Wagyu Chilean Beef Whole Ribeye | ±3.2kg

Chilean Wagyu Whole Ribeye - Steaks or Rolled Roast

±3.2kg, delivered chilled. Serves 10 to 12.

1. Straight from the fridge
Your ribeye arrives chilled, not frozen. Keep it in its unopened vacuum pack at 0-4°C and use it by the date on the label. If you have frozen it yourself, thaw it in the fridge in its pack, allowing 28 to 30 hours.

2. Look at the muscle structure
A whole ribeye is not one muscle. The round eye runs through the middle, and the crescent wrapped around it, separated by a seam of fat, is the spinalis or cap. It is the best eating on the whole animal. Whichever route you take, keep the cap attached.

3. Decide how to break it down
A piece this size gives around twelve steaks at 250g, or two roasting joints, or one of each. Cut what you want now and wrap and freeze the rest, using it within 12 months.

Method A - Steaks (around twelve at 250g, 3cm thick)

4. Cut across the ribeye at 3cm. Temper 40 minutes, pat dry and salt generously.

5. Stand each steak on its fat edge in a hot dry pan until bronzed, then lay it flat and cook it in the rendered fat. 2½ to 3 minutes a side. Expect smoke.

6. Pull at 52°C. Rest 6 to 8 minutes. Cut the cap away from the eye, then slice both parts across their own grain at 1cm.

Method B - Rolled roast (reverse sear, boneless rib of beef)

4. Tie the joint at 4cm intervals, keeping the cap wrapped around the eye. Salt all over and leave it uncovered on a rack in the fridge overnight if you can.

5. Out of the fridge one hour before cooking. Oven at 110°C on a rack over a tray, until the centre reaches 48°C. Allow roughly 35 to 40 minutes per kilo, and go by the probe.

6. Rest 15 minutes, then finish at 240°C for 10 minutes until the fat is crisp. Pull at 52°C.

7. Rest 20 minutes. Remove the string and carve at 1½ cm, so each slice carries both the eye and a piece of the cap.

Keep the trimmed fat. Render it down slowly in a low oven and keep it in a jar. Wagyu dripping makes the best roast potatoes you will ever cook.

If fresh
Keep refrigerated at 0-4°C in its unopened vacuum pack and use by the date on the label. You can freeze it unopened at any point up to that date - at -18°C or below it will keep well for up to 12 months.

If frozen
Keep frozen at -18°C until needed. Use by the date on the pack.
Defrost in the fridge, in its packaging, allow 28-30 hours. Never defrost at room temperature or in a microwave.
Once opened or defrosted, keep refrigerated at 0-4°C and use within 24 hours. Do not refreeze once thawed.
A faint metallic smell on first opening the pack is normal for vacuum-packed beef and will disperse within a few minutes in open air.