- Are you a ribeye lover like me?
Well today, I'm gonna take a full bone-in rib roast
and show you how to break it out into multiple cuts.
(upbeat country music)
So this may seem a little complicated at first
to break this down,
but I'll walk you through an easy way to do it
and separate out all these different cuts
that can really please a variety of people.
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Let's start with some equipment.
First, you'll need a large sturdy cutting board.
I like to use two different knives.
I have a larger knife,
which makes it easier to cut steaks.
And then I have a boning knife,
which is nice for boning out in this case ribs,
or any intricate cuts you'll need.
So first step, we'll remove the rib bones.
For this, I like to start from the top
and use just the tip of my knife
to separate those bones from the meat.
So I just make a small incision.
And while gently pressing towards the bones,
I just kinda follow those ribs,
while peeling the meat away from it.
Just trying to separate,
you wanna feel the tip your knife hit that bone
so you know you're not cutting too far into the muscle.
So this is a bone-in rib roast,
commonly called a prime rib.
So now that I've kinda worked these back ribs away
you can see the separation there.
I'll just get a little further down,
then cut these completely off.
So now, we have em fairly separated.
What I'll do is I'll go in
through these little button bones here,
and kinda carve around them.
To get as much meat to stay on the rib roast as possible.
All right, so there we have some back ribs.
So these back ribs are great for smoking
but they could also take direct heat over the grill.
So next thing we'll be looking to do,
is separate the spinalis.
So a lot of people call this the ribeye cap.
And this is one of my favorite parts.
You can see the spinalis right through here.
There is another smaller muscle in here
called the complexus,
which will also take out,
but the focus on this first cut
will be removing this spinalis and peeling it out.
So, what I like to do to start is again,
there's a little bit of a separation.
A lot of times you'll see the separation in the fat.
And I'll just kinda stick my finger in there
and start to peel.
That I find where that natural separation is,
and then pull this fat
to expose a little more of that spinalis muscle.
So, right there.
You can see the whole spinalis.
Makes it a little easier to cut,
once you find that fat
and pull that back.
And then, if you have to trim a little excess fat,
so you get a better view,
it's always a smart thing to do.
So, there we go.
And you can just start peeling.
I really like to use my hands a lot
because I think that it helps prevent over-cutting
and cutting into the muscle
that you're trying to preserve.
This point, you're really separating out the spinalis.
Almost there.
Seeing a lot of it,
was just me pulling with my hands.
So now, got the spinalis here.
Got this little muscle the complexus,
you don't wanna cut into that too much.
So, separate that.
Spread your knife right along that rib filet, okay.
So now we've separated the spinalis
from the rib filet
and that little complexus muscle.
So, this is commonly referred to as the ribeye cap
or the spinalis.
This is a great tender delicious piece of meat,
but a lot of times people are turned off
because maybe there's little bit of fat in between,
a little bit silver skin here.
So, what we'll do is we'll trim this up nice and tight,
and you'll have a totally different eating experience
than you're used to.
So get that,
and just kinda come and,
put a little tension on that
and just pull,
to get all that silver skin off.
And what I like to do is,
the read through there a little bit
with your knife ever so slightly tilted up
to help put a little tension on that.
All right, through that silver skin.
So this is a little extra meat off the side here.
Pull that off.
And a lot of this stuff could be,
leaned out, cut up or stir-fry.
Cause this is still good meat.
So now you got this nice piece of spinalis.
Turn it over,
do a little trim on this side.
This will have resemble kind of like a flank steak,
but it has such a nice tender marble texture.
So now I've got this pretty nice and cleaned up.
I don't wanna take too much away
because there's a lot of good meat there,
so I cleaned off a lot of the silver skin
anything that would be unpleasurable,
but realistically you've got
just this beautiful piece of spinalis.
The marbling is fantastic, super tender.
The green runs all in this direction
so it's really easy to work with.
You could take it and roll it up
like a roulade stuff it something like that.
You could set cut it, skewer it for sautés,
or just grill it whole,
but what I'll do is I'll take it,
and I'll cut it in half.
First of all, look at that marbling,
is beautiful.
And then, you can take these
get yourself two different meals here
because this is something you wanna savor.
It's really the prize piece of this ribeye.
So we'll set that aside
and keep trimming this guy down.
So here, is this kernel of fat,
which typically for people who don't like ribeyes
or say they don't like ribeyes,
this is what they don't like.
It's just this one piece of fat
that kinda runs right
between the spinalis and the rib filet.
So by removing this
and removing the spinalis,
you'll be able to please everybody
who thinks they don't like ribeyes
cause they actually do.
So here, is this little complexus muscle.
So take my knife.
Get in there get that fat out a little bit.
Some more.
Just peel that right out.
Cut the fat.
Cut that little bit of connective, right there.
Well, I can trim this up.
Just like a tiny beef tenderloin.
So now, if you're looking for recipes
under something to do with this,
don't bother you're not gonna find em.
This is rarely seen anywhere.
This is something that I would just suggest,
just throw some salt and pepper on there
grill it up and heat it immediately
because you're not gonna know what to do with it later
you'll forget about it,
you'll freeze it whatever.
Just eat it as soon as you get it.
Set that aside
and start working on the rib filet.
So here was the chuck end.
And this, is down to the strip end.
So, it will get quite a bit wider
as you move down that rib filet.
What I like to start with, is the tail.
So this is that tail piece
just kinda separating that,
find that line.
Again, I'm just pushing with my fingers
finding the line, the natural separations.
Okay, now I'll go in with my knife.
I do not wanna over-cut this piece.
So here, there's some good meat in that tail
that you can just take right out
and again would make a great stir-fry
or even kebab meat if you trim it down nicely.
So, I do not wanna waste that
because this is a nice cut here.
So now, we're getting down
to that rib filet as we like to call it
or the eye of the ribeye.
So, this one you can kinda trim to your liking.
For people who don't want a little bit of fat that's fine
you can trim some of this off,
or you can leave it on.
Kinda like a strip steak
where it has a layer of fat kinda along that backside.
It really doesn't bother me at all.
If it does bother people, you can trim it off.
So, this point though,
personally, I'll just start cutting steaks.
And then, if I see a little bit of fat that I don't want,
that's where I'll trim it.
So, for all these ribeye filets,
this is a great steak
throw in your grill cook medium-rare.
So I know I'm gonna make a lotta enemies out there,
but spinalis is really good cooked to medium.
You may not believe me,
you may think that everything
has to be rare-medium-rare,
but this muscle can handle a little extra heat,
and it becomes a little bit more tender
when you cook it to medium,
and it's still gonna be delicious.
So you don't have to worry about that.
So here you can see there
we're starting to get closer to the strip side.
Muscles starting to get a little bit wider,
and less round.
You can kinda see right in there
that all this is starting
to look like a New York strip on-sound.
So if you want, beautiful guaranteed marbling.
Look for the Certified Angus Beef logo.
All right, so there we have the rib filets.
The great thing about this is
for the people who are non-ribeye lovers,
I think you can convert them
by giving them a rib filet.
It's all the eating experience
you want out of one of those steaks,
but it has so much more robust flavor.
So breaking down a ribeye,
you get all these great cuts.
You have the rib filet.
The back ribs, the spinalis, the complexus,
and you get some great beef trim
that you can use for whatever you like.
You don't have to be a meat nerd to break down a ribeye,
but if you are, comment below.
Thanks for watching
and I hope you learned something new.
We'll see you again next time in the Test Kitchen.
(upbeat country music)