210From Dairy to Dinner
Sliced sous vide beef, pink edge to edge, on a wooden board on a garden table.

Recipes

Cooking a retired dairy cow

Eleven years of grass makes beef with more flavour than any young steer, and more work in the muscle. Here’s how to cook it.

The magic ingredient

Sous vide is your friend

An old dairy cow has worked for her muscles. Fast, fierce heat tightens that work into toughness; long, gentle heat turns it into tenderness. That’s sous vide: the meat sealed in a bag, cooked in a water bath held at exactly the temperature you want, for exactly as long as it needs.

Our magic ingredient is an Anova Precision Cooker. Clip it to a pot of water, set the temperature, and it holds the bath steady for two hours for a ribeye or two days for a brisket. Then a minute in a smoking-hot pan for the crust.

It’s the closest thing to a cheat for older beef: edge-to-edge pink, no guesswork, and the deep flavour that only comes from a cow who lived a long life on grass.

Sous vide safety

  • Whole cuts (steaks, joints) can be pink in the middle: bacteria live on the surface, so a hard sear deals with them.
  • Mince and burgers must be cooked through: 70°C for 2 minutes at the centre, or an equivalent such as 60°C held for 45 minutes.
  • Don’t keep raw meat between 5°C and 54.4°C for more than 4 hours. All our long cooks are at 55°C or above.
  • Chill fast anything you’re not eating straight away: into iced water in its bag, then the fridge.

Sources: Food Standards Agency burger guidance; Douglas Baldwin, A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking.

In the kitchen

Bag, bath, sear, slice

Three seasoned steaks vacuum-sealed in bags on a weathered garden table.
Seasoned and sealed
An Anova sous vide cooker clipped to a water bath, its display reading 55.0 degrees, with bagged beef in the water.
55°C in the Anova
A large scored steak searing in a heavy pan.
A hard sear
Sous vide beef sliced on a wooden board, pink from edge to edge.
Pink edge to edge
The sear: a blowtorch gives a crust without cooking the middle
Or finish over flames

Photographs and phone video by Digby Oldridge.

The recipes

Sliced pink steak and thin chips on a white plate, on the grass. Main course · 2 hr 25 min Retired dairy cow ribeye, sous vide and searedTwo hours at 55°C, then a hard sear. Edge-to-edge pink, and all the flavour an eleven-year-old cow puts into a steak. A butcher’s hands work a knife through a joint of beef on a wooden block. Main course · 48 hr 30 min 48-hour sous vide brisketTime does what the years did. Two days at 57°C turns the hardest-working cut of an old cow into something you can cut with a spoon. A large scored steak, seared dark brown, resting on a wooden board. Main course · 24 hr 20 min Top blade, 24 hours at 55°CThe cut the Swedish chef Magnus Nilsson used for his famous retired dairy cow. A day in the bath makes it tender and keeps it pink. A long white lunch table laid with sliced beef, carrots, beans, gravy and red wine. Main course · 2 hr 25 min Safe, juicy sous vide burgersOld dairy cow makes brilliant mince. Sous vide lets you cook burgers safely all the way through and still keep them juicy. A wooden board of sliced salami with cornichons, pickled onions and a pot of butter, a toy cow behind. Starter · 10 min Bresaola, rocket and ParmesanNo cooking at all. Old dairy cow, cured and air-dried for six weeks, sliced thin with lemon and good oil. Looking down on a long table laid with white cloth, glasses, bread and boards of charcuterie. Stock · 10 hr 20 min Nose to tail: proper beef broth from the bonesNothing wasted. Roasted bones from a retired dairy cow make a deep, golden broth for soups, gravies and risotto.

The chef who cooked 210: Marcel and the Eagle Tavern. The curer who made her bresaola: Peter, The Cotswold Curer. Ageing and cooking a steak from an old cow: advice from a Swedish charcuterie.

Can’t find retired dairy cow? See Where to Buy for the butchers who sell it, or Where to Eat for the restaurants.