**The Art of Carving a Ribeye Steak**

When it comes to carving a ribeye steak, there are several techniques and considerations that can make all the difference in the quality of the final product. In this article, we'll explore some key steps and tips for carving a ribeye steak like a pro.

First, let's start with the basics. A ribeye steak is cut from the rib section of a cow, which includes several different cuts of meat. The most common cuts are the ribeye itself, the bone-in ribeye, the baby back beef rib, and the longissimus muscle. Each of these cuts has its own unique characteristics and flavor profile, but when it comes to carving, they all share some similarities.

When we're cutting a ribeye steak, we want to focus on getting a good ratio of fat and meat on each bite. This means that we'll be taking care to remove the eye muscle first, as it's often one of the toughest parts of the steak. The eye muscle is located at the top of the ribeye, just above the bone, and it's characterized by a slightly different texture than the rest of the meat.

Next, we'll take out the eye muscle, which will make it easier to carve the rest of the steak. We'll also remove any excess fat from the area, as this can be a bit tough and chewy. The remaining muscles - including the longissimus, spinalis, cap, and complexus - are all tender and flavorful in their own right.

Now that we've removed the tougher parts of the steak, it's time to start carving. When cutting against the grain, it's essential to follow the natural direction of the muscle fibers. This means that we'll be cutting with the grain on some cuts and against the grain on others. The grain structure of a ribeye steak is circular, which makes it difficult to cut perfectly against the grain in every section.

That being said, by following these simple tips and techniques, you can achieve a beautifully carved ribeye steak that's both tender and flavorful. So go ahead and get creative with your carving - just remember to always follow the natural direction of the muscle fibers for the best results.

**The Importance of Fat**

One of the most important things to keep in mind when carving a ribeye steak is the role of fat. While it may seem counterintuitive, fat can actually add a lot of flavor and texture to your meal. When we're cooking a ribeye, it's essential to include the fat in the pan or on the grill, as this will help to infuse the meat with rich, savory flavors.

In fact, when we talk about bone marrow, we're often talking about the fatty deposits that are found within the bones of larger animals. These deposits can be a bit tough and chewy, but they also contain a lot of flavor and nutrients. When we remove the eye muscle from the ribeye, we're essentially removing some of this flavorful fat as well.

**The Four Main Pieces**

When we carve a ribeye steak, we'll typically come across four main pieces of meat: the rib, the spinalis, the cap, and the longissimus. Each of these pieces has its own unique characteristics and flavor profile, but they all share some similarities when it comes to cooking and serving.

The rib is perhaps the most well-known piece of a ribeye steak, as it's characterized by a beautiful bone-in cut that adds a lot of visual appeal to any dish. The spinalis is located just above the rib, and it's often slightly tougher than the rest of the meat. The cap is a small but flavorful muscle that's located near the center of the ribeye, while the longissimus is a large and tender muscle that runs from the second rib down to the sirloin.

**Carving Techniques**

When it comes to carving a ribeye steak, there are several techniques to keep in mind. First, we'll want to start by slicing against the grain, as this will help to make the meat more tender and easier to chew. We'll also want to follow the natural direction of the muscle fibers, which means cutting with the grain on some cuts and against the grain on others.

By following these simple techniques, you can achieve a beautifully carved ribeye steak that's both tender and flavorful. Remember to always focus on getting a good ratio of fat and meat on each bite, as this will add a lot of flavor and texture to your meal.

**The Final Cut**

Finally, let's talk about the final cut - how we present our carving to the plate. When it comes to carving a ribeye steak, there are no hard and fast rules, but there are some general guidelines that can help you achieve a beautiful presentation. One of the most important things is to make sure that each bite has a good balance of fat and meat.

By following these simple tips and techniques, you can achieve a beautifully carved ribeye steak that's both tender and flavorful. Whether you're cooking for one or a crowd, a perfectly carved ribeye steak is sure to impress even the most discerning diners.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi I am Kevin Smith Master Butcher of Beast and Cleaver and today I'm going to show you how to carve steaks to make them taste as good as possible when we are thinking about steak there's three main things we want to be looking at how the animal is raised how it's cooked and then finally how you eat it on a plate there's not a right way or a wrong way but there are certainly things you can do to make the experience a lot better so I'm going to go over these three classic iconic trophy cut steaks over here the bone in riye the tenderloin and the king of steak the Porter House and I'm going to show you how I as a butcher cut these steaks to make them eat at their best we're going to start with the most simple steak of the free the tenderloin the filet minion the fillet whatever you choose to call it it's a very very tender steak the most tender steak on the entire animal the grain structure on this guy is running this way so what I like to do is to cut the steak in half and then cut it into pieces going against the grain if we choose to stand it up you could cut it this way but to do that you're going to need a very sharp knife and these are not the knives that you get when you're in a steak house so for me the simplest way is to cut this piece in half then it allows me to cut Against the Grain rather than having to cut really long pieces going this way to maximize the tenderness so the steak going to cut this straight down the middle here and we can see really well cooked steak beautifully cooked here and now for me I want to now cut this way so if it's this way it's not going to taste bad by any means but to maximize the tenderness of the tenderloin you want to be cutting it against the grain and we know that the grain is running this way not every place you're going to go to is going to slice the steak for you and this is how a lot of steaks are going to show up on the plate when you get them there's no right or wrong way to do it but if you're trying to maximize tenderness this is how I would choose to do it the grain is running this way so I want to cut this way when we get into some of the more Stakes with more muscles on it you'll see the difference that it really makes so I'm not trying to make this look fancy for Instagram this is just how to make the steak taste the most tender it possibly can it's about as easy as that so next up is the Porter House we have two main muscles on here we've got the tenderloin and on the other side here we've got the beautiful New York strip lovely golden fat cap on here this one is about 2 in thick which is perfect for a porter house I've got it standing up so I can show you exactly where the bones are in here they run directly down the middle on this side coming down here onto the tenderloin side and you got the classic New York strip running on this side um so a lot of steak houses are going to take this off the bone for you some of them won't um so if you do end up getting one in a steakhous that looks like this which is great this is how I would want to get it I would start by taking The Tender Loin off down here and then foll in the bone all the way down here laying it down and slicing the New York strip Against the Grain and then the same as we did with the other Tender Loin Against the Grain on that side I'm going to lay it down to cut it I just wanted to get some Anatomy going on here so you can see where we're at looking at this steak laying down we can see we have our New York strip which runs right down here and then there's a little bone that carves down here this is part of the spine the chine and it comes around and down here and then on the other side of that bone here we have our big tenderloin big big tenderloin over here best thing to do is to take it off the bone otherwise you're going to be like getting stuck cutting into the bone so I like to take the tenderloin off first follow it down coming down you're letting the knife hit the bone follow it down there we have our big tenderloin and what we can see here is which is great is there's this big chunk of fat on here that's amazing that's going to add to the flavor and really important when you're cooking a a porter house to have some protection from the fat you don't you you want as much fat on the tenderloin to keep it as tender and juicy as you can so we've got this guy off we'll come back to that in a sec now I know the bone is here so I want to take my knife and just guide it down straight along here all the way to the end and spin and follow this doesn't go in a a straight line it goes down and it kind of Curves around here so now it makes a little bit more sense you can see what you're looking at your classic New York strip and your tenderloin filet Minon then you've got your bone here it's always going to be a little bit of meat on the bone that's great pick it up chew on it it's the best part in my opinion um so we'll go into how we carve this now on the tender line you do get this little extra piece of muscle on here um which is really really flavorful really got lots of um lots of senu running through it so it's got a tiny bit of chew so you want to take this guy cut it amazing little piece of meat there you don't mind Kevin let's go back into the to the tenderloin over here looking at it knowing that the grain structures are running in this way here we've got our big chunk of sew on here the fat protecting it want to take that off and uh definitely don't throw that away that is a golden pie that's a golden bite it's almost like bone marrow that so now again I want to cut this in half again there's not a right way or a wrong way but this is how to make it eat the best possible way so now that we've got it in half here cut it into smaller more manageable pieces going against the grain as much as we can and you know if you're out in a steakhouse and you've ordered this for yourself and you're like I'm not going to be able to eat all this maybe don't carve up the whole thing so I'm going to leave part of The Tender Loin over here I'm going to cut the rest of this this is so tender over here so then you know lay it out fan it out a little bit so you can see what you got coming in here and we got our New York strip over here again amazing thing about the New York strip is it's actually part of the longissimus muscle which starts all the way up in the neck of the animal runs all the way down into to the back leg almost it's essentially the same muscle that is found on a ribeye only the cap the spinalis is not on this it becomes uh covered in this beautiful fat cap on the back so the New York strip is essentially the same as a riy minus the cap so there's not a right way or wrong way to do this but for me I want to be getting a piece of fat on every bite so again thinking that I might not eat the entire thing I'm going to cut it in half and you can see the grain is running this way so ideally you'd be cutting it this way but it just doesn't make sense to do that regardless of where you are but I am going to go today and cut this guy nice and thin making sure that each bite that I'm going to get has got a piece of that caramelized fat on the end over here if you have a super sharp knife and you're at home slice it thinner but again eating with a steak Knife there's only so thin you can get and I think this is absolutely perfect here getting down to the end is going to be a bit of sinue on here I am not opposed to that it's a chew I'm I'm All About chew it doesn't everything doesn't have to be soft so you're looking at this here now you got your big chunk over here you've got your nice chewy pieces up here and look at this fat over here this is like bone marrow okay it's been slow roasted in the oven so you want to get into this think of this as bone marrow everyone talks about bone marrow you don't really hear too much about sew it SE it is gold as well so that there you've got that there if you wanted to get really specific you can look at the fat here on the the outside and there's a tiny piece of senu down there if you're being really really specific you can cut the fat off and lose that tiny piece of senu but again that's not what not how I would choose to eat a steak you're losing some of a chew and the best bite for me is taking the the sew putting it on top of a piece and that to me is the golden bite of a porter house right there and that's about how much I would go into cutting and carving this lovely p house all right the ribey the main steak that pretty much everyone chooses the number one selling steak by far um and for a good reason this one here is probably coming from ribs about five or six the reason I can tell that is it has this huge spinalis muscle on the outside the rib cap which everybody loves you got a smaller longissimus muscle which is the eye of the riye and down here which you can't really see at the moment is's another really really tender little muscle called the complexus all attached by the bone which has got the intercostal meat going on it then you got this lovely little fatty chunk of like meat up here too um so this is comes down here our bone you can see there's a big fat cap in here and just over here that's the natural separation of the muscles and it's going to always be on this part of the ri eye coming from ribs 5 to eight starts to get smaller after that for me I like to take the bone off cuz I like to chew on it and then I want to take the cap off and I want to cut the cap going against the grain I want to take out this lovely muscle here the longissimus slice it complexus and then take this lovely fat and don't waste it put it on top of the meat and eat it I'm going to cut this into five different parts here we're going to have our complexus small tender little muscle the longissimus the center the eye of the rib I had a cap the most one of again one of the most marbled cuts and then the uh the intercostal meat in the rib and then we got some little fat chunks as well so you're getting almost five or six different cuts coming off of this lovely little steak here going in taking the rib following it down essentially this rib here if it was pork would be a baby back rib so anytime you getting a bone in ribeye you're getting a a bone in getting a baby back beef rib up here next to the rib we got this lovely fat chunk I'm going to take that off first and the reason I'm doing this is I'm trying to get to the eye muscle here I don't just want to be hacking it up um I'm trying to be a little bit more um careful on how I'm getting to it this is going to have a lot of chew to it all different textures there fat um again it all adds to the flavor so just slice this up a lot of people won't want to be uh chewing on this too much personally I think these are the best parts of the animal they got so much more car character and when I'm cutting these sort of pieces I'm trying to get a decent ratio of fat and meat on the same bite so you can see slightly textured chewy fatty piece up here going to be living right next to this beautiful rib over here now I can get in and I can start taking off the if you if you see I can just pull this apart here so you you can just cut it like this but again for tenderness and eating it best follow the muscles separate the muscles they just fall apart coming in I'm going to take out the eye now because that's what's coming off easiest so just taking the eye muscle out going to leave that I'm not going to carve it yet then I'm going to take this muscle down here small small tender muscle to complexes just pop it out super good if you look at this it's very similar in texture to a tenderloin really really amazing little steak then in here we got the cap which is this big fat juicy muscle and on this side you can see that fat I was talking about there which is the natural separation from the longissimus to the spinalis so take the fat out think of it again as bone marrow don't think of it as chewy fat you don't want to eat it's delicious now we got our longissimus and our complexus the so we got the four main pieces the the rib the spinalis the cap the longissimus and the complexus we're going to go ahead and just slice this up now uh it's not going to taste bad whatever you do it's essentially like the most tender cups on the animal up here you know these are all like nine out of 10 tenderness almost getting a little bit too Technical and taking away from the beauty of eating this amazing steak here just to make your bite a little bit more tender go against the grain this is going to eat similar to a Tender Loin but it's going to have a lot more flavor there's our complexus we got the longissimus muscle which is essentially the New York strip so once you've taken all these muscles out left with the long gisas so we'll cut this one the grain structure you can see it running this way so cut Against the Grain as always so the grain structur is running this way again thinking about making the most tender bik going against the grain the best we can this is a circular cut so it's pretty much impossible to get Against the Grain on every cut yeah so again it's a cylindrical muscle the longissimus that is starts at a size of about this in the second rib at its biggest it gets to about this big in the New York strip and then it tapers down and becomes really small and goes into the sirloin at the end of the animal so this is about three in of the longissimus muscle the center of the ribeye the eye of the ribeye I'll come back now to this beautiful cut over here which is essentially the baby back beef rib is a great way to think of this got so much chew so much texture and um usually at a restaurant when we cook the ritis is everyone's favorite by it um we have next to it this lovely piece of fat which is again when I'm eating these and when we're doing them at a restaurant we don't tell people it's fat we tell them to reference it in their mind as bone marrow cuz it's essentially the same sort of texture once you get into it that's what you get when you eat a riy you got to eat the all of it so yeah again it's a golden bite right there there is no right or wrong way how to carve your steak but there is definitely ways to make it a little bit more tender and this is the way to do it subscribe to our Channel and visit chefsteps.com for more tips recipes guides and tools to help you level up in the kitchenhi I am Kevin Smith Master Butcher of Beast and Cleaver and today I'm going to show you how to carve steaks to make them taste as good as possible when we are thinking about steak there's three main things we want to be looking at how the animal is raised how it's cooked and then finally how you eat it on a plate there's not a right way or a wrong way but there are certainly things you can do to make the experience a lot better so I'm going to go over these three classic iconic trophy cut steaks over here the bone in riye the tenderloin and the king of steak the Porter House and I'm going to show you how I as a butcher cut these steaks to make them eat at their best we're going to start with the most simple steak of the free the tenderloin the filet minion the fillet whatever you choose to call it it's a very very tender steak the most tender steak on the entire animal the grain structure on this guy is running this way so what I like to do is to cut the steak in half and then cut it into pieces going against the grain if we choose to stand it up you could cut it this way but to do that you're going to need a very sharp knife and these are not the knives that you get when you're in a steak house so for me the simplest way is to cut this piece in half then it allows me to cut Against the Grain rather than having to cut really long pieces going this way to maximize the tenderness so the steak going to cut this straight down the middle here and we can see really well cooked steak beautifully cooked here and now for me I want to now cut this way so if it's this way it's not going to taste bad by any means but to maximize the tenderness of the tenderloin you want to be cutting it against the grain and we know that the grain is running this way not every place you're going to go to is going to slice the steak for you and this is how a lot of steaks are going to show up on the plate when you get them there's no right or wrong way to do it but if you're trying to maximize tenderness this is how I would choose to do it the grain is running this way so I want to cut this way when we get into some of the more Stakes with more muscles on it you'll see the difference that it really makes so I'm not trying to make this look fancy for Instagram this is just how to make the steak taste the most tender it possibly can it's about as easy as that so next up is the Porter House we have two main muscles on here we've got the tenderloin and on the other side here we've got the beautiful New York strip lovely golden fat cap on here this one is about 2 in thick which is perfect for a porter house I've got it standing up so I can show you exactly where the bones are in here they run directly down the middle on this side coming down here onto the tenderloin side and you got the classic New York strip running on this side um so a lot of steak houses are going to take this off the bone for you some of them won't um so if you do end up getting one in a steakhous that looks like this which is great this is how I would want to get it I would start by taking The Tender Loin off down here and then foll in the bone all the way down here laying it down and slicing the New York strip Against the Grain and then the same as we did with the other Tender Loin Against the Grain on that side I'm going to lay it down to cut it I just wanted to get some Anatomy going on here so you can see where we're at looking at this steak laying down we can see we have our New York strip which runs right down here and then there's a little bone that carves down here this is part of the spine the chine and it comes around and down here and then on the other side of that bone here we have our big tenderloin big big tenderloin over here best thing to do is to take it off the bone otherwise you're going to be like getting stuck cutting into the bone so I like to take the tenderloin off first follow it down coming down you're letting the knife hit the bone follow it down there we have our big tenderloin and what we can see here is which is great is there's this big chunk of fat on here that's amazing that's going to add to the flavor and really important when you're cooking a a porter house to have some protection from the fat you don't you you want as much fat on the tenderloin to keep it as tender and juicy as you can so we've got this guy off we'll come back to that in a sec now I know the bone is here so I want to take my knife and just guide it down straight along here all the way to the end and spin and follow this doesn't go in a a straight line it goes down and it kind of Curves around here so now it makes a little bit more sense you can see what you're looking at your classic New York strip and your tenderloin filet Minon then you've got your bone here it's always going to be a little bit of meat on the bone that's great pick it up chew on it it's the best part in my opinion um so we'll go into how we carve this now on the tender line you do get this little extra piece of muscle on here um which is really really flavorful really got lots of um lots of senu running through it so it's got a tiny bit of chew so you want to take this guy cut it amazing little piece of meat there you don't mind Kevin let's go back into the to the tenderloin over here looking at it knowing that the grain structures are running in this way here we've got our big chunk of sew on here the fat protecting it want to take that off and uh definitely don't throw that away that is a golden pie that's a golden bite it's almost like bone marrow that so now again I want to cut this in half again there's not a right way or a wrong way but this is how to make it eat the best possible way so now that we've got it in half here cut it into smaller more manageable pieces going against the grain as much as we can and you know if you're out in a steakhouse and you've ordered this for yourself and you're like I'm not going to be able to eat all this maybe don't carve up the whole thing so I'm going to leave part of The Tender Loin over here I'm going to cut the rest of this this is so tender over here so then you know lay it out fan it out a little bit so you can see what you got coming in here and we got our New York strip over here again amazing thing about the New York strip is it's actually part of the longissimus muscle which starts all the way up in the neck of the animal runs all the way down into to the back leg almost it's essentially the same muscle that is found on a ribeye only the cap the spinalis is not on this it becomes uh covered in this beautiful fat cap on the back so the New York strip is essentially the same as a riy minus the cap so there's not a right way or wrong way to do this but for me I want to be getting a piece of fat on every bite so again thinking that I might not eat the entire thing I'm going to cut it in half and you can see the grain is running this way so ideally you'd be cutting it this way but it just doesn't make sense to do that regardless of where you are but I am going to go today and cut this guy nice and thin making sure that each bite that I'm going to get has got a piece of that caramelized fat on the end over here if you have a super sharp knife and you're at home slice it thinner but again eating with a steak Knife there's only so thin you can get and I think this is absolutely perfect here getting down to the end is going to be a bit of sinue on here I am not opposed to that it's a chew I'm I'm All About chew it doesn't everything doesn't have to be soft so you're looking at this here now you got your big chunk over here you've got your nice chewy pieces up here and look at this fat over here this is like bone marrow okay it's been slow roasted in the oven so you want to get into this think of this as bone marrow everyone talks about bone marrow you don't really hear too much about sew it SE it is gold as well so that there you've got that there if you wanted to get really specific you can look at the fat here on the the outside and there's a tiny piece of senu down there if you're being really really specific you can cut the fat off and lose that tiny piece of senu but again that's not what not how I would choose to eat a steak you're losing some of a chew and the best bite for me is taking the the sew putting it on top of a piece and that to me is the golden bite of a porter house right there and that's about how much I would go into cutting and carving this lovely p house all right the ribey the main steak that pretty much everyone chooses the number one selling steak by far um and for a good reason this one here is probably coming from ribs about five or six the reason I can tell that is it has this huge spinalis muscle on the outside the rib cap which everybody loves you got a smaller longissimus muscle which is the eye of the riye and down here which you can't really see at the moment is's another really really tender little muscle called the complexus all attached by the bone which has got the intercostal meat going on it then you got this lovely little fatty chunk of like meat up here too um so this is comes down here our bone you can see there's a big fat cap in here and just over here that's the natural separation of the muscles and it's going to always be on this part of the ri eye coming from ribs 5 to eight starts to get smaller after that for me I like to take the bone off cuz I like to chew on it and then I want to take the cap off and I want to cut the cap going against the grain I want to take out this lovely muscle here the longissimus slice it complexus and then take this lovely fat and don't waste it put it on top of the meat and eat it I'm going to cut this into five different parts here we're going to have our complexus small tender little muscle the longissimus the center the eye of the rib I had a cap the most one of again one of the most marbled cuts and then the uh the intercostal meat in the rib and then we got some little fat chunks as well so you're getting almost five or six different cuts coming off of this lovely little steak here going in taking the rib following it down essentially this rib here if it was pork would be a baby back rib so anytime you getting a bone in ribeye you're getting a a bone in getting a baby back beef rib up here next to the rib we got this lovely fat chunk I'm going to take that off first and the reason I'm doing this is I'm trying to get to the eye muscle here I don't just want to be hacking it up um I'm trying to be a little bit more um careful on how I'm getting to it this is going to have a lot of chew to it all different textures there fat um again it all adds to the flavor so just slice this up a lot of people won't want to be uh chewing on this too much personally I think these are the best parts of the animal they got so much more car character and when I'm cutting these sort of pieces I'm trying to get a decent ratio of fat and meat on the same bite so you can see slightly textured chewy fatty piece up here going to be living right next to this beautiful rib over here now I can get in and I can start taking off the if you if you see I can just pull this apart here so you you can just cut it like this but again for tenderness and eating it best follow the muscles separate the muscles they just fall apart coming in I'm going to take out the eye now because that's what's coming off easiest so just taking the eye muscle out going to leave that I'm not going to carve it yet then I'm going to take this muscle down here small small tender muscle to complexes just pop it out super good if you look at this it's very similar in texture to a tenderloin really really amazing little steak then in here we got the cap which is this big fat juicy muscle and on this side you can see that fat I was talking about there which is the natural separation from the longissimus to the spinalis so take the fat out think of it again as bone marrow don't think of it as chewy fat you don't want to eat it's delicious now we got our longissimus and our complexus the so we got the four main pieces the the rib the spinalis the cap the longissimus and the complexus we're going to go ahead and just slice this up now uh it's not going to taste bad whatever you do it's essentially like the most tender cups on the animal up here you know these are all like nine out of 10 tenderness almost getting a little bit too Technical and taking away from the beauty of eating this amazing steak here just to make your bite a little bit more tender go against the grain this is going to eat similar to a Tender Loin but it's going to have a lot more flavor there's our complexus we got the longissimus muscle which is essentially the New York strip so once you've taken all these muscles out left with the long gisas so we'll cut this one the grain structure you can see it running this way so cut Against the Grain as always so the grain structur is running this way again thinking about making the most tender bik going against the grain the best we can this is a circular cut so it's pretty much impossible to get Against the Grain on every cut yeah so again it's a cylindrical muscle the longissimus that is starts at a size of about this in the second rib at its biggest it gets to about this big in the New York strip and then it tapers down and becomes really small and goes into the sirloin at the end of the animal so this is about three in of the longissimus muscle the center of the ribeye the eye of the ribeye I'll come back now to this beautiful cut over here which is essentially the baby back beef rib is a great way to think of this got so much chew so much texture and um usually at a restaurant when we cook the ritis is everyone's favorite by it um we have next to it this lovely piece of fat which is again when I'm eating these and when we're doing them at a restaurant we don't tell people it's fat we tell them to reference it in their mind as bone marrow cuz it's essentially the same sort of texture once you get into it that's what you get when you eat a riy you got to eat the all of it so yeah again it's a golden bite right there there is no right or wrong way how to carve your steak but there is definitely ways to make it a little bit more tender and this is the way to do it subscribe to our Channel and visit chefsteps.com for more tips recipes guides and tools to help you level up in the kitchen\n"