BBQ54/17: Dirty Roasted Steak #2

BBQ54/17: Dirty Roasted Steak #2:

This is from the book “Prime” by Richard Turner and I cooked it once before BBQ31/17 and really enjoyed both the method of cooking and the end result! I felt there was room for improvement with my technique last time and wanted to give it another go.

The notes from last time said:

Needs more charcoal to get more heat and speed up the cook: Possibly 2x lit chimneys and/or maybe some unlit charcoal underneath.

  • I had a new bag of lumpwood charcoal which lit quickly and burnt hot. I placed the lit chimney on top of a pile of unlit charcoal and left it 15 minutes to heat up. By the time I put the meat on everything was well lit and very hot!

Wrap the meat with another double layer of muslin to protect the meat more. This was a double layer but it’s thin so double it up again next time.

  • I did wrap it twice in muslin and it worked a lot better as it didn’t burn away like last time. It was burnt at the end but still intact.

The string burnt through and snapped pretty quickly, not sure there is much you can do to avoid this but I might tie it up more next time.

  • Somehow the string seemed to survive better this time. I did put more loops in.

Get some horseradish root!

  • I failed on this again!

Try some of the other cuts Richard lists in the recipe.

  • I got a Barrel Fillet from Turner and George – £29.10 for 700g. I hadn’t heard of this cut before but the website says it was “The original ‘chateaubriand’ was cut from the centre of the tenderloin and not the now commonly used head.”

Here is the Barrel Fillet before I wrapped it:
steak

steak

I placed the steak directly onto the coals:

steak

After 8 minutes I turned it over:

steak

After another 8 minutes I checked the internal temperature (looking for 60c) but it appeared to be a way off still so I flipped it over again:

steak

It was smelling great by this point, I was looking forward to cutting it open! I kept checking the temperature, it was quite hard as each time I took the lid off the muslin caught fire and would flare up so I had to be quick! Once we hit 60c I took it off and left it to rest for 10 minutes. The muslin had survived far better this time:

steak

After 10 minutes I cracked the muslin open to reveal the meat:

steak

I pulled the meat out of the muslin (which was still smoking!) – it was looking fantastic!

steak

I cut it in half hoping to see some pink:steak

It was a little over where I had wanted it but still a good effort!

steak

steak

steak

This meal went down a treat. It had a great charred, salty crust along with the strong, meaty taste from a good quality, aged cut it really was a treat! This was definitely an improvement on the first attempt and the only change I would make next time is to cook it slightly less. Go for the recommended timings (too hard to get a temp reading with the flames!). 


SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG VIA EMAIL

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Back to the Home Page

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *