Every now and again, the stars align and you get a call from let’s say, your mom with news of a sale on Kobe-style beef. See, my mom gets me. She might not understand all of my nutty obsessions or what fuels them, but she does know to drop me a line when something is just too good to pass up.

Air-dried Skirt Steak

Two years ago, while killing a little time in Barne’s & Noble in downtown Ft. Worth, I was flipping through the latest issue of Saveur when I ran across a full page add for some new-fangled beef that had just become available to the public. I thought, “This is just what we need…something ‘better’ and more expensive than the already heart-stopping American Wagyu.” Then as I was finishing the article, I came to the last paragraph where it gave the contact information for this boutique beef—something to the tune of, “Heartbrand Beef is available at our website blah blah blah, or also from our storefront in Yoakum, TX”

Immediately, I felt the blood vacating my face as I read in Saveur about Yoakum, TX, my hometown. I called my mom and asked her about it. She then made a few phone calls to see what was up and reported back to me that the lady in charge of sales for Heartbrand goes to our church in Yoakum. For crying out loud, I played little league baseball with her son! Things are shaping up nicely.

Heartbrand Beef began in 1994 after a rancher from South Texas found a loophole in the legal system which allowed him to smuggle…ahem, excuse me…EXPORT a small herd of Akaushi cattle out of Japan. The ranchers were determined to keep the herd pure. Over the last decade it has grown to include over 5,000 head of purebread Akaushi cattle (the only herd of its kind existing outside of Japan).

Needles to say, I have had the opportunity to eat a lot of beef from Heartbrand since I found out about them two years ago. One might think that I would go straight for the typically great cuts like ribeye, filets, strips, etc., but the real gem has repeatedly been the skirt steak. It is affordable and metlingly delicious when grilled for traditional fajitas.

When my mom called before Christmas to tell me that a case of skirt steaks were on sale for much less than they should have cost, I placed my order. After New Years came and went, things settled down and I got to thinking about the skirt steak sitting all by itself, lonesome, in the bottom of the freezer when I got an idea to dry-cure it and see how it would taste. Of course, the main prize in Kobe-style beef is the wonderfully-marbled fat, which also happens to be the good-for-you kind, mono-unsaturated. So I thought, why not cure it and do that fat some justice?

After an overnight cure in the fridge, I wrapped it in cheese cloth and let it hang for a week in a small wine refrigerator to dry. If you are new to curing your own meat, the next part might be the most terrifying—eating it for the first time. Even though the directions were followed to a “T”, one still cannot help but think, “I’m about to eat meat that has never been cooked, and even though I remember being Mr. Anal Retentive while measuring out the proportions of pink salt, kosher salt, and sugar, it is still UNCOOKED and botulism kills, man.”

In the end, we survived. No one got violently ill (or ill at all) and there were no midnight trips to the emergency room. What we did get though, was a deliciously concentrated and rich braesola-type skirt steak, that in my opinion can count as dinner when it is sliced as thinly as possible and simply paired with a really old raw milk gouda and some preserved cherries.

If you have a serious desire to make charcuterie at home I strongly suggest purchasing Michael Ruhlman’s book, Charcuterie. It has a wealth of knowledge about the history of cured meats, as well as recipes for the home cook. He goes into great detail about the care that should be taken while curing and storing meat.

Remember folks, white mold is good. Fuzzy and/or any other colored mold is not good. Cut your losses and throw in the trash.