As much as I love low and slow cooking on the BBQ, my favourite meal will always be a good cut of steak grilled to medium rare.  I like it with nothing other than salt and fresh-cracked pepper on it, to let the flavour of the beef shine through.  No steak sauce either – that’s a last resort for salvaging an overcooked crappy steak.  The last time I was at VG Meats, I was looking through their well-stocked butcher case, and I was immediately drawn to the row of Tomahawk Ribeye steaks.  They were giant, and the rib bone reminded me of something out of the Flintstones. The steak I ended up with was really nice – just over 2 pounds, and about 2 inches thick.  For a steak this big, I decided to do a reverse sear.  This is when you cook the steak at a low temperature until it’s about 15-20 degrees below where you want it to finish, then sear it over high heat to finish. I setup my grill for indirect heat, with one of the burners on about medium, which kept the temperature at around 250f-275f.  I then put some salt on both sides of the steak, and put it on the unheated side of the grill with a probe in it to track the temperature.  I turned it about every 10 minutes, and it took about 75 minutes for it to come up to 115f.

At that point, I took the steak of the grill, and cranked the heat to max.  I used some paper towel to dry off both sides of the steak to help it sear.  I then brushed it with some melted clarified butter, and put it back on the grill to sear.  I left it on for a couple of minutes and then turned it to get some nice grill marks, then brushed the top with more clarified butter and flipped it over.  After flipping I brushed it with a little more clarified butter, then cracked some black pepper on top of it.  Putting it on a this point lets the fat take the black pepper flavour into the steak, but doesn’t let it burn at all.

I took the steak off when it hit about 130f and let it rest for a few minutes, then sliced it up.

It turned out great – it was a nice even medium rare from end to end, with a minimal band of grey around the edges.

I plated it up with some grilled asparagus and onions – and it was delicious!  Next time I’m going to do the first part of the cook on my smoker with some hickory or mesquite. For some more detailed information about the reverse sear method, checkout the Reverse Sear page on Amazingribs.com