Iron Skillet Ribeye Topped with Honey Garlic Compound Butter & Bacon Fried Cowboy Turnips
The perfect steak doesn’t require a fancy cut. I know that some of you read my first sentence and gasped, either internally or verbally. I absolutely love a good dry-aged, perfectly marbled hunk of beef, but an expensive cut like that isn’t always in my grocery budget. When I’m balling on a beer budget with a champagne craving, I grab a pack of the cheapest steaks I can find in the grocery store and make it work.
Over time, I have experimented and found a fool proof way to prepare pretty much any cut of beef whether it be flank or ribeye. Coarse pink Himalayan salt is my weapon of choice when it comes to tenderizing any cut of beef, and to amplify it, I have created a compound butter that is absolutely to die for. Paired with the proper side dish, you can create a restaurant grade steak plate for a fraction of the cost. Try these recipes to help you successfully curb your steak cravings, and wow your family and friends.
Ribeye & Compound Butter
Ingredients
1 ribeye steak (1 inch thick)
3 tbsp unsalted butter (room temperature)
Coarse pink Himalayan salt
Black pepper
2 tbsp minced garlic
2 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tsp raw honey
Fresh thyme
Directions
1) The morning of your steak dinner, cover your steak with salt and place it on a plate in your refrigerator. When you’re ready to cook the steak pat it dry, removing the salt used to tenderize. Season all sides of the steak with salt and pepper. Once seasoned, set it aside to rest for 30-45 minutes. Thick steaks require an adequate amount of salt so season until your ancestors tell you to stop.
2) On medium high heat, begin to get your dry iron skillet hot, causing it to begin to smoke a little (around 5-10 minutes). While your skillet is heating; in a mixing bowl, add room temperature butter, salt, pepper, onion powder, paprika, fresh thyme, minced garlic, smoked paprika, and honey. Mix well until blended and set it aside.
3) Once you start to see smoke in your skillet, it’s time to cook the steak. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes or until you get a good crust on the exterior, before flipping to repeat. Once you have a good crust on each side, cook the steak for 2 minutes per side. Add the compound butter to the top of the ribeye, let it cook for 30 seconds, and flip to repeat. When done, lower the heat to medium, and baste the steak with the melted butter mixture. Continuously flip every 30 seconds for 2 minutes (or until the steak is 130 degrees), making sure that the garlic doesn’t burn.
4) Allow the steak to rest before serving. When serving add a knob of compound butter on top of the ribeye. Your steak should be around 135 degrees once rested.
Bacon Fried Cowboy Turnips
Ingredients
6 medium turnip roots
1 large red onion
5 strips thick cut bacon (cut into 1 inch pieces)
Pink Himalayan salt
Black pepper
Smoked paprika
2 tbsp butter
Fresh parsley (finely chopped)
Directions
1) With your skillet heated on medium high, add the bacon, and cook until crisp. While the bacon is crisping, begin cutting the turnip roots into 1 inch pieces and dice the red onion. Make sure to stir your bacon around every so often so it doesn’t burn. Once your bacon is to the texture you prefer, remove it from the skillet.
2) Pour all but around 3 tablespoons of the bacon grease out of the skillet into a mason jar or bacon grease pitcher. Don’t throw away your bacon grease – it’s the O.G. liquid gold. Add the turnip roots and red onions into the skillet, sautéing them until the roots begin to brown a bit and the onions become slightly al dente. Season the turnips, sprinkling half of the parsley into the skillet, and add in the bacon. Delicately stir your butter into the skillet. The turnips should be getting tender at this point so stirring aggressively will break the roots up too much.
3) Once the turnips are tender enough, remove the skillet from heat and plate your Bacon Fried Cowboy Turnips.
Chelsea Gieselmann is a mom, photographer, columnist, food blogger, and home-cook. Cooking has been a passion of hers since she was old enough to cut out biscuits with the mouth of a mason jar. Her great-grandmother taught her the basics and she is ever so grateful to have been able to learn from her. Since then, she has honed in her craft a great deal and continues to.
