In Heston Blumenthal's book In Search Of Perfection, the chapter on rib steaks calls for making a blue cheese infused butter to top the finished steak to add the aroma of aged meat. This idea has stuck with me ever since the book was published. I even remember emailing Chris Young about perhaps putting blue cheese into the low oven during the cooking of the steak, an idea they had not explored. Well, we never got around to putting blue cheese into the oven or even making the aromatic butter.
Sometimes it takes time for an inspiration to reach fruition. What we finally did was wrap a portion of the center section of a rib eye with cheese cloth and then smeared the outside with gorgonzola dolce. Then we wrapped the entire thing in plastic wrap, vacuum sealed it, and let it cure in the fridge for two days. When we opened it up and discarded the blue cheese coated cloth, the aroma of the steak was incredible and truly reminiscent of aged meat. We seasoned the meat with salt, cooked it in a CVap drawer for 2 hours at 52.5°C and then finished it on the grill. The result was some incredibly delicious meat and we are excited to apply this approach to other cuts of beef and varieties of meat.
(Unfortunately there are no pictures of the cooked meat because we ate it all.)
Years Past:
