Dry Aged Steaks

Dry Aged Steaks

Steaks are one of our staples around the Bass household.  We typically have them once a week (or so).  We like different cuts; flank, strip, tenderloin, rib eye and so on.  Our favorite are the rib eyes, with its marbling and trim of rib meat.  We love to cook at home, but we also love to eat out.  On occasion we’ll go to a nice steak house. Seems like all the good steak houses dry age their steaks…it’s amazing the flavors you got from dry aging, makes the flavors much more pronounced!  So, we always thought that the only way to get that was to go to a steak house…oh no mon frere!  Happens that Alton Brown had an episode on steaks on one of his series, Good Eats! And he should how one can age steaks at home.  Of course we had to try it and it works great.  The aging works well with strip steak (NY Strip), best with rib eye…don’t age tenderloin (filet mignon…it will make it tough)! So the following video is demonstrating how to age, then how we like to cook & server our steaks. 

 

 

Ingredients:

Rib Eye Steaks	2 thick cut steaks
Olive Oil	1 tablespoon
Garlic Powder	1 teaspoon
Pepper	2 teaspoons
Salt	2 teaspoons
Hardware
Paper Towels	1 Roll
Cooking Rack	1
Cookie Sheet Pan	1
Cast Iron Skillet	1 Large

Instructions: 

 

Step 1:

Aging…Take the steaks out of any packaging.  If the steaks are overly bloody, I like to pat them dry to start.  Then take about three feet of paper towel and wrap the steaks…do not wrap the steaks together, use a three foot section of paper towel per steak.  Lay them on a cooking rack, sitting on cookie sheet pan (so there’s air flow below the wrapped steaks).  Do not crowd the steaks.  Put the wrapped steaks into the lower portion of the refrigerator for two days.  After two day, remove the paper towels and repeat the wrapping of each steak.  Return them to the refrigerator for another two to three days.  Remove the steaks from the refrigerator and unwrap them.  You now have 96 to 130 hour dry aged steaks.  They should feel denser than when you started since they have lost moister.  They should also be a darker red color, not brown or grey.

Step 2:

Prepping the meat to be cooked.  Heat your oven to 500’F and pace a large, dry cast iron skillet into the oven.  While you’re waiting for the skillet to heat up, bring the steaks to room temperature.  The US FDA states that it is safe to leave uncooked meat out of refrigeration for up to two hours, if the ambient temperature is below 90F.  At 90F or above, no more than an hour.  It shouldn’t take that long, typically about 30 minutes or so to get the meat to room temperature.  Coat the meat with a little olive oil on both sides.  Sprinkle ½ teaspoon of garlic powder, 1 teaspoon of salt & pepper each over a steak (covering both sides).  Let them sit until they get to room temperature and the skillet gets hot.  Very carefully move the skillet to the stove top over high heat.  Should be smoking a bit.

Step 3:

Cooking…put the steaks into the smoking hot skillet.  We like our steaks on the rarer side, so leave the steak on one side for about two minutes.  DO NOT MOVE THEM DURING THIS TIME!!!!   You are trying to sear in the juices.  Flip the steaks and then put the skillet back into the 500’F oven…carefully, the skillet is still smoking hot, remember?  Leave them in the oven for an additional three minutes.  If you want more medium rare, use three minutes on the first side and four to five minutes in the oven…I’m assuming a steak that’s about an inch or so thick.  Remove the steaks from the skillet and place them on a plate (not chilled or wet please).

If you want to cook on a grill, then make sure your grill is hot (500’F plus hot).  Put the steaks on the grill and leave them alone for one and half minute.  Then rotate them 90 degrees (to get nice grill marks).  Leave them for another minute and half.  For more well done, increase the time by a minute before and after rotation.  Then flip the steaks and repeat the process.  Remove the steaks from the grill and put them on a plate.

If you have a meat thermometer, I like to pull the steaks out at 115’F before resting.

Step 4:

The meat needs to rest.  We have a double oven, so I normally put the steaks into the cool oven, just to get them out of the way, but anywhere away from the heat should be fine.  Let them rest for five minutes…this lets the juices redistribute in the meat…the juices naturally move away from heat sources, so the resting is necessary.  If you don’t, then when cut into the meat, all the juices will just run out of the meat and you just wasted a perfectly good dry aged piece of meat.  After it has rested, server how you like. We server them family style, so we slice the meat and server it along with some type of sauce and vegetables. 

 

I hope you enjoy!