- I'm Angie Mar and I'm your steak expert.
This one's really nice.
It's like butter.
[playful music]
[bell dings]
[plates rattling]
Ribeye is actually one of
my favorite cuts of meat.
This is one that I know intimately well.
The best ribeyes come from
ribs one through seven.
It's kind of like the perfect cut on beef,
just because it's tender, but
it's still toothsome enough.
It's got a deeper, more irony flavor.
And that's what I really love.
So if you look at steak
A, you don't have a lot
of intramuscular fat.
So you've got a higher lean meat ratio,
and there's less marbling
throughout the eye.
This steak also looks like
it was cut towards the back
of the animal, where there
is less of a fat cap.
One of the really important things,
when I'm selecting a ribeye,
is actually looking at
the ribeye cap, right here.
This cut here, when you're
looking for a really
great quality steak, should
have really high level
of marbling, typically between 30 and 40%
fat to lean meat ratio.
If you actually look at B, you can see,
in here on the ribeye cap,
that it is almost 50%,
so this is actually a
really, really nice steak.
This is what I wanna
see when I'm looking for
really good quality meat.
But you've got this beautiful marbling,
and intramuscular fat, all
throughout the ribeye cap,
as well as the eye.
So this leads me to
believe that this comes
from a little further up,
towards the head of the animal.
You can also see this one,
it's got a really nice fat
cap, here, and as we know,
fat equals flavor.
This is probably the steak
that I would be going for.
And you can actually tell,
by the differential in color,
between A and B, that this one
is a little bit brighter red,
but what I'm gonna say is prime,
it's got that deeper garnet color,
and this is what signifies to me,
that this is a prime steak.
Prime USDA is actually the
highest grade that you can get.
And what it is is the
fat to lean meat ratio,
how much intramuscular
fat that the animal has.
And there are eight grades
provided by the USDA.
The first being prime,
choice, select, standard,
commercial, utility, cutter and canner.
But the three that are
always used for retail
and restaurant consumption
are prime, choice and select.
Typically the other grades
are used for burger meat,
they're used for fast food
chains and then even lower down,
honestly dog food.
The best part about a ribeye
cut is actually after you
finish the steak, getting
to gnaw on the bone.
There's a lot of really
great connective tissue here.
That's where the most flavor is.
That's like the breakfast
of champions, right.
Right off the bat, I'm
gonna say that this one
clearly has a little bit less fat,
because you can actually see
everything's been rendered
out really with the marbling.
This one still looks like
it has a nice healthy fat cap to it.
I think I'm just gonna jump right in.
Right off the bat, when
we cut into this steak,
we see that the muscle fibers
look really, really grainy.
And it just doesn't
really look that juicy.
When I cut into option B,
you see that it is pink.
You can see that it looks
way juicier, way more moist.
And you can actually
see the fat distribution
from the marbling in here.
Let's just taste them both.
[soft music]
So the thing is with this
steak, when I'm eating it,
it is dry and the fat's
actually very chewy.
A really nice prime steak,
should just be this kind of like
melt in your mouth fat,
where you're not feeling
like you're just chewing on end.
All right, so I'm gonna
try the second steak now,
but it already looks juicier,
and you can see the fat in here.
So let's give it a taste.
Ribeye B is definitely more juicy.
It is more flavorful
and it's way more tender
than option A.
So I'm gonna say that option B is prime,
and option A is choice,
because option B, was just
more juicy, the mouth feel's
just a little bit silkier, and the flavor
is just a little bit more beefy.
I'm gonna go with option B,
as being the more expensive steak.
Let's see which one is which.
[dramatic music]
So 13 and
54 a pound.
You know got expensive taste, right.
[Angie chuckles]
Definitely worth the cost.
[plates rattling]
So in front of me, I
have two strip steaks,
and one of them is clearly Kobe beef.
This one, we can tell right off the bat,
that it's clearly Kobe,
just because of the
high fat content, the marbling ratio.
And then this one,
option B is Black Angus.
That's what American beef
is, it's always Black Angus.
So the thing to know about Japanese beef
is that all Kobe is Wagyu beef,
but not all Wagyu beef is Kobe.
Wagyu refers to any of the
four Japanese breeds of beef.
But Kobe beef specifically
is very much like champagne.
Where sparkling wine that is
champagne can only be grown
in the Champagne region of France.
It's exactly the same with Kobe beef.
It's one of the most rare,
most expensive, cut beef
in the world.
And that's largely because
there's only about 3,000 heads
of cattle every single year,
that will actually qualify
as Kobe beef.
This is actually to me
looks look at A5 Kobe,
which is the highest
level that you can get.
So the Tajima cattle is
actually fed grain fodder
throughout its life,
and you can actually see
the marbling in here.
It's super, super light pink.
It's got more of a fat
ratio than a lean meat ratio
on these cattle.
I love the Black Angus,
and this especially
is a really beautiful strip steak.
This is a bone-in strip,
and it looks like it
has definitely been finished
on grain because you can tell
it's got really beautiful marbleization.
I like to cut this a little bit thinner,
when I'm serving it for a group.
Just because it helps
with the tenderization,
when you're actually eating it.
The times when I look at Kobe beef,
this is something that
I really want to enjoy
as a carpaccio, or as a tartare.
This isn't something
that you need to cook,
but I think we should sear it off anyway.
So here we have our two strip steaks.
I'm gonna start with the Kobe.
So this steak of course,
really doesn't need to
be cooked that much.
It's got such a high fat content.
But you can see it's just
all marbling and fat,
which is definitely my jam.
[soft music]
It's like butter.
It is super sweet, super
fatty, and super, super rich.
This steak is just so rich,
that I can only do a couple bites of it.
Now let's get into the Black Angus.
[soft music]
So look, you can see in the Angus steak
all of the marbling right
here, the intramuscular fat,
it's obviously not gonna
be as much as a Kobe beef,
but again, you know, this is
steak that I wanna sit down
and really eat as a steak, versus this,
it's kinda like a one, or two-bite thing.
[soft music]
The Black Angus is definitely prime,
and it's definitely still a
little bit on the sweeter side,
because this was actually
finished on grain,
but these are just two
completely different products.
I think both of them
are extremely delicious.
When we look at Kobe beef,
once again, just because
there are so few cattle,
that actually get qualified
as Kobe beef, and because
they're exporting it
to the States, this is obviously gonna be
the more expensive steak.
Let's see how much.
[dramatic music]
All right, so the Kobe is 130,
and the Black Angus is 66 a pound.
So obviously the Kobe
is definitely a splurge,
but I think that if you have
the opportunity to try it,
just the sheer experience
is an absolute must for me.
And again, just because
of richness of this steak,
a little bit goes a really long way.
[plates rattling]
In front of me I have
two Tomahawk ribeyes.
Tomahawks are the exact
same cut as a ribeye,
and when you go and get a ribeye,
it basically is the
ribeye, the ribeye cap,
the short plate, the short rib,
and you have this entire layer
of protective meat and fat,
that goes around the ribeye,
and this is called the decal.
And I think when a lot of people
think of a Tomahawk steak,
they think of a ribeye, that's attached
to this really long-handled bone.
Personally, I think that's kind of a waste
of everybody's money.
What good is paying for the
weight of a cleaned off bone,
if there's no meat attached to eat?
This is probably one of the
most flavorful cuts of beef,
and really the most diverse.
One of these steaks is clearly aged,
and let's start with just talking about
the dry-aging process.
The dry-aging process with beef
is typically used only by restaurants
and very high-end retailers.
The process of dry-aging
is taking an entire primal cut of beef,
and putting it in a temperature
and humidity-controlled room
for a certain amount of time.
While the enzymes, the
meat's natural enzymes
are breaking down the connective tissue,
and increasing tenderness,
the muscle fibers
actually start to shed water weight.
Typically in the dry-aging
process, you lose between
20 and 30% of the steak's
original water weight.
The molecular make up of
the beef, really changes.
And that's gonna result
in a different flavor.
One of the things that I
love about dry-aged beef,
is it's got a deeper
richer flavor, versus beef
that hasn't been aged, which
has a lot of higher notes,
and it's more sweet.
But dry-aged beef, it's
funky, it almost has
this blue cheese quality to
it, but in the best of ways.
And you can even tell,
as I'm standing here
and smelling it, you can
tell that there's just that
deeper, funkier, more blue cheese smell
to this steak.
So this steak I would
actually say is probably about
a 100 to a 120 days old.
For me that's kind of a sweet spot.
I think for people that haven't
had dry-aged beef before,
it's really good to start at
a steak around 45 to 60 days.
Just 'cause that's the kind of entry-level
where you're going to
really see the difference
between a fresh piece of meat,
and something that has an
increased flavor profile,
an increased tenderness.
We're back with our two Tomahawk steaks,
and I am just gonna cut right into them
and we're gonna see how they look.
[dramatic music]
Just even as I'm cutting this,
you can just see how the
knife just kinda goes through.
It's super tender.
And look at all the fat,
look at the marbling.
This one's really nice.
Let's cut into the second one.
[dramatic music]
This one's a little bit tougher.
So you can already see, just
right after cutting through,
it's the color.
This one is probably gonna
be the fresh, unaged steak,
because you've got all of the
this light pink color here.
The fat looks a little bit tougher.
It feels a little bit tougher.
So you can actually just see the grains
through the eye of the rib here.
As opposed to this, which
has way more marbling
in the eye of the rib.
This one smells a little bit sweeter,
and a little bit fresher.
But we're gonna just jump in and taste it.
[dramatic music]
It is so flavorful, so
tender, super juicy,
and it just has that really beautiful
blue cheese taste to it.
It's got that nice funk.
But let's try this other one too.
[dramatic music]
So this one's got a lot of
like nice high, sweet notes.
But if I was really
looking for great quality,
super funky steak, I'm gonna go with A.
That's my answer.
This is the aged one, it's
definitely more expensive.
Right, let's see what the reveal says.
[dramatic music]
All right, $42 a pound, and $35 a pound.
Obviously there is a bit of
a price differential here.
And a dry-aged steak is unparalleled.
It's gonna be like nothing else.
So I definitely opt for option A.
I think that at the end of the day,
from the low end to the
high end of the spectrum,
there is a steak for everyone.
[upbeat music]
