Ribeye Steaks In Your Pizza Oven

One of the most popular cuts of meat in the world, ribeye steaks are served in digs that range from Western steakhouses to Michelin stars and are renowned for their unique flavor, tenderness, and versatility. The much-deserved fame of the ribeye steak can be brought into your home by countless recipes, but we can think of no better way to cook this delectable cut than in a wood-fired brick oven perfectly suited to the task.

Here’s a taste of the ribeye’s history as a culinary icon, and a surprisingly easy guide to cooking ribeye that you can add to your growing book of wood-fired oven recipes!

Ribs and eyes

The ribeye cut is, like the name implies, a piece of meat from the rib cage. This can be reflected by the bone-in ribeye cuts, which often have an extra dose of flavor and moisture from bone marrow, but are also often served in an easier-to-cook boneless fashion. The Spruce Eats explains that ribeye is cut from the longissimus dorsi shoulder muscle of the cow that begins at the hip bone, an area that doesn’t get a lot of strenuous exercise and therefore creates a very tender cut of meat. (Sometimes we wonder if we’re turning ourselves into ribeye over the weekend.)

Equally important to the ribeye’s unique flavor and texture is the amount of marbling it accumulates. Ribeyes are cut from where a significant portion of fat is deposited, creating thick veins of marbling that give the final steak a melt-in-your-mouth consistency and impart heavy notes of umato to the meat, a combination that our taste buds cannot get enough of.

Chasing the perfect steak

In order to capture the essence of the ribeye cut, a little TLC is in order. The household name Michelin, the company behind both starred restaurants and tires, offers a few pointers from steakhouse chef Bryan Voltaggio when cooking steak in general that translate quite easily to ribeye.

One of the most important tips offered is seasoning your steak for quite some time before cooking it. In Voltaggio’s case, his restaurant can take up to 24 hours, but a morning sprinkle of salt and pepper should be enough. He also advises using a finely ground salt when first seasoning, and saving flake salt or another grind to season the cut after it’s been cooked.

Voltaggio’s restaurant also uses wood charcoal to fire their steaks on account of its consistent high heat and unique smokiness, making them the perfect answer to the question of “what else can I cook in my pizza oven?”

As far as cooking ribeye in an oven goes, there’s no better person to give you the details than Chicago Brick Oven's, Carmen Parisi. Enjoy the video and recipe, and let us know how your steaks turned out! 

Ingredients

• 4 Rib Eye Steaks
• Sea Salt and Ground Black Pepper

Preparation

1.  Heat your outdoor pizza oven to 750 degrees Fahrenheit. Use your infrared temperature gun to ensure the oven is properly preheated.

2.  Spread embers into the center of oven. Place a grill grate over embers and allow it to preheat for around 15 minutes.

3.  Season steaks to taste with salt and pepper.

4.  Use a hand tool to pull the grill grate towards the front of the oven. Arrange two steaks on the grate and push grate back into the embers.

5.  Sear steaks for two to three minutes on each side, and repeat process with the second pair of steaks.

Enjoy the best steaks you've ever eaten!!!

 Love the oven in the video?  The Chicago Brick Oven 750 Countertop Oven can be found here!

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