[lively music]<\/p>\n
Hi, I’m Michael Vignola,<\/p>\n
Chef\/Partner here at The Eighty Six,<\/p>\n
an intimate New York City West Village steakhouse.<\/p>\n
Today we are talking about the perfect Philly cheesesteak.<\/p>\n
[lively music ending] [bell dinging]<\/p>\n
This cheesesteak is the homage to the original,<\/p>\n
doing our riff on it, you know,<\/p>\n
taking that classic, making it approachable yet advanced.<\/p>\n
Australian Wagyu ribeye, three alpine cheeses,<\/p>\n
then you have a B&G pepper relish,<\/p>\n
a creamy caramelized onion spread.<\/p>\n
Can’t forget our house-baked sesame bread<\/p>\n
with a little bit of Maldon Salt.<\/p>\n
It’s gonna hit all those classic notes<\/p>\n
and just be elevated so much further.<\/p>\n
The beef is a three-day process.<\/p>\n
Let me show you how it starts. [lively music]<\/p>\n
So we’re going down to the 126-year-old walk-in box.<\/p>\n
So what we have here is a seven-bone,<\/p>\n
12-by-12 standing rib roast.<\/p>\n
This is a Westholme Australian Wagyu ribeye.<\/p>\n
Start with great products and just honor ’em.<\/p>\n
[lively music]<\/p>\n
First thing we do, we’re gonna score it lightly.<\/p>\n
When I say score, I’m just dragging the blade of the knife,<\/p>\n
creating small channels for the fat to render<\/p>\n
and continually bast the meat as we slow roast it.<\/p>\n
Kosher salt, one of my favorite ingredients.<\/p>\n
Salt is the magnifying glass of flavor.<\/p>\n
Everybody tends to under season.<\/p>\n
They also go too close to where you just season this.<\/p>\n
When you’re seasoning,<\/p>\n
up high like a shotgun so it spreads out.<\/p>\n
You want it to go and cascade down slowly.<\/p>\n
Next up, coarsely ground Madagascar black pepper.<\/p>\n
When I say coarsely ground, we grind it in a grain mill<\/p>\n
so that we can control the crunch<\/p>\n
and the diameter of the peppercorn.<\/p>\n
We’re gonna rub all of this in there.<\/p>\n
You can feel the fat starting<\/p>\n
to render on this beautiful Australian Wagyu as it comes up<\/p>\n
to temp a little bit under the heat of my hands,<\/p>\n
sucking up that salt, grabbing onto that pepper.<\/p>\n
Mustard’s gonna be our aggregate.<\/p>\n
It’s gonna help encase this whole thing.<\/p>\n
It’s got a little bit of tannic properties<\/p>\n
that are gonna cut through the fibers of the meat.<\/p>\n
It’s gonna give it a little bit more dexterity,<\/p>\n
tensility strength, and a little bit of help<\/p>\n
with the chew of the final product.<\/p>\n
The Philly cheesesteak’s really near and dear to my heart.<\/p>\n
In the summer of ’97, my father, Ronald,<\/p>\n
was called for a lung transplant<\/p>\n
down at Temple University Hospital.<\/p>\n
In front of Temple University Hospital,<\/p>\n
there was this one place called Fat Albert’s<\/p>\n
where this guy would park out front<\/p>\n
and I would watch him meticulously<\/p>\n
make his Philly cheesesteaks.<\/p>\n
I needed his cheesesteak<\/p>\n
and I needed his hospitality more than I knew.<\/p>\n
And for that, this cheesesteak is born from it.<\/p>\n
And it’s really important to me to honor that memory,<\/p>\n
one, of my father and two, of that man.<\/p>\n
After this is on there,<\/p>\n
we have some beautiful flowering time,<\/p>\n
just lightly picked and chopped.<\/p>\n
[Michael grunting]<\/p>\n
Again, like a shotgun, spreads out, make it rain.<\/p>\n
Rosemary, little Christmasy vibes, classic rose flavors,<\/p>\n
pairs well with beautiful pieces of beef.<\/p>\n
It’s not gonna burn because it’s protected by the mustard<\/p>\n
and it’s all just gonna add to the crust<\/p>\n
and the ultimate finished product of our debris.<\/p>\n
We’re gonna do the same thing on the underside,<\/p>\n
just without the herbs.<\/p>\n
Why Wagyu, right?<\/p>\n
I like Australian Wagyu as opposed<\/p>\n
to Japanese Wagyu for this product.<\/p>\n
Japanese Wagyu is like eating butter, foie gras.<\/p>\n
Australian Wagyu marries the best<\/p>\n
of like American prime genetics, steer, chew,<\/p>\n
that great unctuousness with Japanese genetics of fat,<\/p>\n
beautiful, rich marbleization.<\/p>\n
Salting and marinating this meat also does a few things.<\/p>\n
Pulling out some of that extra water weight,<\/p>\n
intensifying the marbleization<\/p>\n
so it’s leaving behind the fat, right?<\/p>\n
That fat, as it cooks and slowly renders,<\/p>\n
is gonna give you<\/p>\n
that really delicious umami, rich, unctuous bite<\/p>\n
in this cheesesteak.<\/p>\n
Don’t forget to rub it in.<\/p>\n
You know, it’s like when the Yanks beat the Mets,<\/p>\n
you gotta rub it in.<\/p>\n
That’s for you.<\/p>\n
Now that we have this marinated, seasoned,<\/p>\n
our herbs, our salt, our pepper, our mustard,<\/p>\n
we’re gonna let it dry and marinate for a day.<\/p>\n
Put it in the oven, roast it till it’s perfect.<\/p>\n
Let it rest in the walk-in cold<\/p>\n
so it gets all that juice back into it<\/p>\n
and then we’re gonna slice it nice and chilled.<\/p>\n
Let’s go. Here she is three days later.<\/p>\n
You can see that crust.<\/p>\n
This is it after it’s been rested,<\/p>\n
roasted, marinated and cooked.<\/p>\n
We’re almost there.<\/p>\n
You could see that bark that developed, right?<\/p>\n
That crust, it’s all over the back here.<\/p>\n
I’m gonna spin this bad boy around.<\/p>\n
You can see it’s ready to roll.<\/p>\n
You can see it shrunk down inside.<\/p>\n
You can see the bones now.<\/p>\n
So as that fat rendered<\/p>\n
and basted this meat, it just shrank down slowly.<\/p>\n
Remember, we’re gonna use everything here,<\/p>\n
including this beautiful crust.<\/p>\n
But I don’t wanna lose any of this beautiful fat crust,<\/p>\n
intermuscular beef that we talked about.<\/p>\n
I’m just slowly going against these bones,<\/p>\n
freeing them up one at a time,<\/p>\n
making sure to preserve that beautiful rested meat<\/p>\n
in every piece of it.<\/p>\n
So now the bones, the ribs are off.<\/p>\n
Then you have this tranche of ribeye.<\/p>\n
Next up, we’re gonna take it,<\/p>\n
we’re gonna square it up and get it ready for our slicer.<\/p>\n
You ask, Why Wagyu?<\/p>\n
You can tell, just look at my board,<\/p>\n
this beautiful fat that has been rendered.<\/p>\n
That fat is really gonna melt in your mouth.<\/p>\n
It’s not gonna be left on the griddle,<\/p>\n
like at those other places south of here.<\/p>\n
We’re gonna cut it into half to make it more manageable<\/p>\n
on our slicer, but just look at this beautiful cook on this.<\/p>\n
Perfectly rose, beautiful intermuscular fat.<\/p>\n
You can see the veining of that for the Australian Wagyu.<\/p>\n
Oh. It’s time to slice it paper thin.<\/p>\n
I’m rotating through so that everybody gets a piece<\/p>\n
of the same area in each bite,<\/p>\n
ultimately eating the entire ribeye.<\/p>\n
So you get a piece of that cap, a little bit of the eye,<\/p>\n
and some of that beautiful unctuous fat.<\/p>\n
We will continue this till we build our piles.<\/p>\n
Our Philly cheesesteaks are six ounces<\/p>\n
of thinly sliced Australian Wagyu<\/p>\n
and about an ounce, ounce and a half of our debris.<\/p>\n
We’re gonna take these and let ’em chill<\/p>\n
while we work on our debris next.<\/p>\n
[lively music]<\/p>\n
What is debris and why do we do it?<\/p>\n
I call it debris because it’s all this leftover bitter ends<\/p>\n
and all the unctuous bits and parts, the nasty bits<\/p>\n
that aren’t quite beautiful and pristine.<\/p>\n
The traditional Philly cheesesteak is done on a flat top.<\/p>\n
It’s kind of griddled and almost chopped cheese-ish like.<\/p>\n
So you got a little bit of Maillard.<\/p>\n
Maillard is the caramelization<\/p>\n
of the natural sugars in the meat.<\/p>\n
That gives you that great steak flavor,<\/p>\n
that little bit of that griddle-y taste,<\/p>\n
that sear is what you crave.<\/p>\n
To make our version of that,<\/p>\n
we are gonna take all this Maillard,<\/p>\n
all this beautiful fat and make our version of debris.<\/p>\n
First thing we’re gonna start with, beautiful rib cap.<\/p>\n
My favorite.<\/p>\n
Easiest way to do this,<\/p>\n
straight down, cut that bone off.<\/p>\n
Once you have them all broken down<\/p>\n
is where the work begins.<\/p>\n
What we’re gonna do is start to clean all<\/p>\n
of this beautiful meat off.<\/p>\n
No waste. Every little bit is going somewhere.<\/p>\n
Even these bones will go to my beverage director,<\/p>\n
Lucas’s dog Xena.<\/p>\n
Yes, the Warrior Princess.<\/p>\n
All of these bones even get used.<\/p>\n
We’re gonna save them, roast them<\/p>\n
and add them to our mushroom au jus.<\/p>\n
All these beautiful bits and pieces cooked down<\/p>\n
and chopped up and whipped with their own fats.<\/p>\n
Think of it as a spreadable beef pate, crust, fat, Wagyu,<\/p>\n
mustard, all the herbs, the salt,<\/p>\n
the pepper goes into the Robot-Coupe, or food processor.<\/p>\n
Pulse this. [food processor whirring]<\/p>\n
You can see this beautiful fatty chopped beef.<\/p>\n
After you have this beautiful Wagyu rillettes,<\/p>\n
I put it in a pot and then I, you know,<\/p>\n
yada, yada, yada, do a bunch of stuff,<\/p>\n
or witchcraft as my daughter Mia says,<\/p>\n
and it turns into this amazing debris.<\/p>\n
I’d love to show you more, but a girl needs her secrets.<\/p>\n
What it really adds is the secret sauce of it all,<\/p>\n
that hidden surprise<\/p>\n
that you just can’t quite put your finger on.<\/p>\n
It gives you that [Michael smacking lips]<\/p>\n
mouthwatering, lip-smacking secret sauce deliciousness.<\/p>\n
[spoon banging] This is one of the aspects<\/p>\n
that I think sets us apart<\/p>\n
from the traditional Philly cheesesteak<\/p>\n
while still honoring the flavor profile<\/p>\n
that is achieved down south.<\/p>\n
Now, how do we reheat this slowly, cook it,<\/p>\n
but not overcook it?<\/p>\n
First thing we’re gonna do, take about an ounce of debris,<\/p>\n
six ounces of thinly sliced meat.<\/p>\n
We then take a Ziploc bag, open up one per order,<\/p>\n
take our thinly sliced meat and our debris,<\/p>\n
and we are gonna recirculate<\/p>\n
or sous vide cook this gently.<\/p>\n
So what sous vide does for us is allow us<\/p>\n
to control the cooking temperature and time.<\/p>\n
It’s gently heating proteins in a water bath<\/p>\n
or a controlled environment, right?<\/p>\n
So think of it as a jacuzzi, if you will,<\/p>\n
set at a perfect temperature<\/p>\n
where protein cook at certain specific temperatures.<\/p>\n
It’s a little bit of science.<\/p>\n
It takes away the guesswork<\/p>\n
because again, the key to greatness is consistency.<\/p>\n
So our meat’s slowly hanging out in the jacuzzi.<\/p>\n
Let’s talk whiz, cheese spread,<\/p>\n
whatever you wanna call it.<\/p>\n
[lively music]<\/p>\n
Provolone, cheddar, American, Cheese Whiz,<\/p>\n
they all have one thing in common,<\/p>\n
whether it’s our alpine blend or not, it’s an aggregate.<\/p>\n
Kind of blankets the whole beef and cloaks it,<\/p>\n
keeps it moist, rich, unctuous, juicy, delicious.<\/p>\n
We make our version of Whiz, if you will,<\/p>\n
with three alpine cheeses,<\/p>\n
so harder, funkier, earthy cheeses.<\/p>\n
We start with Comte, three-year-old Comte from France,<\/p>\n
delicious, funky, semi-soft, kind of creamy, alpine cheese.<\/p>\n
Next up is Hornbacher.<\/p>\n
Hornbacher from upstate New York is a local cheese to us,<\/p>\n
brought in by Murray’s.<\/p>\n
Again, hard semi-soft cheese.<\/p>\n
And the third one, I’m not gonna tell you what it is.<\/p>\n
We take these cheeses, we melt them down.<\/p>\n
We slowly incorporate them till we get this beautiful,<\/p>\n
gloppy, natural Cheese Whiz, if you will.<\/p>\n
One of the other hallmarks<\/p>\n
of a great Philly cheesesteak is onions.<\/p>\n
Here at The Eighty Six, we start with Vidalia onions,<\/p>\n
slowly cooked down in a little bit of white wine,<\/p>\n
some spices, some bay laurel, some thyme,<\/p>\n
and we just really keep ’em slow<\/p>\n
and low cooking down here on the flat top<\/p>\n
until they turn into this beautiful caramelized, onion-y,<\/p>\n
not jam, but just component.<\/p>\n
It’s gonna add a little bit of bite,<\/p>\n
that rich griddle texture to the final product.<\/p>\n
One more hallmark we gotta talk about is the bread<\/p>\n
’cause you forget the bread.<\/p>\n
We bake this bread in house.<\/p>\n
These were baked very early this morning.<\/p>\n
They’re super soft. They are delicious.<\/p>\n
We’re gonna cut it in half,<\/p>\n
and by half, it’s a little bit higher<\/p>\n
towards the top than it is the bottom.<\/p>\n
I want that bottom to really hold it and build that barrier.<\/p>\n
That’s also why we toast it.<\/p>\n
Nobody wants soggy, wet bread, except for the birds.<\/p>\n
Small amount of salted, melted butter,<\/p>\n
and I just kind of mop it in there, right?<\/p>\n
This is gonna help an even browning or Maillard.<\/p>\n
Make sure you do both sides, right?<\/p>\n
Nobody wants to go around bottomless.<\/p>\n
We’re not Donald Duck for Christ’s sakes.<\/p>\n
And we’re gonna toast this on our plancha now.<\/p>\n
It’s just a low temp kind of griddle,<\/p>\n
provides a nice, even, beautiful toast.<\/p>\n
You notice that I’m pressing down on it.<\/p>\n
I wanna make sure I get a nice even brown,<\/p>\n
which is important.<\/p>\n
You don’t want it to be all loose and like mushy<\/p>\n
because you want that bite. [lively music]<\/p>\n
The moment we’ve all been waiting for,<\/p>\n
now we build The Eighty Six cheesesteak.<\/p>\n
Step one, we’re gonna take our beef out of the bath.<\/p>\n
Next up, we’re gonna add a little bit of our au jus<\/p>\n
made from the bones of our Wagyu,<\/p>\n
some of our caramelized white wine onions.<\/p>\n
Feel the acidity from the white wine helps cut<\/p>\n
through the unctuousness of the meat.<\/p>\n
Just wanna separate the layers a little bit<\/p>\n
and make sure we’re getting all of those flavors mixed in.<\/p>\n
This is essentially what you’d be doing on the griddle<\/p>\n
when you’re chopping it up and getting that Maillard.<\/p>\n
Next, our bread, beautifully toasted,<\/p>\n
our caramelized onion and black pepper spread.<\/p>\n
This is gonna add a little bit of richness to it.<\/p>\n
It’s gonna give you a little more depth of flavor.<\/p>\n
It’s gonna keep that bite nice and wet.<\/p>\n
After our black pepper onion spread,<\/p>\n
we put our B&G-inspired relish on top.<\/p>\n
This is B&G peppers, the hot cherry, Italian cherry peppers,<\/p>\n
ground down, and then we add a little bit<\/p>\n
of love from The Eighty Six in there.<\/p>\n
The spiciness kind of cuts through the richness<\/p>\n
of the alpine cheese spread,<\/p>\n
gives you that lacto-fermented tang of it all.<\/p>\n
You have this beautiful bad boy here. Put it right on there.<\/p>\n
We then take our beautiful hot Whiz. Don’t be shy with it.<\/p>\n
You kind of let it go where it wants to.<\/p>\n
Then our topper.<\/p>\n
Oh, look at this bad boy. [lively music]<\/p>\n
We’re gonna cut it into thirds.<\/p>\n
Believe it or not, this is a mid-course here,<\/p>\n
nine out of 10 times here at The Eighty Six.<\/p>\n
For that reason, we cut it into thirds<\/p>\n
so you can share with your guests.<\/p>\n
Put it onto a nice antique silver tray.<\/p>\n
And there you have it, The Eighty Six cheesesteak.<\/p>\n
Hope you’ve enjoyed it. I have.<\/p>\n
I always go for the end. I like the tush of the bread.<\/p>\n
Look at that bite.<\/p>\n
[Michael crunching]<\/p>\n
Oh [beep].<\/p>\n
You get the crunch of the bread.<\/p>\n
You get the unctuousness of the meat,<\/p>\n
the sweet acidity of the onions,<\/p>\n
the spice pepper pickle of the relish,<\/p>\n
then that alpine cheese<\/p>\n
that doesn’t mask the chew of the bread, the sesame,<\/p>\n
the salinity in the meat.<\/p>\n
You can taste the herbs, the unctuous, the debris.<\/p>\n
So you have layers and balance where it pushes<\/p>\n
and pulls you to places.<\/p>\n
Sorry, Gino, Pat, you guys just don’t go there.<\/p>\n
This is my homage to Fat Albert’s.<\/p>\n
It’s a little nod to my pops.<\/p>\n
It is a little bit of me and my history<\/p>\n
and my journey through it, all in this sandwich.<\/p>\n
I wanted to honor the past and elevate it for the future.<\/p>\n
[lively music ending]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[lively music] Hi, I’m Michael Vignola, Chef\/Partner here at The Eighty Six, an intimate New York City West…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":["post-374000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}