If You're Going to Cook Dry-Aged Wagyu, Use This Recipe (2024)
If you’re gonna shell out for dry-aged wagyu, you want to make sure you’re doing it up right. Luckily, Dustin Valette, formerly of Bouchon, Hokus and Aqua, has all the tricks you need to serve up a steak as wow-worthy as his Michelin-starred résumé.
At the Matheson in Healdsburg, Valette takes full advantage of local bounty in crafting a menu of dishes that show his commitment and connection to Sonoma County, but also to the pursuit of only the best in terms of quality — a mission that’s palpable in his recipe for black pepper-crusted steak.
He begins with only the best beef: a 21-day dry-aged wagyu New York strip, which he sources from Snake River Farms. Their Gold Label Wagyu, he says, boasts particularly phenomenal marbling, leading to an incredibly rich flavor and unparalleled tenderness.
If you can’t get your hands on this particular steak, Valette says, just “trust your butcher, and ask for the best.”
You’ll also need to trust your butcher in seeking out marrow bones, which are roasted with Padrón peppers and dry-farmed marble potatoes, a tiny tater packed with flavor. While Valette admits the bones are not the easiest thing to come by, the result is worth it: They make the most incredibly rich, beefy accompaniment to the steak.
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The last element of the dish does double-duty as a side and a sauce: a wild mushroom fondue starring, well, whatever mushrooms he can find.
“Depends on what is seasonal,” he says, “though porcini is the king in my mind.”
He pan-sears the shrooms until golden brown before cooking them down with butter and cabernet sauvignon until tender and juicy.
“The tannins in the cabernet sauvignon match the caramelization of the steak and the richness of the bone marrow perfectly,” he explains.
With the sides prepared, it’s time to turn your attention to the beef, which he coats in crushed pepper and sears in cast iron for a dark, thick crust. The steak is finished with butter, rested for just five minutes, and plated with a touch of fleur de sel over the top. All that’s left is to pour yourself a glass of cabernet and dig in.
Peppercorn Crusted New York Steak
Servings: 4
Ingredients
4 (12-ounce) prime New York steaks (dry-aged wagyu is the best!)
2 pounds wild mushrooms
6 ounces cabernet sauvignon
4 (8-inch-long) marrow bones, halved lengthwise by your butcher
½ pound dry-farmed marble potatoes
½ pound padron peppers
Unsalted butter
2 teaspoons cracked black pepper, or to taste
Directions
Remove the steak from the fridge. Season with kosher salt and crushed black pepper, and allow to rest about 30 minutes at room temperature.
Meanwhile, make the mushroom fondue. Clean all the mushrooms using a brush and remove any form of dirt.Finish by lightly rinsing in warm water. Cut the mushrooms into medium-size chunks, discarding the gills. In a large pan, sear the mushrooms until golden brown, add 2 ounces of butter and the red wine,and cook until they become creamy. Readjust the seasoning and reserve hot.
Cut the potatoes in half, and toss with the Padróns in olive oil and sea salt. Roast in an oven at 400 degrees until the potatoes are half cooked, about 6 minutes. Add the seasoned bone marrow and finish roasting. The bone marrow is finished when it’s golden brown and the marrow is hot throughout.
In a large cast iron or thick bottom pan, sear the steak over high heat. Leave in the pan long enough for the steak to take on a dark color and thick crust — add 3 ounces of butter and cook to the desired temperature. Remove and allow to rest for 5 minutes.
Place the wild mushroom fondue on the side of the plate, and place the potato and padron pepper hash to the side. Put the steak on the fondue and then the bone marrow on the side. Finish with fleur de sel or sea salt.
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Dry aging Wagyu involves storing the meat just above freezing temperatures for weeks. This process lets enzymes slowly break down the collagen within muscle fibers and enhance the meat's tenderness. At this time, the moisture within the beef begins to evaporate.
Sear your Wagyu in a pre-heated pan for 1.5-2 minutes on each surface, before moving to a moderate heat to finish cooking. If you're cooking steak, this means turning down the heat. If you're roasting, this means put the Wagyu in the oven.
To bring out the flavor of the cut, use plenty of salt across the roast. Then, put the roast into the oven for about 20 minutes.Next, turn the oven down to around 200 degrees.Keep the beef in the oven at this temperature for about 2 hours for a medium-rare result.
Take the tenderloin out of the refrigerator, pat it dry and rub it gently all over with salt and pepper. Let rest for 30 minutes before cooking. Heat your oven to 425 degrees. It will take less than an hour to roast your meat to Medium Rare; start checking temperature in the center of the meat at the 30 minute mark.
All you need to dry-age at home is your refrigerator, a wire rack, and a sheet pan. Refrigerators have an air circulation system to ensure freshness. By aging meat on an elevated wire rack, uncovered and near your refrigerator's fan, air will circulate all around the meat, keeping it dry and cool.
But when wagyu is dry aged, its color becomes a lot lighter compared to the non-dry aged wagyu steaks. Then once they are cooked to the very same temperature, the steaks can look drastically different due to the dry aged steak having lost a lot of its pink hue and tends to look a bit over cooked.
Cooking. Once your steak is room temperature and the oven hits 275, it's time to start slow cooking your steak. Place the wire rack on a sheet pan and add your steak. Though it's not necessary if you don't have one, the wire rack helps air evenly circulate around the steak rather than cooking the side touching the pan.
Thin, well-marbled Wagyu steak from Japan may need only two minutes per side, and once the sear is complete, the steak will be cooked. Because of the intramuscular fat, the interior will stay tender. Wagyu should be cooked to medium, to allow the marbled fat to render slightly.
To achieve this, he recommends using a cast-iron skillet for the best sear, and cooking the steak over high heat to get a crispy crust and a tender, juicy interior. Ramsay's method involves seasoning the steak with only salt and pepper, which he believes is enough to enhance the natural flavors of the meat.
Marbling refers to the visible layers of intramuscular fat. This is fat that is found in the muscle. Due to the unique genetics of the cows and the Wagyu cultivation process, the meat contains a higher percentage of fatty acids than ordinary beef, giving it a higher marbling score.
Remember, flank steak is a relatively thin cut of meat, so it will cook quickly. To create a delicious seared crust, begin by placing your flank steak in the center of the grill and cook for 1-2 minutes per side. Then flip and continue cooking for another 2-3 minutes per side.
Preheat a cast-iron skillet with oil over medium-high heat. Place steaks in the skillet, cooking for 2-3 minutes until the bottom side becomes golden brown. Flip each steak to the other side, cooking for another 2-3 minutes. Check the internal temperature with a digital meat thermometer.
here's the bottom line: in terms of tenderness, aging is most effective between 14 – 28 days. For a taste: 30-90 days of dry aging will bring out some incredible characteristics in your beef, and intensify the flavour.
Cows in Japan must meet DNA standards set by the Japanese government to be labeled as Wagyu. Japanese Wagyu beef cattle are raised in VIP conditions and under very specific guidelines. For instance, the cows must be fed on a strict diet of high-quality feed — barley, rice bran, wheat bran, etc. — for at least 600 days.
In essence, dry aging is when you take a piece of meat and put it into a controlled open-air environment to go through a flavour transformation. By exposing the meat to air, moisture is pulled out and the natural enzymes in the beef break the muscles down slowly over time, making it more tender.
Its genetic origins can be traced back 35,000 years. Initially, the Wagyu was used as a draft animal for agricultural work and bred for physical stamina. Today's Wagyu cattle are the product of crossing this native Japanese breed with a majority of imported black breeds from Great Britain, Korea, and Europe.
Introduction: My name is Mrs. Angelic Larkin, I am a cute, charming, funny, determined, inexpensive, joyous, cheerful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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