Posted by johngl
My good friend and fellow wine and food lover, BigDMcC, was coming over to join in on the second annual July 4 Paella Fest (stay tuned for tomorrow’s post) and, since we were going to have a big day of cooking ahead of us, I thought it best we start the day with a hearty breakfast of bone-in, grilled dry-aged ribeye, farm fresh eggs cooked in duck fat, and some duck bacon. Oh, and an English muffin. Sorry, I didn’t have any Texas Toast available.
Not a bad way to start the day.
You must begin this breakfast several days in advance by securing your bone-in ribeye! I’ve done a lot of posts on the dry-aging of ribeyes, so I am not going to go through the whole process here, but there are a few rules you must follow.
The fridge must be cold, set at about two degrees above freezing
Your meat must be dry — pat it with paper towels
You must apply a sprinkling of salt to your meat
You must allow for air circulation around the meat
It is really pretty simple and people have been doing this successfully for at least a hundred years. Don’t screw up your steak.
Anyway, fire up your grill and make sure it gets nice and hot.
Starting with steaks warmed up to no lower than 60°, go in two minute intervals: place steak on grill, wait two minutes. Rotate steak 90° (that’s a quarter turn for you mathematically impaired readers), wait two minutes. Flip steak. Wait two minutes. Rotate a quarter turn. Wait two minutes. Pull steak and allow to rest for at least 5-10 minutes.
I use a charcoal fired Weber Kettle with a heavy steel grate so, during every two minute interval, I put the lid back on, making sure that the vent holes are wide open. This gets things nice and smoky and adds a hint of flavor to the steak.
A mere eight minutes later…
the steak is ready to rest.
Now, for the eggs. I said they were cooked in duck fat. Yes, they were, but not everyone has duck fat on hand. Too bad for them. Use butter (or properly rendered lard or bacon fat!) if you don’t have duck fat around. In a pinch, you can use vegetable oil, but don’t tell anyone.
I just put a little salt and pepper on the eggs. That’s it. If you can’t cook an egg yet, go buy yourself a dozen and take a few lessons.
Then there is that duck “bacon” I mentioned…
That’s the duck bacon at the top left of the picture. It’s just crispy-fried duck skin with a little salt sprinkled on it. It’s magnificent! Oh, and note the perfect medium rare on that steak!
This breakfast set the stage for a great day and what better way to kick off a Fourth of July in Austin, TX?
