Reverse Seared Ribeye Steak – perfect for 6!

Whilst almost all the posts on this blog are of our own cooks, at time it is delightful to sit back and enjoy the work of friends!  This is one of those cases and with one of my favourite cuts of beef – ribeye, but ribeye writ large.  Ribeye is
such a versatile cut of beef as there is a wealth of intra muscular fats with result in a wonderfully moist, tender and tasty piece of meat on the plate.  Most usually cooked as a single ribeye steak, but also found as a Tomahawk steak, a ribeye roast, or as we see here an off the bone ribeye, looking like a roast but being managed as a steak.  The meat was to be cooked as a reverse sear.   This makes managing the cooking relatively easy and certainly helps with timing, when cooking for guests.  The reverse sear helps to give a consistent level of and consistent degree cooking through the meat, whilst also achieving the “perfect” caramelisation on the surface for taste and texture. We have previously discussed reverse searing for individual steaks. However, the advantages when cooking for more people are even greater and you will see here how easy it is to produced a perfectly cooked piece of meat and to be able to cook it to which ever level of ‘doneness’ you want – simply using the process of cooking to temperature.   All you are left to do is to carve, to serve and to accept all the praise!

This was a generous centrepiece of a meal for 6.  The breed was, I suppose a ‘Wangus’ – a Wagu/Aberdeen Angus  cross available from a supplier in Scotland.  A fabulous piece of meat, not inexpensive by any stretch of the imagination …………but for a special occasion …………! They recommend that to get the best flavour it should be cooked to at least medium rare to get the benefit from the marbling to develop that wonderful flavour

This 1.5Kg piece of ribeye was taken from the fridge to start to bring to room temperature, rubbed with a little American Mustard and coated with a dry rub, “Magic Dust” by Nifty Kitchen. Wrapped in foil and left to stand for around 2 hrs at room temperature.  Meanwhile, the Big Green Egg was set up for indirect indirect cooking at an oven temperature of 135C.  To add a little smoke flavour to the mix a few apple wood chunks had been added to give a gentle smoke flavour.  When ready the meat was placed on the centre of the grill and cooked until the core temperature was around 5-7C lower than the planned final cooking temperature.  In this case as the aim was for medium-rare steak which in the UK suggests a core temperature of around 54-57C (the meat supplier suggests the higher end of this range) the initial core temperature target was around 47C.  The oven and meat probes were put in place, the lid was closed and the meat left to cook.  The cook itself was controlled and monitored with the CyberCloud from BBQGuru – but this could have also been easily managed ‘old school’ with just a temperature probe to ensure the meat did not overcook.  At 135C cooking took around 90 minutes to get from room temperature to a core temperature of 47C.  The meat was removed, wrapped in foil and rested under some tea towels for around 15 mins whilst the EGG was transformed to direct mode cooking by removing the platesetter and adding the half moon cast iron skillet (side note – I am not brave enough to do this without the stainless steel grill in place just incase I let the meat slip off the skillet when turning!!  I would normally leave the grill in place and just sit the skillet on top).  The vents were opened and the temperature raised to a dome temperature of around 250-300C.  Once the skillet was searingly hot the meat was removed from the foil and seared on the skillet to get that perfect caramelisation, little more than 30 seconds per side was needed, changing the meat round to try to get an all over sear.

(In the absence of a cast iron skillet this stage could be performed with the cast iron grill directly over the flames).

Once seared the meat could simply be brought to the table and carved, though I would usually favour rewrapping in foil and resting for a further 10 mins – this however will push the core temperature a little higher so at these core temperatures the the meat would be approaching the lower end of medium, rather than medium rare.

Which ever way you choose, it is a fabulous dish!!