-Master of the Universe?
Is that not --
Is that not acceptable?
-I don't know.
-Fuck.
♪♪
-My name is Clifford Crooks.
I'm the Culinary Director
for ESquared Hospitality
and the executive chef
for BLT Prime.
Today, we're gonna cook
the rib eye itself for you
and review meat.
Meat, meat, and more meat.
Some of the basic, basic tools
are right in front of me.
Oils.
You don't want to sear
in an olive oil.
It has a very,
very low smoke point.
Olive oil is generally used for,
you know, sauces,
dressings, finishing items.
Plus, it's a little more costly
than oils such as a canola
or a blended oil that has
a much, much higher smoke point.
Your standards, salt and pepper.
Fresh ground pepper,
always, always.
Butter.
The more butter, the merrier.
You're going to use the butter
to aroze,
or which is the fancy term
for just the baste,
which is just to
love it with butter.
The rib eye.
It's the fattiest of the cuts --
fatty in a very good way.
All the marbling and
internal fat leads to what --
more flavor.
Right above the rib eye here,
this delectable little jewel
is the cap
or the spinalis muscle,
which is right here.
This spinalis is actually
my favorite cut of beef, period.
Out of everything you see
on the table,
this bad boy right here
is where it's at.
It's also known as a deckle.
The top cap, which is the
top cap again of the rib eye.
The rib eye we have here
in front of us
is a wet-aged rib eye.
What that means is when beef
comes off of an animal,
it's not eaten immediately.
The enzymes need to soften up
and break down.
So, the loin of beef
is essentially vacuumed
within itself and then held.
So, this is about 28 days wet.
This little jewel right here,
this is a bone-in dry-aged strip
that's dry-aged for 35 days.
And what dry-aging is is instead
of it being vacuumed in a bag
when it comes off the animal,
the entire portion of beef
is put into
a temperature-controlled room.
Basically, dry-age draws all of
the moisture out of the beef
and concentrates the flavors.
It also tenderizes
the beef, as well.
Today, we're gonna cook
the rib eye itself for you.
Cast-iron skillet.
It retains 90% of the heat.
It allows for even searing
and even, you know,
even browning of your beef,
so you don't really have to
manipulate it as much.
It's similar to cooking
a piece of fish,
you really want to set it
in there,
leave it,
don't touch it too much.
When you turn it
after two to three minutes,
depending on your temperature,
it's gonna be
beautifully golden brown --
unless I totally screw it up,
and then we're all in
for a surprise, right?
Before we start, we also want
our beef to be
as room temperature as possible.
It will cook, "A," a lot faster
and a lot more evenly.
We don't want to be shy
with our salt.
Pepper.
Doing the same thing
on the other side.
Before we hit the pan, I'm going
to open up our garlic here.
There is some of the skin
still on it.
That's completely fine.
All I'm gonna do is take it,
I'm gonna smash it.
I'm gonna hold
that piece of garlic.
We're gonna use that garlic
to baste our steak
when we're ready.
Gonna add our canola oil.
I want the steak to sear
when I drop it in.
If the pan's not hot enough
and I drop the steak in,
it will start steaming first.
And then instead of getting
that maillard reaction,
which is just basically
a browning and coloring,
it'll steam and turn gray.
Now, easiest part.
The steak's in the pan.
That's it.
We're not gonna touch it.
The painful game of waiting
and watching.
While that's happening there,
we're gonna get all of our
accoutrements ready, right?
So, I've got a sprig to thyme.
A sprig of rosemary.
And the piece of garlic
that we have lovingly smashed.
So, now I can move this steak
around the pan, which is fine.
I'm not lifting it yet.
I disable my smoke alarms.
I open up every single window
in my apartment,
and then I'll start cooking.
We've achieved some
beautiful color on side "A."
Another two minutes on side "B."
So, we're at the point right now
I'm gonna put all of our herb
into the pan.
Everything's gonna pop
and sizzle.
Now, butter.
We're gonna add a little bit
of butter, Julia Child style.
Now, here's the fun part.
You ready?
In a restaurant, I'll push
the beef to one side, right,
I'll take my herbs,
making sure that
I'm not completely
hammering everything,
put it on top,
and I'll angle it,
and I'll just start basting
the steak like this.
The aromats from the herbs
are infusing themself
into the beef itself.
I'm gonna put the steak
on the resting rack.
Rather than using a thermometer
or the guess method,
we're going to use
this one-dollar bad boy
right here that we all could
get, that's a cake tester.
Really, really thin,
wiry piece of metal.
This is the most sensitive part
of your mouth right there.
So, I can take the cake tester
and stick it in the middle
of the piece of beef.
So, now the cake tester has
become exact same temperature
as the interior of the beef.
And I can pull it out
and put it right here.
So, it's warm, it's not hot,
meaning that the center
is mid-rare edging
to medium the more
I let it rest.
This right here rested for five
to seven minutes
is a straight mid-rare.
Cut your beef
with a serrated knife.
I don't care what anyone
has fucking told you,
this is the easiest
way to do it.
It's 100% accurate,
you're gonna get clean cuts.
I taught my mother
how to use it.
Actually, she uses this
and one other knife,
and the other one's
a butter knife.
That's it.
We're just gonna remove it
from the bone.
The bone can sit to the side,
you can give it to the dog,
which is basically put it
on my plate when we're done.
We want to slice it this way.
You're not gonna
slice it this way.
This is so, "A," every one
has a nice piece of fat,
and, really,
this is the only way to cut it.
And then everything is finished
with a Maldon.
Really, it's just really fancy,
absolutely delicious salt.
And that's it.
Wow.
That's fucking good.
I taste every bit of herb.
I taste the rosemary
individually,
I taste the thyme,
I taste the garlic,
I taste the noisette,
which is really
just the brown little chunks.
The beef notes are great,
which just means that it's
actually really good product.
I don't know if you've ever
eaten a piece of beef
and it tastes
a little bit iron-y
or actually really watery.
The product itself is good.
So, that's how you cook
a steak at home.
Thank you for hanging with me.
Thank you to Munchies,
and we'll see you later.
♪♪
♪♪
