In order for the meat to be well cooked, in other words, to be juicy and with an almost golden and crispy appearance, the ideal is to have a barbecue.

However, we do not always have a barbecue in our homes, although the truth is that this is not a great impediment to cooking meat properly. From El Capricho, we tell you how to cook your beef chop with or without a grill below.

Ox chop, selected by José Gordón

Why does this chop have so much fat? This meat is the product of the ox’s happy, peaceful life, when it develops large amounts of subcutaneous fat needed for the long ageing process. This fat will nourish the muscle and give the meat its smooth texture. 

The absence of hormones allows these delicate fats to turn the meat into a healthier product of great subtlety, and with their low melting point, they take on sweet, complex nuances when they heat up. By mixing small pieces of fat with each bite of meat, you will experience unforgettable moments.

A combination of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids makes this one of the healthiest types of fats. Without these fats, nothing would make sense.

You can find in our store the Ox rib steak José Gordón’s selection.

Working cow chop

We came up with this name of ‘working cow’ to indicate that it is a cow reared in a different way. These are cows with great hormonal purity since they have not given birth for at least a year.

These cows are pampered by their owners; some of them are tame and fed with homemade food. They are the pride of their owners.

You can find in our store the Cow Premium rib steak.

How to cook and carve your chop

Here you will learn in detail how to cook an ox (or old cow) chop with or without a grill:

Preparation

Store the chop in its vacuum bag in the fridge, between 0°C and 5°C. Make sure that nothing sharp has punctured the bag. If the bag is intact and the chop is still under vacuum, it can be kept in the fridge for 20 days.

Remove the chop from the fridge and take out of the vacuum bag before cooking. Keep your chop in the fridge but do not freeze it, if possible. Take your chop out of the bag at least 2 hours before cooking. If it smells a little odd, don’t worry as this is due to the vacuum process.

Remove the outer fat, since during the ageing process it has received, the fat has already infiltrated the meat and it has enough fattiness. If you keep the exterior fat, when you cook it the muscle could be contaminated, and everything will taste of grease. It is also preferable to remove the bone, as that makes it easier to reach the internal temperature required and gives a more uniformly grilled chop.

Chop with grill

One of the great advantages of preparing the chop on the grill is that the aromas of the wood always add nuances to the roast. To do this, we have to follow the following steps:

1. Place the chop approximately 50-60 cm above the grill on a grate if you have a double-height grill. If you do not have a double-height grill, adapt it so that the chop is away from the grill.
2. Turn the chop every minute or minute and a half to keep the liquid inside.  
3. The objective is to reach an internal temperature of 39-40 ºC, which can be checked with a probe thermometer. The time we need will depend on the strength of the heat source and the thickness of the cutlet.
4. To get an idea of the intensity of the heat, we can put our hand at the same height where we are going to place the meat, bearing the heat with great difficulty for four seconds. 
5. Mark the cutlet on the grill in a first position, and in a second one transversal to the first one. Then we turn it over, repeating the two previous positions and add plenty of coarse sea salt.  The chop should be marked until it reaches an almost golden color. 

This is the way to obtain a meat that is toasted on the outside and raw on the inside. When serving it is important to cut the muscles against their fibers (perpendicular to them).

In this video you can see in detail how to prepare an El Capricho beef chop with grill:

Chop without a grill

If you do not have a grill, do not worry, since it is also possible to grill the chop without a grill, achieving an optimal result, with an exquisite flavor of the meat. To do so, follow the steps below:

1. We begin by tempering the meat. In this case in which we do not have a grill, we have two ways of tempering. The first consists of putting the chop in the oven at about 100ºC for about 15 minutes; and the second consists of placing an oven rack over two pans and underneath the pan or griddle where the chop is going to be cooked.
2. Keep the cutlet for approximately 15-20 minutes, turning it every minute – minute and a half, to keep the liquid inside.
3. Next, remove the chop from the grill and place it in the frying pan (preferably ribbed) over medium heat for 1 minute (on one side). Remove and wait two minutes. Repeat the operation 3 times. 
4. We repeat the operation, but now it is time to do it with the opposite side.
5. As with grilling the chop with a grill, the objective is to reach an internal temperature of 39-40 ºC, which can be checked with a probe thermometer. The time needed will depend on the strength of the heat source and the thickness of the chop. 

In this video you can see in detail how to make a steak without a grill: