Italian · dinner
25m
Total time
2
Servings
680
kcal
medium
Difficulty
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FAQ · Things people ask
A well-marbled, dry-aged Angus or Hereford T-bone or porterhouse works well. Dry-aging (minimum 21 days) matters more than breed — it develops the concentrated beefy flavour and tenderness that Chianina delivers naturally. Ask your butcher to cut it to 5–6 cm.
Salt applied to raw beef pulls moisture to the surface via osmosis. On a hot grill, that moisture steams instead of searing, preventing the Maillard crust that defines the dish. Salt immediately post-cook gives you full seasoning without the crust-killing moisture draw.
Gas works but you lose the smoke and searing power of oak or holm-oak charcoal embers. If using gas, crank every burner to maximum and let the grates preheat for 20 minutes. A large cast-iron skillet over a very hot gas burner is a reasonable indoor alternative — ventilate well, it will smoke.
Chianina is a lean breed with fine muscle fibres. Cooked past rare, it becomes dry and tight — there isn't enough intramuscular fat to keep it moist through medium. The dish is built around barely-warm beef. Cooking it further is, in Florentine terms, a category error.
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