Porterhouse

     After a marathon session of Two Fat Ladies, my wife and I were intrigued by the use of a specialized tool (citation needed), the sole purpose of which was to create pockets in the chosen meat into which you stuff herbs.  Upon consideration, we decided to try it out on a porterhouse cut of steak.  Now I can't find reference to it and I cannot recall what it was called but it resembled a knife steel that was hollow ground on four faces.  I couldn't find a decent precut porterhouse but was please that our local grocer butcher cut to order this 1-1/4" thick porterhouse.  Jess pierced it on both sides and inserted sliced garlic (see photo)...she then coated both sides in olive oil and lemon pepper at which point it was wrapped and allowed to rest at room temperature for five hours or so prior to going on the grill.  

     We were concerned that ordinary grilling would loose the juices since to the fire yielding a fine piece of shoe leather, so I used a cast iron fajita pan over the hottest coals I had available.  I had an IR thermometer reading of almost 400F when I placed the porterhouse to cook.  Because of the thickness of the cut, I opted to do four sets of three minutes a side (ultimately Jess and I both prefer a rare cook on our meat), which was almost perfect.  The fajita pan contained the drippings nicely and allowed for an even light sear.  This was prepared in celebration at a BBQ and most everyone got to sample this jewel.  I'll have to explore this technique more in future, but initial results were lovely.