Seared Ribeye on gas bbq

Kia ora Koutou, for those of you sick of eating fish all summer how about trying a Seared Ribeye. Having had a fair bit of practice, a few fails and a higher percentage of near perfect results I am a fan of the learnings, and of the meals created. If you only have gas as a medium for cooking then I think you will enjoy this process for seared Ribeye steaks, Flintstones, Tomahawks, just remember to stay hydrated throughout.

Having just completed a comprehensive and consecutive 10 days of testing using only a Baby Q gas BBQ the learnings and results were bloody fantastic. To be fair to those of you who cook and dine with me, I am all about the wood fire however given the drought in McKenzie District and Otago we were restricted to gas cooking. That all said the results were consistent and incredibly tasty. For the best results you will need the additional Baby Q roasting pack which consists of a Trivet and convection tray. At the time of writing this I have no commercial relationship with the Baby Q brand or owners, it was the BBQ available at the time.

Ingredients and Method:

First and foremost, you want a good inch and a half (38mm) bone in, or out ribeye steak. I would suggest that until you get a few of these under your belt run with grassfed rather than grainfed as the tipping point of tasty to tough with grainfed is much shorter.

Now pull your meat out…. of chiller, pat any moisture off with a paper towel and at this stage add a rub of your choice…. or not. Leave your meat covered on a bench as we want your meat to come to room temperature. Depending on where you are it may take 1-2 hours.

I tend to lightly coat steak with avocado oil or liquid tallow as a binder allowing a heavy seasoning of salt and pepper to coat and adhere to the steak just prior to cooking.

Get your BBQ hot to sear mode, grill or plate, I prefer grill, lay the steaks directly onto grill. Turn once at 183 seconds, and remove after another 183 seconds. Note: a key learning using the Baby Q is that they are much more efficient and hot with the lid down.

Turn BBQ to low, leaving lid up for a couple of minutes to disperse heat. Insert your Trivet onto BBQ with the convection tray positioned on top of Trivet. Lay your steak onto the convection tray, (this would be a good time to insert a meat probe if you have one) close lid, and take note of the built in thermometer of the Baby Q, you want to keep BBQ temperature low, targeting 100 degrees Celsius. If the ambient summer temperature of the day is hot you may need crack the lid open a little to allow greater air flow across the grill to help keep the BBQ close to desired temperature.

Your steak should reach an internal temperature of 60C in about 60-75 minutes. Key here is allowing the meat to slowly come up to desired internal temperature. Once you get there remove the steak and wrap in foil and let rest for 10-15 minutes. Steak internal temperature should not climb past 62C given the low cooking temperature used.

Normally I like to cook steak through to medium rare, however with ribeye you want to render out the fat between the eye and cap…and we all know fat is part of the crucial flavour. When you slice you are looking for a glorious caramel crust and a luscious pink colouring, without the residual myoglobin, commonly known as “meat juice”. Veganly referred to as meat milk, like milk made from almonds or oats……hahahahaaaa!

Now plate up, add your favourite seasoning, chimichurri or black sauce and enjoy. As part of the trials no vegetables were harmed in the creation of these meals.  If you have managed to read all of the above, I appreciate you, a simple great steak is simple once you get the hang of the steps above to follow.

Kia a nui te kai.