Live Fire Steak

Hey guys , it's Matt with Meat Church .

And welcome back to my outdoor kitchen today .

I thought we'd kick it old school and grill a rib eye over an open fire .

I was a steak lover before I was a barbecue lover .

And when I first started cooking outdoors , I didn't know how to cook the perfect steak .

I did all that stupid stuff like what's medium , medium rare , watched every video I could find .

And then , you know , one day I figured out an instant thermometer is how you nail the perfect doneness or desired internal temperature of a steak .

But there's lots of ways to get there .

And we've got videos on different ways to cook steaks .

And I promise you every time I cook a steak , it's never like the time before .

So for instance , you could say reverse sear a steak .

That's a method where you smoke the steak to impart some smoky flavor and then you sear it hard at the end .

Uh You might use , say a cast iron skillet to cook your steak in .

Lots of people will do these inside or even outside .

They'll put their steak in .

They'll bust based with butter with garlic and herbs and things like that .

Um , if you cook in sc a competitions , you grill steaks on grill grates , um , a high heat anna aluminum that , that can put beautiful diamonds on a steak .

You might sue via steak .

Um , you could smoke a steak lately .

I've seen lots of people with , you know , small ovens like auto wild ovens that , um , will cook a steak at 1500 degrees .

Like a steakhouse .

They're all great and different .

Have pros and cons .

But before you can do any of that , you need to know the basics of how to grill a steak over an open fire .

And that can help get you into all those other methods .

You might be out camping with nothing but fire and a grate .

Um , you might have a , a propane grill at home .

Who knows this method today will help you ?

Um , if that's your preferred method .

So , what we're doing today is we're just cooking over a direct fire .

We're on my custom Santa Maria grill .

This part isn't all that important , but when I built my outdoor kitchen , I had a vision that the Santa Maria would be the center of the kitchen that everyone would gather around .

There's a bar out here where you can hang and watch what I'm cooking , but this is nothing more , uh , than a hole with , uh , with lump charcoal in it and wood .

So , what we've done is we've put some lump down in the bottom .

Uh , there's some wood as well and then , uh , we've got a chimney of more lump that I've watered up some of our butcher paper , put some oil on it , lit it and , uh , we're waiting on , uh , this charcoal to completely catch and then we're gonna dump it in .

Uh , we're gonna burn this down .

Get a , not a nice hot fire .

That's gonna be definitely north of 500 degrees if you care about temperature .

Um We can raise this great up and down .

We're not gonna do that today .

We're just gonna move the steak around .

Uh And it's gonna be delicious .

One of the pros of this method would be , you might just like the taste of , you know , that fire imparting flavor uh directly into the steak .

So we're going super basic .

This is old school .

You don't have to have this fancy Santa Maria .

Um I've seen people take these chimneys and put a cooking grate over it and cook the steak just like that .

So , the important thing here is how to treat the meat , how to check it along the way and how it tastes at the end .

So let's jump in .

Uh I'm gonna sim I'm gonna season this really simply , but you gotta start with amazing meat .

Thanks to my friends at 44 farms down in Cameron , Texas .

They provided uh the steak for today .

This is a rib eye .

Uh It's a never ever product .

So that means no hormones or antibiotics .

Whether or not you use their steaks or someone else's , it's important to know how the cattle was treated .

So , you know what you're feeding your family .

That's why I choose this for me .

But this steak is gorgeous .

Look , this gigantic spinalis , which is why I chose this one .

This steak is like almost , I don't know , 40% spinalis or cap out here .

So it's gonna , it's gonna be super good .

I'm gonna layer two flavors today .

I'm going with our Holy Gospel and our garlic and herb .

Uh Always start with your , when you're layering , always start with your more coarse rub .

And why is that ?

So the big peppercorns in here , you want those two adhere , you don't want them to bounce off all sides .

You could use a binder if you want like an olive oil .

You know , I just padded this dry .

I don't think a binder is necessary , but it's ok if you want to use an oil or shire or something like that , that's , you know , perfectly suitable .

By the way , the Holy Gospel .

It , you know , it is not traditionally our steak rub .

You guys know that our holy cow is what we normally use .

But uh I got a buddy Jack Arnold that uses this on steaks for a well-known running back uh for the Carolina Panthers .

And after I tried it , I was like , man , that's delicious .

Has a touch of sugar in it , which I used to think sugar was kind of a no , no on beef , but I really like it .

And over this direct fire it's gonna caramelize pretty good .

So I'm coming back across that with that meat church gourmet garlic and herb .

This is a delicate rub so you can put a lot on it and , and then that's that I always like to use the board to kind of get the edges a little more .

And I wanna let this seasoning adhere or sweat out as .

So they say I'm gonna let this sit for 15 minutes would be fine if you wanted to do this for like , say up to an hour before you cooked it .

Um , but I'm gonna give this 15 minutes , uh , and we'll be back , we'll get this fire rocking and rolling and we'll get to cooking .

So this isn't just a recipe video .

Let's teach you to cook a little bit .

I could temp these , uh , the grill grate , but I can tell you it's hot .

So let's say you're out in the woods and you don't know the temperature , use your hand .

This is pretty hot .

It's super hot over the middle .

I can't hold my hand there more in a few seconds .

My guess is the middle is probably close to 1000 degrees .

I'm gonna cook out here on the outside of this fire to start with .

So I'm gonna go ahead and get my steak here .

And what I'm trying to do is I'm gonna go a couple of minutes aside to try to cook it nice and even listen , that sizzle , press it down on that grate .

Now , what I wanna do to cook this nice and evenly , I'm gonna cook this minute and a half , couple minutes on this side and then I'm gonna flip it over and I'm gonna do the same thing on the other side and I'm gonna tell you up front , depending on your cooking .

Great .

This isn't gonna be the most beautiful presentation .

This is cooking on stainless steel bars are just vertical here .

They're not diamonds , not anything pretty .

I could spin this a minute in 45 degrees and make beautiful diamonds .

In fact , I may do that just to show you , but we're going to kind of flip this over after those first four minutes , we're gonna flip it every 45 seconds or minute again just to help it cook really evenly .

And the presentation isn't gonna be like the prettiest thing we can make .

And that's ok .

I'm running a timer over here on my iphone that I obviously started a little bit late .

We think it's been 30 40 seconds .

So use your trusty uh timer here and let's just let this cook .

I'm gonna see if we can get to two minutes .

I'm gonna flip it over again just to help it cook nice and evenly and let it keep rolling .

If you want to put some added pressure on it , you can put a little weight .

This is a , this is a burger press .

I have from Iron Grove .

Beautiful hand forge .

If you want to keep some weight on it , if you're worried about your presentation , if you're worried about your diamonds , but this is , this is gonna be really , really hot .

So , uh I don't have to worry too , too much about that .

If you guys wanna see what the diamonds will look like , we can turn this about 45 degrees .

I'm gonna put it on a new piece of metal , press it down to finish out that first two minutes .

You could use one of these pigtails to flip .

I got this insulated glove .

All right .

There we go .

Rib eyes are interesting because they got that fat in the middle .

So I wanna help them kind of keep shape there .

But you can see that nice char on there .

Uh Those charred bits are flavor and what I love .

So we're gonna go upwards of two minutes on this side and then we're just gonna turn this thing every which way until we get to our desired temperature .

I like my steak medium rare , which is 1 30 to 1 35 .

That means I need to pull this steak between 100 and 20 125 degrees internal right in the middle .

When I pull it , it'll carry over cook till get till we get right in that medium rare range .

Uh , and we'll rest it with some butter over here while that's happening .

All right , we've been just at four minutes .

Let's flip it again .

Now , I'm gonna basically gonna turn this thing every different direction .

I like to go on new pieces of the metal .

You don't have to do that .

But again , it's super hot here .

So I'm gonna kind of stay on the perimeter of that fire and let's use our instant read and check right in the heart of this state .

We're at 74 degrees .

So we've got a little bit to go .

So we'll be able to flip , you know , do what you want , but I'm gonna try to flip it probably every 45 seconds or so .

Just get those nice charred bits all over this steak .

So you can see this side didn't get as many as much char .

So I'm gonna , now on this flip , I'm gonna go , let's go over the hot part right there .

Oh , that's hot already .

Smells good with that fat dripping down in that fire .

All right , this is super hot .

So I'm gonna bust in my spatula here flip again and there's some that got some char on at that time , for sure .

All right , we've been another 45 seconds .

So now kind of for the rest of the steak , I'm gonna stay out here on the edge .

So the cooler part of the fire and grill to let that thing come up to Tim .

All right , we're gonna go one last flip .

I try to go this other direction .

Not only am I flipping it , but I'm also spinning it because I think we're just about there .

Use your instant re thermometer to get right in the heart .

All right , we're done .

I'm gonna rest this on this pan .

Oh , that looks good .

Now , I like to rest my steaks with a little bit of butter .

This is unsalted butter , nice and plain .

You could use a compound butter .

I don't think it's a huge deal if you use salted butter , but there's a lot of salt in the seasoning .

So I'm going with this , I'm gonna put it over here where it's cool and we'll see y'all back here and I don't know , 10 minutes when it's time to eat .

All right guys , this steak has rested for about 10 minutes .

You can see the butter melted over it .

Uh The , you that's important to let it rest because the juices will kind of redistribute throughout the steak .

Um So that way you won't cut into it and all those juices run out and rob yourself of a really juicy bite like I always say , plus this has been sitting in this pan and this butter .

So it's gonna be delicious .

Let me , I'll talk to you about a little , a little side dish here .

So check out these potatoes super easy .

So I cut up some really small gold potatoes , have them uh parboiled them for like eight minutes .

Uh And then I coated them in olive oil and meat .

Church garlic and herb threw them in the trigger for 30 minutes at 400 degrees on a pan .

And let me tell you something about these .

This is a great easy side .

They're fluffy , but they're also crispy .

Gotta make those .

I'll put the recipe down below .

All the recipes are always in the description .

Uh and they're also always on meat churchch dot com .

But let's see how we did .

I mean , look at this steak .

You got this gigantic spinalis huge .

I'm gonna start right here .

We were temping right here in this portion .

So that's where we're gonna start .

See how we did look at that .

That's a beauty is a OK with me and you can see it's cooked really evenly .

I'm gonna go and get me a little bite here .

Let's see how we did 10 more tender than your mother's love my dog .

She knows what's up .

All right .

Only because I love you .

All right .

So that's that part .

Let's get over here in the spinal .

That's the good stuff , right ?

If you're , if you're splitting a steak with your wife , this is a part , you give your wife and this is a part you keep for yourself .

My wife doesn't watch my videos .

So she doesn't know that that's what I do but spin that open .

Look at that spinalis man .

This is gonna be so tender right here .

This is crazy .

Can make easy work of this with my new Iron Grove knife .

Thanks Daniel golly .

I don't know what y'all are gonna have .

Good Lord .

I'm gonna need a minute .

So I love the flavor from the seasoning .

I'm just gonna say that on the meat church .

You're gonna compliment your seasonings .

But um I , like I said earlier , I used to not put any sugar on beef .

I love that cooked directly over that open fire .

Really just with your senses and the instant red thermometer moving it around constantly .

You can see that it's cooked perfectly evenly all over the steak .

I mean , I'll show you both sides of that and , you know , I love all the different ways of , of cooking steak , but there's just something about the primal nature of just cooking that directly over fire and the flavor you get from that .

That's tough to beat my friends .

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