We love to buy “Cowboy Ribsteaks”, or what some call hatchet  steaks.  What it is is a bone-in rib steak about 3″ thick.  We bought one for my New Year’s Eve birthday dinner last year and just loved it.  Yes, I’m a New Year’s Eve baby.  We used my dad’s favorite peppered beef grilling marinade on it and WOW, was it ever good!  My husband grilled it about 15 minutes on a side and it was medium-rare to perfection!  I’m planning on this being our Christmas Eve dinner,, so thought I’d re-share with my readers.

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This marinade recipe was truly my Dad’s creation and we often say his “pride and joy”.  In his 83 years on this earth, he never found a marinade he liked better.  I confess I have not either.  It’s unique; it’s DELICIOUS!  You grilling fanatics MUST try this recipe sometime!  This recipe makes enough marinade for an 8 lb. boneless rib roast if you’re having holiday dinner guests, but my “Cowboy Steak” is much more reasonable size for just the two of us, about 3.5 lb.  I made up a half recipe of marinade for this smaller cut of meat.  This meat marinade isn’t as tasty reheated, so leftovers are best consumed in steak sandwiches, unheated.

This marinade also is great on a nice lean chuck or sirloin roast.   It is Atkins friendly (after you finish Atkins Induction 2-weeks).  Leaving out the wine just isn’t an option for this recipe, so wait until the Atkins OWL (On-going Weight Loss) Phase to enjoy this wonderful hunk of grilled melt-in-your-mouth perfection.  I guarantee, this is so good you’ll be fighting over who gets the two end slices, just like we did when I was growing up.  🙂

MARINADE INGREDIENTS: (remember, it is not all consumed)

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. paprika

1/8 c. low-sodium soy sauce (1/4 c. if you can tolerate the sodium, I don’t though)

1/2 c. dry red wine (I use burgundy or claret generally)

1 T. tomato paste (or tomato sauce)

1½ T. coarse ground black pepper (or enough to entirely coat your meat thickly)

DIRECTIONS:  Pound the coarse ground black pepper over all surfaces of a nice rib roast or extra thick rib steak using the butt of your palm or a meat cleaver. Use less pepper if doing a smaller piece of meat. Place meat in glass dish. I drizzle marinate every half hour (as often as you can remember to stop and do it) most of a day (minimum 6 hours). Most efficient way to marinate without disturbing pepper coating is to use a basting brush. Do not touch the meat with your brush, or you’ll wipe all the pepper off! Hold it over the meat and let it drip off the brush. When surface is soaked, put in refrigerator to marinate.  Baste hourly with my drip method until cooking time.

COOKING:  This recipe really is not good cooked inside in an oven. Not sure why, but trust me on this one, it just isn’t, so grill it for sure.  It seems the marriage of the marinade with charcoal smoke makes this recipe flavor profile so magical.

Prepare your charcoal fire and when coals are white hot, set the meat slightly off to the side (not directly over the coals).  Discard marinade now and do not baste again during cooking so raw meat juice doesn’t contaminate your meat at the end of cooking. You need to grill a 3-3½# piece of meat for about 30 minutes total time (15 minutes on a side) for medium-rare (125º internal).  Larger roasts of 4-6# will take around 20 minutes on a side.  If cooking a 6#-8# roast for a large dinner party, I would cook for 60-80 minutes total cooking time, (30-40 min per side) checking often with meat thermometer until an internal temp of 125º is reached for medium rare.  You should turn the meat every 10 minutes during cooking.  Rib roast/steak is best if not cooked past medium-rare or medium stage unless you like dry, tough meat.  I take mine off when my meat thermometer reads 120º degrees and let it sit on my cutting board for around 5-7 minutes to “rest” before slicing to avoid juices being lost when sliced.  Always remember that a piece of meat over 3# will continue to climb to higher temps while resting on the board (why I err on the side of removal at 120º).

This recipe always gets the WOWS when I serve it so I hope you folks will try it sometime! You won’t be sorry you did!

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION:  The marinade is discarded when you cook the meat.  No further basting should be done while cooking as there is now raw meat juice in the marinade.   Calculating how much marinade is consumed is difficult.  It would also be impossible for me to know how many servings you are able to get out of your roast.  So I’m providing the totals for the entire batch of marinade and you will have to see how much it makes and how much is left in the pan before discarding to determine roughly how much is staying on the meat and thus consumed by how many people you are serving.   Most of the sauce goes down the drain, to be perfectly honest, so you’re getting mostly sodium from the soy sauce and a few carbs from the wine and tomato paste that cling to the surface of the meat (a little more if you get the end slices).  The figures below DO NOT INCLUDE THE MEAT.

The entire batch of marinade has:

131 cals, 0.7g fat, 18g carbs, 4.6g fiber, 15.4 NET CARBS (entire batch), 5.5g protein, 1070 mg. sodium