Wagyu Steak

Dining date: 8/27/11

A good steak. I can’t think of any other food that is so delicious, yet so simple to cook. In terms of ingredients, salt, pepper and a good piece of meat are all you need. That’s pretty much all I used here.

I stumbled upon a steak that immediately caught my eye – a Snake River Farms wagyu (commonly known as Kobe) New York. Technically it’s not 100% wagyu, rather a cross-breed between Japanese wagyu cattle and American Black Angus (“American wagyu“). As far as I know, 100% wagyu beef from Japan is no longer available in the U.S. and will not be for a long time. A foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in 2010 killed much of the stock and exports are currently banned.

For me, American wagyu is probably my favorite for a steak. Pure wagyu is incredibly fatty – because of this (and the cost), it’s best enjoyed in smaller quantities. American wagyu, since it’s cross-bred, finds a happy medium between the wagyu and Black Angus, resulting in a steak that is very well-marbled and not too fatty in large portions.

Beautiful.

I cook just about all of my steaks in a cast iron pan, searing and finishing in the oven. I get the pan as hot as I can…smoking hot (literally), sear for a couple of minutes on each side, then use a meat thermometer in the oven. Because of the quality of the meat, I was shooting for somewhere in the high range of rare, low range of medium-rare. I think I got just that at around 125 degrees.

Served on top of a bed of garlic-sauteed spinach. Execution-wise, I thought it was spot on. I achieved a nice crusty sear, and finishing in the oven helped me get the uniformly pink meat. As expected, it was extremely tender, juicy and flavorful. Was it the best steak I’ve ever cooked? Hard to say. It’s definitely between this one and the dry-aged, bone-in ribeye from McCall’s that I made last year. I thought that one had a beefier flavor (no doubt aided by the dry aging process), but I can’t really compare a ribeye and New York strip side-by side. I would just conclude that this was a delicious steak, and I was pretty proud of it.