Fat Kid Basics, Session #1: Drunken Rib-Eye

From time-to-time, for those interested, I’ll provide step-by-step tutorials on how to cook and eat like a true Fat Kid. If you’re looking for ways to shrink that waistline via fresh ideas on portion control, healthy meal alternatives, or some form of vegetarian horse shit, I apologize. This site is not for you. Us Fat Kids prefer food that tastes good, and taking that into consideration, we employ various methods of flavor enhancement that certainly won’t help lower your cholesterol.

We’re not trying to cause heart attacks here, but we’re also not that worried about it.

So if you’re ever cooking for friends, family, or nervously attempting to impress that cute Georgetown nursing student you just met with your Uncle Ralph’s 30-minute Manwich casserole, take some advice from me. My calorie laden culinary adventures generally result in smiley-faced-belt-loosening food comas. In other words, if you follow my directions, your food will taste really fucking good.

So let’s get fat.

I’m going to do a drunken rib-eye (shocker). Keeping with the recent theme of my excessive and kind-of-weird love for Celebration Ale, I’m going to marinate a steak using that exact beer, because...that just sounds like a great idea. Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 bone-in rib-eye steak
• canola oil
• kosher salt
• pepper
• butter (for basting)
• Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale (for marinating...and drinking)
• garlic

Rib-eyes contain copious amounts of marbled fatty goodness, so obviously it’s my go-to. Place it in a small baking dish with a couple of smashed garlic cloves and pour 1 beer over it. This was not easy for me to do, but I kept the end product in mind. 

What an asshole. Showing off under his frothy beer blanket as he prepares for a 4 hour booze nap. Naturally I’m beyond jealous.

Place it in the fridge, covered with plastic. I would actually recommend leaving it in for at least 12 hours, but more about that later. I left it in for 4, because....well I was hungry.

After you pull the steak out of the fridge, you’re going to need to let it come to room temperature, while also getting some of the excess moisture out so you can achieve a big, crusty sear on this bad boy. Set the steak on a plate and let it sit, for around 30 minutes, while occasionally patting it with paper towel to dry it off a bit. I generally just lightly wrap the steak with paper towel, as it will slowly pull that moisture out.

While the steak is coming to room temp, drink a few beers.

Another thing you could do as the steak warms up is pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees. To cook the steak, I use a cast iron skillet because IT’S A FUCKING MONSTER. If you’re searing meat, I can’t think of using anything else. If you don’t own one, you need to use an all-clad pan. Non-stick pans won’t cut it.

Place the skillet in the oven as it’s pre-heating. This obviously aids in the process of ensuring that your pan is smoking hot. When the oven is pre-heated and your steak is at room temp, it’s time to get this party started. 

Generously season each side of the steak with salt and pepper. Put an oven mitt on (because the pan is hot as shit...duh) and place the pan on the burner, setting it to high. Add some oil to the pan (about 1 tbs.) and coat the bottom of the pan. You’ll know the pan is hot enough when it starts shooting smoke everywhere. Turn on your overhead fan, because your smoke alarm is most-likely going to go off.

If you’ve followed my directions and had a few beers at this point, the high-pitched shrill of the smoke alarm shouldn’t really bother you.

Now that the pan is hot enough, place the steak in the pan, leaving it put for 2 minutes. Don’t touch it. Just let it sit there and get happy. After two minutes, you can flip it and it should look like this.




Once again, let it sit for 2 minutes. In the last 30 seconds or so, add the butter to the area of the pan that’s closest to you (2 tbs. should work). As soon as you put the butter in there, tilt the pan towards you and start spooning the butter, as it instantly melts, all over the steak. Butter burns really quickly, so you need keep it moving around pretty fast so that it doesn’t burn, which would impart a bitter flavor to your new best friend.

Baste that shit like a fucking food ninja.

Stop drooling and place the entire pan in the oven. Your preference for rareness determines how long you keep the steak in the oven. I like mine medium rare, so I keep it in there no longer than 4 minutes. If you like it rare, you skip the oven step altogether.

Pull the pan out of the oven and place the steak on a clean plate, as it needs to rest for about 3-5 minutes. If you cut into it right away, all the juices are going to run out and you’ll look like a fucking clown. The juices need to re-distribute back into the meat. Be patient.

Side dishes for a steak like this are an afterthought, but that’s just me. Potatoes would have been obvious, but they fill me up too much. I just threw together a salad, with baby romaine, tossed in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, pine nuts, topped off with some aged white cheddar that I paid way too much money for.

Once the steak has rested, you’ve got food-porn. 

Your steak knife will glide through this thing like a spoon through jell-o. There’s a rich, buttery crust on the outside announcing itself with a subtle crunch, answered by a juicy inside that pours into your mouth with each individual chewing motion. Every once in a while, your fork finds a small pocket of charred fat, practically melting into the blood-red meat, that provides a pleasant unhealthy surprise, further complimenting the slightly guilty perfection being experienced. I only use a knife and fork because it’s what I’m supposed to do, otherwise I’d just pick it up by the bone and go at it like a damn caveman, or maybe tilt my head to one side, fold it up like a slice of NY pizza and eat it standing up.

I only wish that I left it in the marinade for a few more hours. I don’t think that 4 hours is enough time for the beer to really impart its flavors upon the meat, which is why I recommended leaving it in the fridge for at least 12 hours. There were hints of the beer’s flavor throughout, however it could have used a bit more. Just my opinion. However, the whole marinading process with this particular cut of meat is completely optional. The marinade simply serves as a bonus, as a bone-in rib-eye contains loads of flavor anyways.

One can easily achieve rib-eye steak zen with three simple things:

• salt
• pepper
• butter

It’s not like I’m writing the whole beer marinade thing off though. I’ll probably try it again next weekend. Second attempts serve as an excuse to buy more Celebration Ale. Anyways, give this a shot and let me know about your results.

- Keep it Fat people.