Lone Mountain Ranch Wagyu

I first visited Lone Mountain Ranch four years ago while working in Santa Fe, New Mexico. My sous chef and I were looking for locally produced Wagyu beef and came across a listing for Lone Mountain Ranch. Back then the herd was still being developed and the ranch's focus on was building and selling genetics.
Just this week- after fours years of patiently waiting- I received my first batch of 100% Wagyu Beef. The quality exceeded my highest expectations. As you would expect from a wagyu the marbling was exceptional. The flavor of the beef, possibly due spending more time on pasture than most commercially produced animals, was more developed and complex without being overpowering.
To start I ordered thirty pounds of grade 9 tri-tip, one of my favorite cuts. Unlike a filet or new york that can be thrown into a pan and then onto a plate, the tri tip requires a slow cooking process and proper slicing to coax out the flavor and tenderness potential.
We couldn't wait to give the steaks the royal treatment they deserved. As soon as the box reached the kitchen I cut off an end piece, salt and peppered it, and put it on the grill. The flavor was exceptional but due to being cooked too quickly and not rested the meat was tough. Based on this initial experiment it was decided that it would be best to cure the meat overnight and then slowly smoke it.
One of my sous chefs, Brian Kearns, adopted the steaks and took them through the cooking process. The photos of the cooked meat are compliments of him.

The cure was a simple mix of brown sugar, sicilian sea salt, green coriander seeds, orange zest, guajillo chile and bay leaves. We packed the steaks in the cure overnight then brushed the cure off and let them air dry in front of a fan so that the smoke would be able to permeate the meat. At this point our classic European kitchen was ill prepared for the project at hand and we had to transport the steaks to Brian's backyard barbecue where they were slow smoked over hickory wood for three hours at two hundred degrees.
Its not every day that you can get a barbecued wagyu tri tip sandwich with early girl tomato barbecue sauce at a classic Italian restaurant in Carmel- in fact I think it is a first in the restaurant's illustrious 35 year history. Our customers loved the sandwich and I was happy to share a product with them from my home in New Mexico.