I've been craving a good Porterhouse for awhile. Earlier today, I went down to my favorite butcher (a real butcher shop, that's all he does...yes they still exist in San Francisco) and asked for two of the best Porterhouse steaks he could cut me. He looked around in the back a bit, and called me back to the walk-in to show me an entire short loin from a certified grass-fed Angus. Of course it looked great to me but I haven't exactly seen a lot of primal cuts of beef in my life, so I told him to cut two 2" porterhouses from it and wrap 'em up.

He is a truly skilled butcher and it was mesmerizing watching him work. He cut the steaks from the loin, trimmed the fat to within 1/8" or so, and then shaved each side of the newly exposed bone with a special tool. Two inches thick, two and a quarter pounds each. The cost...$78.00.

The beauties are currently sitting on my counter coming up to room temperature slowly over the next couple of hours. I'm trying to decide whether to pan-sear them in a cast iron skillet or use the grill...I'm leaning towards the former.

Here are the porterhouses with a US $10 bill next to them for scale. For those not familiar with US Currency, our bills are 6" long, so that should give you some idea how immense these cuts are! A little more information if you don't know much about beef or the porterhouse cut in particular - it's really two separate steaks in one. The larger section is a New York Strip Steak, the smaller section a filet mignon. A porterhouse is virtually the same as a T-bone, but the former has a larger section of tenderloin on the small side.