BBQ68/17 – “World’s best steak”:
World’s Best Steak: Ok, the title is going to be controversial no doubt but let me explain!
I bumped into Marcus Bawdon at Grillstock Festival and he mentioned he was going to the World Steak Challenge event in London to judge steaks which sounded brilliant! I kept an eye out for the results and when they came out I spotted Martin’s Meats had won “World’s best grass fed steak” for his Longhorn Rib Eye steak. Having cooked and enjoyed Martin’s steaks quite frequently over the years I wasn’t surprised as it’s always a great tasting steak!
The results spurred me into placing another order so I dropped Martin an email as I wanted some big steaks to cook. The website offers 8 oz or 10 oz options for ribeye so I ordered 4x 10oz and asked for them to be cut as 2x 20 oz. The steaks arrived and they were massive!
I saw a video by DJ BBQ and Tony Smith (Man Meat Fire) last week where they cooked big steaks like this. DJ BBQ smashed it with a frying pan a few times to break the fibres down and develop a better crust when cooking them. As these were so thick I thought I would give it a go to help me cook them properly!
The meat looked great quality as always and it had the feel of quality meat when handling it which showed good ageing. There was a strong meaty smell to the steaks, the label said 28 days but having eaten steaks that have been aged longer I had a feeling this had been aged a bit longer and I was looking forward to cooking them!
I seasoned the steaks with a good amount of salt and pepper then left them sitting out for about an hour to get up to room temperature.
I fired up a full chimney of lumpwood and poured it in the bbq when ready, leaving it to settle for a while before placing my grill and grill grates on top. As the steaks were big I was going to reverse sear them so I didn’t wait for the grill grates to heat up and I placed the steaks to the side away from the heat. I added a lump of oak from Smokewood Shack, put the iGrill2 probe in one of the steaks, put the kettle lid on and monitored the temperatures on my phone.
After about 10 minutes I flipped the steaks over:
After another 10 minutes the internal temperature of the meat was at 49c so I moved the steaks directly over the heat to sear them. They were taking a lot of colour from the oak chunk:
The grill grates were very, very hot so the temperature soared really quickly!
I took the steaks off, wrapped them loosely in foil and left them to rest for 10 minutes.
The steaks were smelling fantastic. Loads of juice in the foil.
Time to slice the steaks open. I was aiming for medium rare but felt I had overshot it a bit, these look more medium than medium rare:
The colour of the steak from the oak smoke was unreal, the slow indirect cook for 20 minutes let it take on a lot of smoke!
I sliced the 2nd steak open and it was closer to where I had wanted to cook it, so much juice came out as I cut it open:
I really enjoyed these steaks and it was a real treat for a mid week meal! I have eaten Martin’s Longhorn steaks before but this was the first time I supersized them! As I mentioned earlier the steaks smelt like they had been aged longer than 28 days, I had asked for longer aged steaks in the order notes if it was possible so I emailed Martin and he said they were 50 day+ aged which was a great!
I can see why these steaks won the “Worlds best grass fed steaks” they really were very, very good and I would highly recommend them. The 10 oz is only £10.95 which is a bargain.
Changes to the cook next time? I would take them to 40c rather than 49c before searing them and take them off around 50c so the rise from wrapping should stop around 55c for medium rare. I would also use some wood chips rather than a chunk to reduce the colour from the smoke a bit. It didn’t taste over smoked but I do like to taste the smoke on my food, other folk might want less smoke.
I have some more cuts of this wonderful beef coming up, looking forward to those cooks!