Rib Eye Steaks - Defying Winter Cajun Style

Saturday night, March 15th, a light dusting of snow hit Chicago with wind chills into the single digits.  As you know, I have complained numerous times about this winter.  I'm done with that.  Instead. I decided to defy winter, and stick hot poker in its eye.  During this light dusting and single digit wind chills, I pried open the Big Green Egg for the first time in 2014, and gave it a metaphorical (and literal) pat on the head the way you would a loyal neighborhood dog who you have not seen in some time, and fired it up.  Just the smell of the natural charcoal burning made me feel like spring may not be far around the corner.  Tick tock tick tock, right?  Anyhow...let's talk Rib Eye Steaks.

I went to Paulina just after it opened on Saturday, and said, "I'm grilling steaks tonight, what should I do?".  Without hesitation, the gentleman said "Rib Eyes".  Done.  I have made steaks many times on a gas grill.  But with the Big Green Egg purchase last spring, the volume of steaks I had done to date was not high, and it did not include Rib Eyes.  That said, I know my steakhouse preparations pretty well, and any good Chicagoan knows that when you rattle off your "top 5" steak joints in the city, Morton's on State has to be one of them.  And when you rattle off your favorite cuts there, "Cajun Rib Eye" has to be there.  Done and one.  I used no recipe.  I followed no scripts.  I just did it.

I cracked fresh pepper and kosher salt on each side of the steaks and rubbed it all in.  I inserted the two steaks into a ziploc bag just big enough to house them flat.  I then mixed 4 teaspoons of Penzey's Cajun seasoning with 1/4 cup EVOO and 1/4 cup garlic infused EVOO (I split for diluting purposes).  Once the seasoning was well integrated with the oil, I poured the mixture into the ziploc bag with the steaks and set them on a plate in the fridge.  These marinated for about 8-9 hours, flipping roughly once per hour.  And about an hour before cooking time, I let them sit at room temperature in the ziploc.

Back to the Big Green Egg.  I got that good and hot (although I grew impatient and didn't wait to get it to 600 degrees), and cooked at about 450 degrees.  Cooking temperatures are a matter of preference.  Me myself?  I like cooking extremely hot, charring the outside but keeping cooking times down to maintain a medium rare center.  Because I was incredibly hungry, and I misfired a bit on the coal distribution, I opted to cook at 450.  This required a slightly longer cooking time, and didn't result in the charring on the outside.  That said, delicious is still delicious, and I had zero complaints with the outcome.  Onto the grill they went.  For about 2.5 minutes, then turned them (not flipped) 90 degrees for another 2.5 minutes.  Then I flipped them and did the same.  The turning just gives the steaks that criss-cross char marks.  Anyhow, off the grill and under some foil for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, inside the warm confines of our kitchen, my wife made some crispy potatoes and french style green beans, or haricots verts for the francophiles among us.  The potatoes were crazy good!  Skin'em, cut'em small (1/2 inch pieces) and boil them until almost tender.  Then fry them in a skillet with some butter.  We ate this amazing meal with a bottle of 2008 Far Niente Cabernet Sauvignon.  Defying winter doesn't get much better than that.