Garlic Butter Steak Bites

Dry steak thoroughly for best sear. Don't crowd the pan or meat will steam. Let the meat sear undisturbed to develop crust. Medium-rare to medium is ideal for tender bites. The garlic butter should be made in the same pan to capture fond. Serve immediately while hot.

Two of the oldest ingredients in human food history come together in a simple cast-iron pan. Garlic (Allium sativum) has been cultivated in Central Asia for at least 7,000 years, according to Wikipedia, making it one of the earliest plants humans deliberately grew for food. It appears in ancient Sanskrit medical texts, is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, and was described by Herodotus as part of the daily rations given to the workers who built the Egyptian pyramids. Pliny the Elder, writing in the 1st century AD, documented 61 separate medicinal and culinary uses for garlic in his Natural History — a catalogue that reflects how deeply embedded the plant was in ancient Roman life. Butter is equally ancient. Wikipedia describes it as "possibly the oldest dairy product"; preserved bog butter found in Ireland has been carbon-dated to approximately 5,500 years ago, and butter was being made in ancient India and Mesopotamia from the earliest periods of cattle herding. While Mediterranean cultures preferred olive oil, butter became the fundamental cooking fat of northern Europe wherever olives could not grow, shaping the entire culinary tradition of Britain, France, and Scandinavia. The seared crust that makes these steak bites so satisfying has its own scientific name: the Maillard reaction, described for the first time in 1912 by French chemist Louis-Camille Maillard in a paper on the chemical interaction between amino acids and sugars at high heat. The browning that produces the deep flavour of a properly seared piece of meat is the same reaction that had been instinctively exploited by cooks over open fires for thousands of years, though it would take until the 20th century for anyone to explain why it worked.