Grass-fed Beef Preparation Tips
Our recent beef restocks come from mature beef cows so you'll see generally larger size steaks this month! Below are some preparation tips to ensure optimal taste and tenderness.
A great recipe that brings these pointers of handling a serious grassfed steak together is this "Reverse Sear" recipe from James Beard award-winning culinary author Hank Shaw of Hunter Angler, which we highly recommend!
WET AGE FOR UP TO 5 DAYS - Tenderize meat by wet aging for 2-5 days (store at food safe temp 40 degrees or less). The cryovac packaging our steaks come in are perfect to do this in, or use another sealed container.
MARINADE FOR UP TO 24 HRS - Before cooking, dry rubs and marinades also help tenderize and imbue flavor into mature grass-fed beef. This can be anything from a store-bought steak marinade, a citrusy pesto marinade, a wine or beer and herb/garlic marinade, or your own creative invention!
BRING TO ROOM TEMP - Tenderness is improved when we let the steak come to room temp before coming, so pull it out of the refrigerator 45 minutes or so before cooking.
PAT DRY BEFORE SEARING - Ever wonder how chefs get such beautiful sear on the edges of the steaks in restaurants? Well, patting the steak dry from marinade and any meat juices on it is key. High heat for searing is also key, while it also it requires our full attention to not burn. Remove the steak from the heat while it is very rare still, and let it rest. The residual heat will continue cooking it.
CONSIDER SLOW COOKING - Like in "Reverse Sear" recipe, for bigger, more mature beef steaks that aren't usually slow cooked, you can pivot and get good results using a low temperature in the oven and making sure to baste with liquid or fat of your choice semi-regularly (i.e. ~225 degrees for ~2 hours), using a sous vide recipe, or pressure cooking the meat for a very brief amount of time (just a few minutes) to then finish on the grill or broiler at high heat.
USE A BISON RECIPE - While a more mature 100% grassfed cow is still not a bison, it certainly won't be tougher than bison meat, so using a bison steak recipe is a safe bet to elevate the high-quality grassfed beef to its full potential.
EXPECT AMAZING RESULTS - With proper modifications, what starts out as a potentially chewy, more mature beef steak is going to have by the best flavor while also an outstanding texture tenderized by the preparations above. Mature, grassfed meat is the most flavorful possible option and has the potential to awe our taste buds when aged and prepared correctly.
Herd of Black and Red Angus cows grazing around dusk in a luscious pasture at our 50-acre Kempton farm, where the creek runs.