Well Fed2 Perfectly Cooked Steak

[AllyB]

When I got my copy of WF2,  I was very excited to see this recipe.  We raise our own grassfed beef and I feel that I should know how to cook all parts of the cow.  I usually use a sous vide to do steaks.  But most of my customers don't have one.  So I suggest to them the 'low and slow' method of cooking.  But often I get glazed looks.  People are used to corn fed steaks that they can throw on a hot pan/grill and get a juicy steak.  If you do that with a grassfed steak, you are likely to get shoe leather

 

So I tried this recipe last night with a couple of grassfed ribeyes.  They were very lean.  My husband kind of groaned and suggested making a big salad to go along with it (his way of ensuring that he has at least _something_ to eat when the steaks come out as shoe leather.)

 

I followed the recipe as close as I dared.  (I didn't cook in the oven as long since my steaks were thinner than the 1" the recipe called for.)  But I did the 'scary hot' cast iron pan to sear the steaks and then put them in the oven.

 

The steaks came out very nice....maybe a little too close to medium (I prefer a little pinker).  But that was because of the thinner steaks. Not the recipe's fault. They were juicier than what we get from the sous vide (which often is just flat out dry.)  And they certainly weren't shoe leather. 

 

I was curious (if anyone knows) what the purpose of the arrowroot is in this recipe?  I used it with the salt as specified in the recipe.  Does it help the steak brown better?  Does it make a little 'sauce' with the juices as the steak cooks since it's a thickener?  Both?  Neither?

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks!

[rhed]

My guess would be that it helps give it some color, and also helps form a crust on it that may help keep in juices.

[jent103]

I also thought maybe it was to absorb some of the moisture on the outside and help it crust better, but that's an educated guess. I've done this recipe twice and though it is indeed a little scary to get my pan that hot, it's the best steak I've ever cooked for sure!

[rhed]

I tried it once and I can't do it any more. It smokes my apartment out, lol.

[GLC1968]

I've got some grassfed tenderloin in my freezer that I've been procrastinating on cooking for fear I'd 'kill' them.  My sous vide skills are marginal at best (since I'm hacking my crockpot into a sous vide anyway!) and I suck at cooking on the grill.

 

I've seen this recipe and skipped over it numerous times.  Perhaps I need to face my fears and kill two birds (or a part of a cow) with one stone?

[jent103]

GLC - definitely worth it if you ask me! And easy, except for facing the fear about burning down my house.

[AllyB]

Grassfed filets are the one steak that you can cook more like cornfed beef.  They are so tender, that they typically don't get tough like the other ones (ribeyes, ny strip, tbones etc.)

 

I definitely wouldn't do a filet in a sous vide for a long period of time.  It will fall apart.