How to Make a Great Web-Curated Summer Meal

You know what they say about tough jobs. We set out to create a simple but special summer meal without leaving our Wi-Fi-enabled kitchen. You'll pay for the convenience -- alas, this food does not come cheap -- but you'll get spectacular quality.

1. Steak

Allen Brothers, the venerable Chicago butcher, offers dry-aged, prime New York strips that cook up to a velvety, melt-in-your-mouth consistency. Seasoned with just salt and pepper and grilled to a succulent medium rare, this will be the best steak-house experience you've ever had -- at home. ($224.95 for four 2-inch-thick 16-ounce boneless strips; allenbrothers.com)

2. Heirloom Tomatoes

Sweet tomatoes in funky colors and odd shapes signal the height of the edible summer, and a fuss-free salad of sliced heirlooms is the perfect counterpoint to a steak. We don't need a taste test to tell you that your tastiest results will come via your local farmers market or roadside stand. Failing that, California's Happy Boy Farms, one of the country's most respected organic growers, sells heirlooms in season through diamondorganics.com. And remember: Tomatoes and refrigerators do not mix.

3. Ice Cream

When the days are hot, nothing finishes an evening meal like a cool dish of ice cream. The winner of a Fast Company taste test of some of the nation's finest, if priciest, artisanal ice creams: The Bent Spoon, a six-year-old shop in Princeton, New Jersey. Its blood orange sorbet/vanilla ice cream combo is an upscale Creamsicle-in-a-cup, while its chocolate hazelnut, strawberry mascarpone, and fresh ricotta with cinnamon and orange make for an outstanding new-style Neapolitan. ($60 for six pints, plus shipping, thebentspoon.com)

Here are the full results of our mail-order steak and ice cream taste tests:

Steak

The music’s on the stereo, the G&T’s have been poured, and steaks are sizzling on the grill: That’s summer.

Prime meat (just 1% of all beef and much of it allocated to high-end steakhouses and restaurants) is relatively easy to find in big cities, but without a Whole Foods or high-end grocer or butcher near you, you need to turn to the Internet. Our cook-off featured two old-school, big-city butchers--Chicago’s Allen Brothers and New York’s Lobel’s--and two new-school, big-sky-country ranches: Snake River Farms in Idaho and Meyer Natural Angus of Colorado. We prepared each dry-aged prime New York strip steak simply, seasoning each with just salt and pepper, and searing them over high heat before cooking them to a medium-rare temperature over indirect fire. The goal: to focus on the taste of the meat.

New York strips, also known as shell steaks, are already one of the most expensive cuts of meat you can buy, and shopping via the Internet doesn’t mean you’re going to get bargains. The steaks we tested averaged between $60 and $90 a pound. But let us tell you: This is a splurge that’s worth it. (And the 16-oz steaks are easily sharable by two, if not four, people.) Basically you can’t go wrong with any of these steaks. If we had only tried our “fourth favorite,” we would have felt that this is one of the best steaks we’ve ever had.

That said, we had to pick, and as we said above, it was a tough job, but we were somehow up to the task.

1. Allen Brothers. This Chicago butcher and family business that dates back to 1893 is the supplier to some of the country’s best steakhouses--and with good reason. We’ve never had a steak with that kind of luscious texture. “Like good sushi,” Jeff said. Excellent marbling produced a sirloin with the mouth-feel of a filet mignon. No mean feat.

2. Snake River Farms. This Idaho farm specializes in American Wagyu beef, our version of Japan’s famed Kobe beef. The cattle are fed a sustainable diet of Idaho potatoes, wheat, corn, and alfalfa hay, and that pays off on the plate. This steak was “super juicy,” with a “rich, round flavor,” perhaps a bit more of that mineral tang that’s part of the best beef than the Allen Brothers steak. Arguably the best balance of beef flavor and smooth texture.

3. Lobel’s of New York. The fifth-generation meat purveyor in Manhattan came through with a steak featuring excellent mineral flavor. Unfortunately, it was a bit tougher than the Allen Brothers or Snake River Farms offerings and that lack of a smooth “butter knife” texture hurt it in our judging.