This ain’t no Longhorn and there’s no sauce allowed. This is Natural Prime beef, center cut filet. This is one of those goodies found inside my recent Lobels purchase.When you look at the texture of that cut, you know that is a tender piece of meat. One of the things that I like about Lobels is that they dry-age their filets.

For this particular treat, I had a ribeye for me and the filet for my wife. We acompanied the steaks with baked potato topped with bacon (pork fat rules!) and the usual suspects, along with sauteed mushrooms and onions.

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I took the steaks out 1 hour or so before I was going to cook them and seasoned them with the smoked salt and pepper. I know, I know, it has been widely accepted that one would not salt a steak before cooking. The truth is, salting a steat just before cooking is bad because the salt will pull the moisture out of the steak and off into the pan during cooking.

Now, salting and letting the steak rest 60-90 minutes not only allows the meat to come up to temperature, which promotes even cooking, but the salt will draw out moisture within about 15 minutes, but then the moisture is re-absorbed into the meat along with whatever seasonings or what not you’ve put on the surface. And because the proteins are now nice and soft, the cells absorb the salt flavor plus any herbs or spices you may have added to the salt deep inside the meat. So now you have happy meat.

If you’re skeptical about salting your meat ahead of time, don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself. But trust me, you don’t need to understand cell osmosis to get the tenderizing benefits of salt. Simply try this early salting method just once, and you will be amazed at how much better your meat tastes.



Look at the marbling on the ribeye!

So….

We start with pre-heating the on broil, at the highest setting the oven will go. Place the broiler pan into the oven 10 minutes before you plan on cooking.

Now, I would normally be grilling these babies, but today it’s 23 degreess outside and eventhough I am from the north, that’s too dang cold to be outside, ya heard me?

After the pan is hot, spray it liberally with non-stick spray, does anyone use anything other than Pam? Is there anything else? Anyways…

Place the steaks onto the hot pan, back into the oven 6 inches from the heat source and allow the over door to remain slightly open. This keeps the heat source at a consistent temperature and it will not shut off when it thinks that the oven is hot enough.



The broiling time depends on the thickness of the steaks and I found to get the correct state of doneness takes practice. These steaks were about 1 1/2 inches thick, so I broiled them for 6 minutes per side. And as you can see from the cut filet picture at the top of the post, I got the temp right - medium-rare.

While the steaks were cooking, I prepared the mushrooms and onions. They are simply sliced mushrooms, sliced onions, tbsp butter, 2 tsp minced garlic, in a saute pan.



Once the onions become translucent I added a tablespoon of Marsala wine to the vegetables. and let them cook down. This all takes about 8-10 minutes.



Remove the steaks when done, tent with foil, and let sit for 5 minutes.



The filet is at the top of the post, but here is a shot of my ribeye, smothered and ready for me.

Oh and I have to post the gratuitous bacon shot!