Chef Steven’s Tomahawk steak recipe

This week Celebrity Chef from Ready Steady Cook & Master Chef Steven Saunders, proprietor of The Little Geranium in La Cala is cooking on the Barbecue!

The weather has been so hot recently and although I am back in my little kitchen working hard, I do close on Sunday and Mondays and had some friends over for a barbeque. I pre-ordered some Tomahawk steaks, which is something we offer at The Geranium as a special a la carte option when we have them in stock.

The Tomahawk steak is a rib eye with about 8/10 inches of bone, the ultimate lollipop! It is usually about 3 or 4 cm thick and weighs in at about 1 kilo or just over. Named because it allegedly resembles the Tomahawk axe, Tomahawk Steak is becoming more and more popular. In the UK it is all the rage, especially with trendy restaurants.

A Tomahawk is similar to a Cotes du Boeuf, a sharing slab of beautiful beef carved at your table. It is popping up in more places for the home cook too, with Marks and Spencer’s apparently jumping on the bandwagon, but you may struggle to get it over here unless you pre-order it with your butcher.

The Tomahawk Steak is an on-the-bone Rib Steak, cut from the Fore-rib with the entire rib bone left. The long bone is French-trimmed, leaving an amazing presentation, and a dinner table discussion point. As it is a bone-in Rib Steak, it has quite a large amount of muscular fat, which gives it lots of flavour when cooked. Flavours are released from both the huge bone and the fat during roasting to give a sweet gelatinous flavour.

When it is cooked it will need resting for at least 10 minutes to let the juices settle and to ensure that it is not still a bit raw in the centre. When cooked and rested, hold the bone in one hand and cut along the bone lengthways to separate the meat from the bone. Slice the meat across the grain at a slight angle into slices about ½ cm to 1cm thick and serve.

It’s certainly not an everyday steak, visions of eating like the Flintstones appear when serving it and the guests are always impressed! So, the barbecue is ready and all you have to do now is follow my simple step by step instructions to cook it and you will undoubtedly be the most popular friend to have on the Costa del Sol!

One of our clients who loves a Tomahawk steak and always orders it is the celebrity football referee Mark Clattenburg who was in last week and had pre-ordered his Tomahawk. I cooked it on our kitchen mini barbecue and then through the oven covered in garlic butter.

Dylan my assistant and our fabulous young waiter carved it for him at the table. This piece of beef is something a bit special, ideal for a barbeque with friends and to be honest you could easily get three portions out of one Tomahawk steak. 

Chef Steven’s Tomahawk steak  

Ingredients for four
2 Tomahawk Steaks weighing approx. 1 kilo each
Maldon salt
Freshly milled black pepper
1 small bunch of rosemary
8 cloves of garlic peeled, crushed and sliced
Olive oil

Instructions:
-Heat an outdoor barbecue to the highest heat. Preheat your oven to 200C.
-Season steaks generously with salt and pepper. Use a generous amount of salt.
-Sear the steaks for two minutes on each side on the barbeque, letting the flames lick up the sides. You’ll know the steak is ready to flip when it releases easily from the grill.
-Transfer the steaks to a roasting tray.
-Roast with the rosemary and the garlic slices and some olive oil in the preheated oven for about 10 minutes or until the steaks reach an internal temperature of 40 Celsius. Use a meat thermometer for 100 per cent accuracy.
-Let rest for 10 minutes out of the hot tray but reserve the juices.
-After 10 minutes the beef will be rested and softer to the touch than when it came out of the oven.
-Now you can flash them back on the flaming barbecue for another two or three minutes each side flipping them regularly and leave on for longer for more cooked and for only two minutes for medium-rare.
-Put the steaks on a large wood board, slice and serve.
-Serve with Dijon mustard, Maldon salt, crispy fried onions (see below) and the garlic butter melting over the top.   

Simple Crispy Onions:
Preheat a deep fat fryer to 190C
-1 large white onion peeled and sliced thinly
-3 tablespoons of seasoned flour (seasoned with salt pepper and some mixed spices like allspice).
-Put the onions in a container and cover with milk.
-Fish the onions out with a slotted spoon and toss through the seasoned flour.
-Deep fry until golden brown (1 minute approx.).

Garlic Butter:
Ingredients
-1 pack of 250g unsalted butter softened at room temperature
-4 garlic cloves peeled and minced
-2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley
-Salt to taste (if using unsalted butter)
-4 tablespoons of olive oil

Method:
-Put the minced garlic into a saucepan with the olive oil and gently simmer to cook the garlic lightly, do not colour it. It is only to take the bitterness out of the raw garlic.
-Add the softened butter into a small serving bowl, and mix with the garlic until combined.
-Spread some cling film over a work surface and put the butter onto it approx. 3cm thick.
-Roll up until the butter is even and cylindrical.
-Refrigerate and slice through cling film to serve but then remove cling film of each slice.
-Serve on top of the hot steaks from the barbecue before carving.

Follow Steven on Instagram… @saunderschef
The Little Geranium, Winner of Best International Restaurant Spain…2020
www.thelittlegeranium.com   For bookings: Michele@thelittlegeranium.com