Through thick or thin

“Steak!”

“Whereabouts?” I followed up with.

“Down the waterfront.”

The barbecues down at the waterfront are those electric hotplate deals — just a flat plate. As well, I’m not a fan of hard-to-cut steaks when balancing a paper plate across my knees.

For such an occasion, a hot flat barbecue plate and needing an easy-to-eat piece of beef, an easily cut piece of eye fillet (often the tenderest meat on the beef carcase) is ideal.

Not only does this cut, also known as the tenderloin, slice easily, but it also is the perfect size for serving on a burger bun — when on a bun, the fillet tears without too much effort when you bite into it.

I’m not the biggest fan of eye fillet; it is very expensive, and there’s more beef flavour enjoyed with a cut like scotch fillet. Nonetheless, eye fillet is a go-to barbecue option for me. The main benefit is that you can cut it with nearly zero downward force.

So, it was off to the shed to get a bulk T-bone from the fridge.

Cutting steaks for the barbecue is about thickness — with eye fillet, you can go as thick as 50mm, and that is one of the reasons why I like eye fillet for the barbecue. Also, for show-off appeal, a 50mm steak looks pretty darn good.

What we needed were steaks that are suited to cooking over high heat; those beachside free barbecues are pretty much a one-setting high-temperature deal.

Accordingly, I opt for a thick steak cooked with high enough heat to sear the outside while the middle of the steak is somewhere between medium and rare (barbecues are seldom an exact science — more of an art).

Putting all of this together means that if I’m cutting eye fillet from a T-bone for a beachside one-setting barbecue, it will be cut about 50mm thick.

Butchering and cooking eye fillet steaks this way is a favourite method of mine.

Step 1: We start with a lump of grass-fed T-bone (this is a bulk cut — ‘back-rack’ describes it — however, the term is one that I've made up; it is one side of the rear section of the backbone on a carcase). This end-on shot shows the eye-fillet (the smaller piece of meat), and the larger cut is called a porterhouse in Australia (or the ‘strip in the US, and therefore, it is called this in many recipes).

Step 2: Note the hand position in relation to the knife and how the knife is positioned both in the hand and on the meat. (Handy hint: much of this 'seam' between the meat and the bones can be opened up with just your fingertips.) Now to cut the tenderloin (aka 'eye fillet') away from the T-bone (aka 'backbone'), run the knife along the top of the piece, between the bones and the meat.

Step 3: Keep making this cut deeper and ensure that your knife edge is very close to the bone.

Step 4: Cut as deep as you can — and cut for the full length of the 'back-rack'.

Step 5: Now flip or rotate the T-bone 90 degrees onto its side and start cutting (again) between the bone and the meat, staying as close as you can to the bones with your knife.

Step 6: From this angle you get a better view of the bone (the 'T-bone' in this piece of meat).

Step 7: Cut all the way down the bones to join up with the previous cut.

Step 8: Now you have the eye fillet removed from the 'back-rack'.

Step 9: Finally, cut the eye fillet into 50mm thick steaks and go cook them at the barbecue like a Boss!

Please note: This steak will 'shrink' down quite a bit when cooked — especially if you lean on it a little​ with the 'barbecue-flipper' when the steak is on the 'hot-grill' (it is not that I'm recommending doing so — I'm just telling you what happens ... and you probably already know this).

You might do this if you were flattening it and then putting it between two slices of bread!