Friday, April 10, 2009

DRY AGING OF BEEF -- EXPERIMENT #1, DAY 14



With our tongues hanging out in anticipation of a juicy flavorful aged steak, Guy and I trimmed the darkened, moldy covering on the meat. Next, we cut straight through to separate out a roast. We were surprised to learn that there was no bone in the meat. Duhh. Why didn't we know that? We further trimmed off the cap (the thin strip of fatty beef that surrounds the eye). This will be reserved for braising.



And here's what we wound up with: a 3-1/2 lb. boneless rib roast, 9 beautiful rib eye steaks, and a little over a lb. of rib caps for braising. We reserved 2 steaks for tonight's dinner, and froze the rest with our vacuum sealer. First, I weighed the steaks and made sure that we froze what would be typical for us -- between 12 and 14 oz. This yielded 5 steak dinners for us, counting the 2 steaks for tonight; 1 company dinner using the roast; and 1 braised rib dinner most probably with leftovers for lunch or another dinner.

And our dinner tonight was heaven for sure. Just salt and pepper on these beauties; nothing else is needed when you have aged beef steaks. They went on the grill and were cooked to medium rare -- we savored every tender, juicy, flavorful bite.

10 comments:

Elyse said...

Talk about a successful experiment! Your steak looks great--totally worth the wait. You and Guy should start a business now. You're becoming pros!

Barbara Bakes said...

Thats some pretty beef! I'm so glad everything worked out for you!

Hairball T. Hairball said...

Judy, you owe me a new keyboard as I drooled all over mine looking at your steak!!

Happy Easter to you and Guy! :)

Coleens Recipes said...

Finally, a taste report. This has been like a long suspense novel, LOL.

Kerstin said...

My mouth is watering - your steaks look amazing!! It's so cool you dry aged them yourselves - I'm completely impressed.

Reeni said...

I'm glad you had such success! They look positively delicious! So tender and juicy!!

Cheri Sicard said...

Congratulations on your first beef aging. Do you think you'll continue to age your beef or was this a one time thing? Thanks so much for sharing the experience with us.

Judy said...

Cheri - We will definitely be doing this again. It is very worth it. There is no butcher in or near our town with aged beef. It's at least an hour's drive to get to one.

Foodiewife said...

Wow! Perfection! I could eat this right off the screen.

Good job!

Debby

JohnGL said...

I've been out of town lately, so I missed this post.

Nice work Judy. The cooked steaks look great!