4 Levels of Steak - Amateur to Food Scientist _ Epicurious

What if I told you I could save you 80 to $100 .

Every time you went to the grocery store , it , it done .

Value added value received in this video , I'm gonna show you how to save a ton of money on cutting your own rib eye steaks .

Who doesn't like a rib eye ?

If you don't like a rib eye , we can't be friends .

I got this steak from Costco and it was about $10 a pound .

I went to my local grocery store to look to buy a rib eye that was already cut .

We're talking $16 a pound .

Now is the time for you to learn how to break down your own meat .

And I'm gonna show you how to do it .

It's not that hard and just with a few skills , very little equipment , you're gonna find that you're gonna have this best quality steak that you can have for the least amount of a month .

Let's talk about here .

Let's talk about knives .

Ok .

So what I have right here is a , it's what's called a breaking knife .

It is , it looks a little bit intimidating but it is not , it is very easy .

It is , it helps you get through this big piece of meat .

If I'm trying to use a tiny little paring knife , I'm not going to get anywhere that I need to go with .

This little tiny knife , big meat , big knife .

Don't be scared .

This is I'm gonna leave a link in the description .

There's one on Amazon for like less than 40 or $45 at that price when it becomes dull , we'll just uh get a new one .

So don't be scared about the knife or an investment in a knife .

Just get the cheapest .

It'll get the job done .

I'm gonna show you in the description , I'll link to what I use .

All right .

So the rib eye sits between the chuck and the strip line .

So what happens is right here .

You can see that this side is a little bigger , has a little more , a little fat in there .

That is the chuck side .

This is called seasoning .

I'm gonna mix a little bit of the salt and the together to create my rub .

We're gonna take a paper towel and blot it .

I just don't want any like blood or water or juices .

So I'm gonna make for you .

One of my favorite marinades .

This is sauce , tamari and mushroom powder and Yu Aoi paste roasted garlic last but not least a shallot .

So I'm just going to these and put them in a little bowl and then I'm just gonna add some salt dread goat and red pepper flakes .

What I'm gonna do next is paint my beef with a little olive oil just for flavor .

And it also will help the rub adhere .

You see , I'm being very gentle because I respect the beef .

So now I'm just gonna put some of this rub on each side of my steak and you just want to press it in a bit so that it all doesn't come tumbling off .

When you begin to sear , go heavy on the sauce .

So , so on this side of the cow was the chuck and this goes into the strip one .

So we're gonna start going from left to right .

So what we need to do first is to even out this edge because we want a nice flat steak .

So we're gonna see where it comes to the end there and nice cut right now .

Nice and easy say now it's nice and flat and we're gonna continue to cut steaks all the way through the best part about doing your own butchery is the fact that you get to choose what you would like to do .

So I am gonna make a nice prime rib roast the first cut .

Ok ?

I'm gonna go probably right to here that's gonna give me a nice , you know , 2 £3 prime rib roast .

So , and I'm gonna make a prime rib out it again .

This breaking knife you can see how it goes through nice and easy .

Just like butter .

Here we go all the way down .

And that's the reason it has this curve tip is so you can come up with your hand and it comes down with the knife and goes all the way through .

So there's a nice big prime rib roast that I'll make .

This is a great prime rib for probably two people .

You know , two people here .

But look at that .

Look at that marbling .

Look at that .

This is a choice rib eye guys .

This is not super prime , but look at that .

That is so good .

I'm just gonna cut more steaks .

I'm gonna go an inch and a half inch and a quarter or something like that .

But I like a nice thick rib eye steak and there's gonna be some trim on the bottom .

So you wanna make it a little bigger than you think you need .

OK .

All the way through .

Slide back .

Look at that one .

Do it again .

All the way through , slide back .

Boom .

All right .

Let's talk .

Have I done anything complicated yet ?

No , I haven't .

I just cut some steaks .

We just slice them down the middle .

That's it .

Just slice them .

So , haven't anything complicated yet .

Let me know when it gets hard .

Ok .

I know you're intimidated by this big cut of meat .

But let me know when it gets hard .

All right , we just keep cutting down .

These are about a pound apiece .

Anywhere from 14 to 16 ounces .

My mom comes over , she likes a medium well steak .

Well , I wanna , I'm gonna have to have a thinner steak so I can get a nice medium .

Well , for her , these are great steaks right here .

Everything gets used , everything gets safe , but these are like the butcher snack .

Ok .

So I'm gonna , I can quick pan fry these and have a little snack before anyone else gets it .

It's gonna be great .

Now I'm gonna take all these steaks that I got and now I'm gonna just trim up even further .

Um I'm doing this kind of backwards for the camera , but again , this will be , this part will be towards you .

But again , I'm just going to make a nice cut right here .

And we're gonna , this piece , we're gonna save the meat and the fat .

You can take this fat and make beef tallow with it .

It's really good to cook potatoes in , you can grind it up into your hamburgers .

I have a video on that on how to use your steak trimmings to make hamburgers .

So we're gonna make a nice looking nice looking ruby state with this .

Just cut some of that hard fat off .

Again , check the bottom , make sure just give it a check .

Look at that .

A little bit of connected tissue from where the rib eye connects to the ribs .

Boom .

There we go .

Grab another one .

Look at it .

So we got a little bit of rough on the bottom .

So I'll just give it a nice little slice on the bottom using that breaking neck .

I like this .

Move your arm hand up .

It causes the knife to go down and do the work for you .

That's the best .

So we got this .

The only thing we're gonna do is this has a little bit of extra fat on .

We're just gonna trim it up .

This is not hard guys .

We have not done anything hard yet and we're not gonna do anything art because it's not art .

It's intimidating because it's a huge piece of meat , but it's like it's not really that big a deal .

This is gonna make an awesome prime rib .

Look at this .

Look at , look at that marbling in there .

This is gonna make an awesome prime rib and I can't wait to show you guys how to do that .

That's in a future video .

So stay tuned .

This is all the trim that was left over and we can either put that in hamburgers .

We can turn this up even more and make beef tallow with it .

I'm gonna show you in a future video how to make beef tallow .

Actually let me know in the comments if you wanna learn how to make beef tallow .

If you've never had potatoes fried in beef tallow .

I don't think you have lived and this is all the steaks that we have .

I'm gonna show you how exactly how much we saved on this cut of meat .

If you like this video , I want you to watch more videos .

I want to watch more of my stuff .

Now , I this channel , what we do is we cut meat and we cook meat .

That's our thing .

So if you are interested in meat , cutting meat , eating meat , whatever this is the channel for you .

Thank you for watching and I can't wait for you to see my other videos .

I'm gonna put one on the screen right here as this rib eye , as this rib eye thing falls over .

I am going to put one on the screen and I want you to watch the next video and see how we can increase our meat game .

And then you take your beautiful butter and you kind of put it between your steak slices .

I'm just gonna add a little steak sauce on the side .

I'm just gonna put a little , like a dipping sauce kind of thing .

Almost put a little parsley on top of our steak just a little bit and now it's ready to serve .

Here's my steak friends .

This is my steak .

There's a nice steak .

All right .

So it's time to eat .

Mm .

Mm .

This is good steak .

I'd say that turned out great .

I mean , it really , I mean , it's like steak levels of chewy but not like wow , chewy delicious .

I'm gonna take another bite just to make sure he's good , you know .

Mm .

Very good .

All three of our chefs chose different cuts of beef seasoning and sauces to make their steaks .

Emily used a flank steak , which tends to be a tougher cut of beef because it has more connective tissue and less fat .

It's a hind quarter cut and is often used in making commercial ground beef .

Julie used a strip steak which is a more tender cut of beef and marbled with more fat than the flank steak .

Fat is flavor .

The strip is also from the hindquarter , from the mussel called the long .

It's more tender because it's not used for movement of the steer meat .

Tenderness is inversely related to the amount of work the muscle does while the steer is alive .

Adriana used a bone in rib eye state which comes from the rib section of the animal and is full of flavor and fat .

Her rib eye was dry , aged , dry , aging is a slow chemical process in which enzymes and micro organisms make the meat more tender and flavorful by converting proteins into savory amino acids , glycogen into sweeter glucose and fats into aromatic fatty acids and that releases a lot of flavor .

It happens by hanging dry , unwrapped large cuts of beef at a low temperature over a month or so hanging .

The meat also helps to stretch the muscle filaments and prevents them from bonding which reduces toughness in meat .

Cooking meat on the bone also adds another layer of flavor .

It helps retain moisture and reduce shrinkage in meat because the bones holds the meat in place .

Bones heat more slowly than meat .

So overall cooking is slower and more gentle on the proteins in meat .

Emily used a dry spice rub which works well on a tougher and thinner cut of meat like the flank steak .

At least that's what I've always heard .

I don't know the acidic spices and salt in her spice rub disrupt and weaken muscle fibers and increase their ability to retain moisture .

She also used some spicy hot ingredients like red pepper flakes .

I can't remember the word that will taste good but will mask some of the beefy flavor you get from just a salt based rub Julie used a South African brie spice mix prior to cooking .

This is a special dry salt based seasoning which brings out the flavor of meat .

So of course , I brought a lot of it back home with me .

Salt can suppress bitter flavors in meat which come from amino acids like arginine and crypto fan or like an or Carine adding to a more pleasant sensory experience .

Adriana used a wet marinade that included rich ingredients that are high in glutamate , which enhances the meaty umami flavor glutamate is an amino acid naturally occurring in meat and fish like the anchovies she included and is in some plant based foods like mushrooms and tamari sauce .

She also marinated her rib eye for several hours in a vacuum sealed pouch .

So it had more time for the flavors to develop marinades add flavor to the surface of meat and the longer the marinade time , the more flavor development with salty marinades be careful though .

If you have acidic ingredients like vinegar , you might get some sour notes .

If you marinate the meat , too long fluids released by the breakdown of muscle fibers during cooking , stimulate and intensify flavors and aromas in meat .

There's maximum fluid release when your steak is rare to medium rare , which is the temperature .

All three of our chefs went for .

I'm a little off the , they don't even know if you continue to cook the meat , it will shrink in size because fluids are no longer present and you'll end up with a tough dry steak that may taste a bit like liver Emily added oil to a non stick pan while adding oil increases the temperature at which the meat will be seared .

It's not necessary .

In this case , Julie brushed her steak with oil before adding it to the heated cast iron .

Adding oil prevents the meat from sticking to the skillet and adds some richness to the steak .

Julie finished her steak in a hot oven .

A dry heating method which works well for cuts of meat like New York strip that have a higher fat content .

The meat stays moist and juicy while it's in the oven .

Adriana used a technique called so her rib eye was vacuum sealed in a bag that was placed in a water bath and held at a constant temperature .

You can do this for several hours and the meat will not exceed the temperature of the water just before serving .

Adriana took the meat out of the pouch and seared it .

Searing meat doesn't seal in juices as most people think .

But it does increase .

May browning imparting rich roasted flavors and colors .

Unique to beef .

Sous vide is a reliable and consistent way to cook steak , but you do need special equipment .

Emily made a quick steak sauce with some acidic components like ketchup vinegar and molasses which add sweetness and tang , but also helped to tenderize her flank steak by breaking down connective tissues .

Julie added additional fat in the form of butter combined with blue cheese at the end , this gives an earthy Peca and slightly tangy taste and smooth texture to her New York strip steak .

The blue cheese is a sharp complimentary flavor to the mild and succulent strip steak .

Blue cheese butter never heard a thing .

Adriana finished her rib eye with garlic butter and thyme as the best .

She also added flavorful bourne sauce , incorporating Mayer lemons which are sweeter than regular lemons and mushroom powder to enhance the umami richness of the sauce .

Bernays is a complex sauce based on an emulsion .

An emulsion is when two liquids that don't normally want to form a mixture dow with bourne sauce , phospho lipids and lessen and egg yolks emulsify the water soluble flavoring components into a rich velvety topping for your steak .

There's lots of different ways to cook and season steak .

Next time you're in the mood for a great steak .

I hope you'll use some of these tips .