the above referenced out of print cookbook from Amazon. com and delighted with it.

Below a few sequence pixs taken on 03-20-09  mixing a batch of the special butter:  Click on thumbnails for a larger view!

The special butter has a wonderful aromatic smell just as Chuck described it.  Pixs below of Chuck Erikson:

Chuck enjoying camping with friends with their "fruits of the harvest" in the camp oven over an open fire.  It just doesn't get any better than this! 

Bill aka Mickey Porter 03-21-09.

LEAVING ON A SPIRITUAL NOTE