Ribeye with Fried Onions and Soy Au Jus
steak, tequila, fried onions with a soy au jus
Two steaks, one plate, and a bowl of something dark and salty with onions in it. That is the entire meal and there is nothing else on the table but a bottle.
The jus is the reason to make this. Soy sauce in a beef jus is not an Asian flourish — it is glutamate, the same thing that is in aged beef and parmesan and anchovy, and it makes stock taste like it simmered for a day when it simmered for ten minutes.
Fry the onions properly first. Twenty-five minutes, not five. They go into the jus and they carry it.
- Feeds
- 2
- Hands-on
- 40 minutes
- Onions
- 25 minutes, slow
- Steak
- 8 minutes
What you need
The steaks
- 2 boneless ribeyes, about 1 1/2 inches thick
- Coarse kosher salt, an hour ahead
- 2 tbsp coarse cracked black pepper, heavy
- 1 tbsp beef tallow
The fried onions
- 3 large yellow onions, sliced thin
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp neutral oil
- 1/2 tsp salt
The soy au jus
- 2 cups beef stock
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 4 cloves garlic, smashed
- 1 tsp coarse black pepper
- 2 tbsp cold butter
How it goes
1 — Salt the steaks an hour ahead
On a rack on the counter. An hour is enough for the salt to go in and the surface to dry; the fridge overnight is better if you have the foresight.
2 — Fry the onions slowly, 25 minutes
Butter and oil, onions, salt, medium-low heat. Stirred every few minutes. They go from white to limp to gold to properly brown. Rushing this on high heat gives you burnt edges and raw middles.
3 — Build the jus on the onions' pan
Onions out, stock and soy and Worcestershire into the same pan with the garlic and pepper, scraped, and reduced by about a third. Strain out the garlic, put the onions back in.
4 — Pepper the steaks heavily, right before the pan
A lot of coarse pepper, pressed on. Look at the picture — that crust is as much pepper as it is beef.
5 — Cast iron, high, three minutes a side
Tallow in a smoking pan, steaks in, three minutes without touching them, flip, two to three more. Fat edge held down for thirty seconds. Pull at 128°F.
6 — Rest them ON the plate, in the juice
Not on a rack. Straight onto the serving plate so everything that runs out stays under them and gets eaten.
pro tip — Ten minutes of rest on a thick steak. The pool of juice on that plate is the proof it worked, not evidence that it failed.
7 — Butter into the jus, onions back, serve in a bowl
Cold butter whisked into the hot jus off the heat so it goes glossy. Into a bowl beside the plate, onions and all, hot enough to steam.
Steak, tequila, onions. Nothing else needs to be on the table. LFG.