Recipe for txuleton rib eye
Txuleton rib eye. It sounds Russian/Finnish or completely foreign, but it is a cattle breed from the Basque Country in northern Spain. In the city of San Sebastian (which boasts a plethora of Michelin-starred restaurants and a proud culinary culture), this cut of meat is one of the finest experiences you can sink your teeth into.
We live in a fat-phobic country where the tenderloin is considered the best cut of meat you can eat. Sure, it is tender and delicious, but fat is just the key to bringing out great flavor.
To achieve the pinnacle from this cattle breed, typically an overweight and old dairy cow is used, which is usually fattened up in the final period. So forget about beef cattle whose sole purpose is to build as much muscle as possible; here the pursuit is of incredibly marbled fat.
Regarding the preparation, it is based on one of San Sebastian’s best steak restaurants’ way of cooking the meat. Normally here in the North, we tend to sear hard first to seal in the juices and then cook the meat through. Down there, the approach was to place the meat on a rack over a fire and slowly cook it at higher and higher temperatures until the meat was perfect. The setup was, of course, impossible for us to replicate, as it was over an open fire and with a slightly slanted rack to keep the fat on the meat instead of letting it run off. The meat was smothered in salt, which was just “shaken” off afterward. The meat was given approximately 10 minutes on each side.
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Equipment
- Grill Pan
- Scissors
- Knife
Ingredients
- 1200 gram Rib Eye Txuleton
- Coarse salt
Instructions
- Put a grill pan on your stove and heat it to medium.
- Take the meat out of the bag and pat it dry with a clean kitchen towel. Moisture is generally your enemy when you want a sear.
- There's a very large fat edge on the side, so use scissors (or be careful with a knife) and cut into the edge in a few places. This ensures the meat does not contract and cook unevenly.
- Sprinkle flaky salt all over one side of the meat. Use much more than you think is good - the salt will fall off afterward.
- Place the meat on a grill pan with the salted side down.
- Sprinkle the other side with salt afterward.
- Grill the meat for 10 minutes and flip it.
- Give it 5 minutes on the other side.
- Turn the heat to high and cook the fat edge on the side for 1-2 minutes.
- Then give the meat 1-2 minutes on each side on high heat.
- The meat is now ready to serve. It does not need to rest, but you may want to scrape off the salt. Slice it thinly and serve immediately.
