Tomahawk Steak

Tomahawk steaks are just scotch fillet steaks – known as rib-eye in the States – with the bone in, cut extra long.

When the bone is cut shorter, it’s called by other names, including bone-in rib eye, rib steak, cattleman’s cutlet (Australia) and côte de boeuf. While these are the same cut, the thing that sets tomahawk steaks apart is the extra long bone.

Dramatic effect of the long bone + prized steak meat!

The meat part itself – scotch fillet / rib-eye – is a favourite among steak lovers because the meat is generously marbled with fat which melts as they cook, creating an incredibly juicy, tender texture and excellent beefy flavour. When you’ve got a steak hankering, it’s hard to beat a good thick-cut scotch fillet! (PS I’m not talking those thin economical scotch fillets, I mean nice thick ones you can really only get from butchers!)

Here in Australia, tomahawk steaks generally weigh between 1 – 1.5kg (2 – 3 lb) with the thickest part of the meat around 5 cm/2″ thick, though you can get them even thicker.

This recipe method will work for any thickness and weight, the oven time will just take longer or shorter.

The handle part of the bone is often “frenched” (ie. scraped clean of fat and meat) for presentation, leaving a clean white bone that makes the tomahawk look extra impressive.

If yours isn’t frenched (like mine, pictured above), it’s totally fine because it doesn’t affect flavour, only visuals. But if you’d like to do it, it’s easier to do after the oven step, once the meat is cooked, rather than when it’s raw. You’ll lose a bit of edible meat, but most of it is fatty or sinewy anyway. And you can always serve the offcuts on the side!

Find tomahawk steaks at butchers and some fresh produce outlets (I get mine from Harris Farms – I’m in Australia). In the States, it seems to be more common, available at large grocery outlets including Costco.

A really good quality tomahawk steak will be ultra juicy, tender and have excellent beefy flavour. Here are some of my pointers on beef quality!

• Cheap v expensive beef – affected by breed, how it’s raised, what it’s fed, how it is processed and how the meat is stored. Certain heritage breeds are regarded as more desirable. How cows are fed also affects quality – grain or grass. Meanwhile, beef sweating in vac packs for weeks are cheaper, but quality suffers compared to freshly butchered carcasses.

• Quality of life of the animal comes into play too – Animals that lived a good life will produce better-tasting meat (think battery chickens vs free range).

• Grass v grain fed beef – Neither is inherently superior (flavour and texture wise) and it’s a matter of taste! Grain fed animals are bigger, the meat is more marbled with a richer, buttery taste. Grass fed cows are usually smaller, and the beef is less marbled and fatty. However it has a more complex and natural beef flavour that many enjoy. People often also prefer the idea of quality pastured beef raised naturally over cows fed on only grain in industrial feedlots.

• Most Australian beef is in fact grass-fed, but note that many grass-fed animals are still finished on grain or eat some grain during their life. This is normal industry practice. If you want pure grass-fed beef, you need to specifically ask 🙂

Yes, absolutely, this reverse-sear method is ideal for thick cut steaks

This recipe is specifically formulated for tomahawk steaks because the bone is so long, you can’t fit them in a stove-top pan. But the method can be applied to any thick cut steak 3cm / 1.2″ or thicker. For thinner steaks, I generally just cook them on the stove / BBQ because they’re thin enough to cook through relatively evenly without finishing them in the oven. See here for my favourite stovetop method – the Cheffy butter basted way!

Tomahawk is another great example of how JB and I work together on recipes! The idea to crack the best way to cook a tomahawk came from me – I’ve noticed tomahawks becoming more readily available at local butchers in recent years. Then we had a team lunch at a steakhouse recently and ordered the tomahawk. Jaw dropping – both in flavour and price. I felt it was a sign!

To be honest, with the steak and beef cooking knowledge that we have between the two of us, this recipe was not so much about figuring out the best way to cook it (the reverse sear method I talk about in the post was the obvious answer for a steak of this size). It was about trying other methods, finding the pitfalls and – the thing we spent the most time on – how well it can be cooked using the broiler / oven grill, for those who don’t have a BBQ (answer: shockingly well!). See in post for the no BBQ method.

In terms of the cooking tests, JB did the legwork on this one. I did a lot of talking, research and eating (<- my greatest strength).

• Managing flare ups on the BBQ – tomahawks are quite fatter on the outer edges (this is why the meat part is so juicy and tasty!). Even if you oven bake first you can’t get away from this, so we ended up recommending that less confident BBQ’ers use the flat iron side of the BBQ instead.

• The perfect pull temp out of the oven so once BBQ seared the final rested internal temperature = perfect medium rare

• How hard is it to cook well, entirely on the BBQ without using the oven – Very hard. JB did it extremely well, but then again, he trained in Michelin restaurants.😅 I’ve tried in the past and ended up with a thicker band of overcooked outer edges than he did. Also, flare ups are really tricky to manage. We might’ve had a little fire to extinguish at one point….🔥😱

• Deciding whether it was worth dry brining or not (we decided not – see below).

• Deciding on a tomahawk worthy sauce – Cowboy Butter was the winner!

Umm…. maybe 12? As I mention in the point above, this recipe was more about doing iterations of our base recipe for pitfalls, figuring out if cooking it entirely in the oven (no BBQ) was tomahawk worthy, making a BBQ plus broiler version on video, then making multiple versions for photos.

I don’t know why, but I really struggled to shoot the tomahawk to capture a hero shot I thought was recipe-worthy. As I sit here writing this on Friday morning, I am still unhappy with the photos and we’re going to squeeze in a third shoot just before this post goes live at 4pm this afternoon.

Yes, I really operate this way – the “bigger” a recipe, the higher the bar for the hero shot! Remember, I’m not a professional food photographer! I’m just an amateur, which is why I don’t always get it first go. 🙂

You can if you want. We chose not to because we didn’t think it improved the end result to warrant the extra step – this bone-in cut of beef is so juicy cooked using this reverse-sear method, plus there’s the Cowboy Butter to serve it with.

If you got a very economical tomahawk steak (I don’t think that’s common here in Sydney, as it’s sold as a premium cut), you may want to dry brine as it will tenderise the meat as well as seasoning all the way through which will improve the beef flavour. Here’s how to dry brine:

1. Use slightly less salt – 1 1/2 teaspoons instead of the 2 teaspoons per the recipe. Reason: we felt the steak was a little too salty when dry brined using the 2 teaspoons per the recipe. Also, you must use cooking salt / kosher salt, not table salt – it’s way too fine and penetrates the meat too harshly. If using sea salt flakes, use 2 teaspoons.

2. Sprinkle the 1 1/2 tsp salt and pepper on the steak (both sides).

3. Set the steak on a rack set on a tray or plate

4. Refrigerate uncovered for 24 to 48 hours.

5. Remove from the fridge 1 hour prior per recipe

6. Cook per recipe. (Do not put more salt on, else the surface will be too salty).

Firstly – invite me? Never been to a tomahawk party!

Secondly, bake the tomahawks close to when your guests arrive. Rest them loosely covered in foil to retain heat and keep them covered so they stay warm. The more you have, the warmer they will keep each other.

You can have the tomahawks baked even one hour ahead because even if they cool down almost to room temperature, it’s fine, as you will bring them back up to temp on the BBQ.

Then BBQ sear on demand – put on a show for your mates!

What you don’t want to do is cook the tomahawks so far ahead that you have to refrigerate them because the meat won’t be as juicy after BBQ’ing.

Yes! I really wanted to try to figure this out for readers who don’t have a BBQ or when it’s so blustery cold outside it’s not BBQ weather. I’m THRILLED with the results!

Essentially, the tomahawk can be finished under the oven-grill / broiler instead of the BBQ. The crust is obviously not as good as doing it on a screaming hot BBQ, but it is still excellent! It works well because we’ve already cooked the steak in the oven so the surface already has a head start so it cooks faster, and it’s a thick cut so it doesn’t overcook inside. Oven grilling/broiler wouldn’t work for regular, thin grocery store steaks.

See note 5 in the recipe card for directions. Don’t skip the scrunched foil for levelling the steak – makes all the difference for even browning!