Go to the Recipe: Steak From the Future: The Modernist Strategy to Dry Age Beef
Do you guys see any issue with pre-searing before marinating with the koji + blue cheese mixture?
I tried this and they turned out great. Highly recommend for grilled flank steaks. I cooked up two, and was more thorough about scraping off the extra marinade off one than the other. I thought that if there was a difference, it was slightly in favor of leaving the marinade on. Just dab it dry but don't, like, rinse it off or anything.
How well would this work with flank steak? Given their thinness, I'm considering grilling them directly, rather than going through a sous vide step. I would scrape off the marinade and pat them dry, of course.
Quick question on the Worcestershire and Molasses marinade: is the mixture 50:50? Not looking for a dry aged vibe here, but I've loved adding W sauce to steaks and beef for as long as I can remember, I want to try this W&M next time I cook a steak or a burger.
I tried this last night and was NOT impressed at all
Any cut your heart desires.
Room temp will not matter. Take the plunge right from the fridge.
I love the taste but I don’t like the texture of a NY Strip
Will this work on beef tenderloin?
Getting ready I made the smear and have coated the NY Strips in the fridge
For the 24 hour wait - I will keep you posted. But tomorrow you just plunge into the water no room temperature?/
sorry... 138 degree sous vide
Just did this last night with Kurobata pork chops. 48 hours fridge marinate. 138 degree sous vide for 2.5 hours. You're right, the Maillard is faster after this so you have to be careful with the final sear. Onion, Apple, Bacon Riesling ragout over the top. Really tasted aged. It's a great trick, very subtle despite the loud ingredients. I really have no more need to go to a steakhouse, they're better at home.
This notion of home dry ageing is interesting. That said, pretty much all the steaks I buy in Irish supermarkets are 'matured' for at least 21days but 30days can be common enough. Right, stand by your beds for this one. ALDI, the discount chain probably have some of the best steaks out there. Their sirloin, strip-lion, fillet and rib-rye are all superb.
Excellent notes, thank you. What is your suggestion for a 24 hour process?
I have aged choice "prime rib roast"...fat cap intact to preserve the oh so delicate and precious spinalis or rib cap. I did it for 45 days and there was no crap on the outside other than dried up beef looking stuff...no fungus no bacterial growth, Cooked it sous vide every time, then seared as per you guys and everyone else at this point in history. The result: incredibly concentrated beef with little if any "funk". This weekend I compared your recipe to a 28 day aged steak from Whole Market (on sale + Prime discount I assure you.) and I much preferred the Whole market steak, as the ChefSteps one was waaaay too "funky" even with all the ingredients you specified. I think it was the Roquefort. By the way, I've also dined out on 45 day aged beef, so I'm no virgin.
Amazing....this old retired Marine Corps Pilot can't wait to try this!!!
But how can this be considered dry aging when the ingredients are wet where I work we dry aged ribeye's and striploins all the time this may give you some of the funky notes of dry aged beef from the blue cheese but to me this Is wet aging
I made this tonight and it was very good. Cool technique! One lesson learned is to try to get all the blue cheese off the steak before searing for more even browning. Otherwise very good beef.
Any fish sauce that you like works out as a sub.
Hello theres any suggestions for replacement for haku iwashi ?or can i just use common fish sauce ?thx.
Thanks !
I really appreciate the "trials" sections that you guys add, they are super useful.
Ok thanks. Seems like perhaps a good tidbit of info to include in the recipe info.
That is correct, we season lightly before searing or grilling. This is because the ingredients in the dry age have a good amount of salt so it brines the steak as it "ages" too.
Usually with steaks, I do an overnight dry brine with Kosher Salt in the refrigerator, then I add some black pepper, and Sous Vide, then sear.
With this "Rapid Dry Aged Steaks" method, I see no inclusion of Salt or Pepper.... is that correct? Will I not be salting this steak, or doing the overnight Dry-Brine before doing the rapid aging method?
Just wanted to clarify, before I try it out.
I love it!!
I'm new to ChefSteps....
Anybody love this recipe?
From the comments thus far, it seems kinda eh?
Earlier today, I ordered the specific ingredients off of Amazon, before reading the comments.... .
I’m a fan! I left it in the fridge for 48 hours, and after cooking it had a very Cheez-it flavor, which my GF and I really enjoyed. Steak cooking tip: if you have a Breville oven, throw your steak in on super convection at 130 for 15 min before searing. You’ll get the best crust ever!
Due to circumstances I left my steaks for 48h in the marinade. I then again was pressed for time, so I skipped the sousvide-step and gave ‘em a brutal sear on the BGE. I had one control-steak to check and holy f*... this recipe is absolute killer. It blew my mind.
It is worth a try, but we did not test anything close to that so I am really not sure what kind of results you will get. I would say try it with a smaller piece first.
Hi guys, just wondering if this technique could be combined with your Smokerless Smoked Brisket recipe somehow?
Hi, so I wouldn't recommend switching out the ground koji rice for the Shio koji, the Shio koji is more of a seasoning with active cultures. The rice will add the cultures but give you none of the seasonings. But it does sound like an interesting experiment.
Kyl & Brandon, Applying this aging with the Design your own wygu chop steak. I think the fish sauce and liquid shio koji is too salty for the salt content already in the chop steaks. Could I substitute ground koji rice for the shio koji and for the fish sauce substitute low sodium versions of Worcestershire Sauce or oyster sauce, soy sauce + anchovy paste?
It will turn out great.
Any thoughts on combining the quick dry aging process (for perhaps 48 hours vs recommended 24 hours, as some people have suggested, to enhance the flavour) with using a blue cheese slurry coated chuck steak done sous vide for 24 hours after the dry age? Would cooking the steak with the blue cheese, shio koi and fish sauce be a problem cooking that long prior to searing?
Sorry Max, looks like our link out went too the wrong product. as far as we know this is the only brand to make this style liquid shio koji. it is available on amazon here. https://www.amazon.com/Gluten-Free-Liquid-Shio-Koji/dp/B0763MPDQR/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2T5GEQTZR101C&dchild=1&keywords=liquid+ship+koji&qid=1603753907&s=grocery&sprefix=liquid+ship+%2Cgrocery%2C206&sr=1-1
I was hyped for this but made today and was disappointed in the results. I cooked three steaks, two this method and one just salt dry brined over night. I thought the two with this method had way less flavor than the salt dry brine and no funkiness at all. No idea why. I also felt like 15g of each of the liquids seemed light but I have never done much with fish sauce before. Maybe 48 hours next time?
I thought it was pretty good. But I'll probably let it sit in the fridge for another day or two. Also the link to the liquid shio koji goes to a different one that you purchased. While it was fine, I feel like it would require different ratios than provided since it's... Chunkier...
Tried it last night (followed recipe exactly as posted). Underwhelming. Tasted like...steak slathered in blue cheese. A milder blue cheese might have yielded better results (as suggested in the very helpful kosher dosher review). I will stick with salt or fish sauce and stop trying to replicate aged steaks. It was a fun science class.
You are unfortunately incorrect on all counts. If you were correct, beef jerky would taste like dry aged beef.
Working in a kitchen is a good place to learn to cook, but it is a terrible place to learn why cooking works the way it does.
The Kosher Dosher blog played around with this and came to some interesting conclusions (24 hr is too short):
https://kosherdosher.blogspot.com/2020/10/review-of-chef-steps-sous-vide-faux-age.html?fbclid=IwAR0HY-zLw3BsrHeijtAOFMvkYuVNvjvJVmHi208OGhBfDetZEeHP4kKPCWE
My wife does NOT like steak. She loved this method and ate well. Thanks.
I don't know about you, but I've gone as long as 90 days. You gotta keep the humidity up when you're dry aging it, because, while you are concentrating it by the moisture loss, you don't want to just dehydrate the meat. If that's all that was going on, you could do a lot faster in a vacuum chamber and some desiccant. There is a certain amount of enzymatic activity, and a controlled rot that you are allowing to take place.
As CS says above:
Enzymes break down proteins, fats, and fat-like molecules (all of which are largely flavorless) into lactic acids, savory amino acids, aromatic fatty acids, and sweet glucose. These products continue to interact and react with each other during the cooking process, forming new molecules that further enrich aroma.
Similar is found in Modernist Cuisine, the Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology, and Food Chemistry 4th edition.
Regardless, while dry aged meat isn't for everyone, some folks are very fond of that funky cheesy flavor that you classify as gross. Me, 90 day aged rib eye is about as close to heaven as it gets, when it comes to beef.
It is. It's primary justification is flavor enhancement via concentration. I used to work in a joint that did it will all their steak cuts and that was the reason. There is some degree of tenderizing s well but it plays second fiddle. It also adds a taste that is euphamized as "funky" or "cheesy" but could better be described as gross.
Yes I can taste 30% concentrations just as anyone else could. That's the point in concentrating..or at least that's the reason Escoffier penned. But do it. Put some meat in the fridge for 40 days, carve of the thick black road kill eschar and then grill it up. I'll bet you don't do it again.
Did you guys try this method with the Create your own wagyu method?
So if your reduce beef stock by 30%, you think you can taste the difference? That's not the main thing going on in dry aged beef.
Hi James, if it is a block it is not the liquid shio koji we describe. There really is only the one producer. But you can use the inoculated rice koji to make your own.
I have located Shoi Koji in a block located in refrigerator at an orential grocery. Can that be used by itself mixed with bleu cheese and add some water to make a paste?
You buy "kits" for dry ageing that consist of a bag with semi-membrane characteristics,. They allow air flow but block most of the moisture that would otherwise be lost in open ageing. The take home message in dry ageing is concentration. As the steak shrinks from moisture loss it concentrates its flavor. Or so goes the story. It also takes on funky cheese notes that many folks will NOT like and it looks horrid when first put on a block. I suppose you can mimic that funk but you're not going to do much concentration that way and lose out on the main act. I remember a bit by Heston Blumenthal on this stuff. He put Stilton ( English blue cheese ) in butter and butter basted the final steak to get that cheesy note. I'm pretty sure that after folks have done all this dry aging and pseudo dry aging they're going to go back to the regular steak.
Did you try Shoyu Koji (soy sauce and koji)?
I am having trouble finding a place that I can buy the Shio Koji sauce. Is there another brand you would recommend or are they all pretty much the same?
