Why this steak costs Sh7,000

When he jetted into the country five years ago, Tom Dobler, was not coming in for beef business, but lack of good steak across the country made him decide to experiment on the cattle he was handling.

Working at the Morendat Farm in Naivasha as livestock and forage manager, he decided to try different feed for the black and white Boran cows at the ranch.

After months on the new feed, one of the steers was slaughtered. Armed with the T-bone steaks in a cooler, he headed out to the Fairmont ‘s Norfolk hotel in Nairobi.

With the then chef and general manager, they grilled and tasted the steak, beginning the journey to get the perfect piece of steak.

“We saw the gap in the quality of beef and working with Tom’s expertise and our people, we came up with specially bred steers for our hotels,” says Fairmont group executive chef Karan Suri.

The steak served at the Fairmont is from steers that are a cross of Aberdeen Angus and local breeds, mainly the Boran. “The meat from the Boran cows does not taste as good,” explains Tom.

John Muriithi, the executive sous chef at Sankara Hotel in Nairobi, works with steak that’s been aged for 21-days. The beef, also from a cross of Angus and Boran steers is a staple on the menu. “We get our beef from Morendat. It is not a hundred per cent pure Angus,” he says.

Five years ago, aged beef was a little-known, if not entirely foreign, concept in Kenya. The expertise and the supply for premium beef was not readily available. Now, restaurants and hotels with stars to their name boast of aged beef on its steak menu.

Restaurants and hotels including Chef Kiran Jethwa’s Seven Grill, the Fairmont group, Sankara, Hemingways, and Brew Bistro are some of the clients sourcing their aged beef from Morendat. The beef is usually aged for 14 to 21 days or longer depending on the client’s needs.

Dry ageing

The ageing process is not a common practice because in dry ageing, the water loss from the carcass results in weight loss.

“If you slaughter a cow that is roughly 150 kilos, after the ageing process, it may drop to about 130 kilos, so most local farmers choose not to age the meat,” explains Chef John.

At the farm, the slaughter house has three cold rooms. The first is for the initial draining of the fresh carcass for about 48 hours. The ageing process is then done in cold rooms at around one to two degrees Celsius for up to 21 days.

“The beef is handled by only four people, one of whom is a Muslim as our meat is Halal,” explains Tom. The steers are slaughtered one a time after being stunned to prevent them from being agitated, which usually makes the beef tough as a result of tightening muscles,” he adds.
With 15 clients who order for six different classes of meat, the farm delivers 30 steers every week. “We are meeting only a third of the demand,” says Tom.

The cost of premium beef, however, does not come cheap. A kilo of the meat will have an initial cost of Sh625 to Sh925, depending on the class of beef inclusive of the bones.

The most expensive cut of beef is the middle cut as it is the source of the prime cuts. Norfolk’s Tatu restaurant takes up the middle cut of platinum quality beef.

“A middle cut will weigh between 65 and 75 kilos and cost about $20 a kilo (Sh1,740),” Says Chef Karan.

Sankara take up half the steer while Hemingways take a whole steer. When the carcass is purchased, the restaurants usually have to butcher the meat themselves.

According to Ceaser Mutuku, the Josper chef at Hemingways Nairobi, they use the seam system to cut up the steer “it is an old method of following muscle after muscle to cut the beef,” he explains.

With prime beef steak on menus costing between Sh4,000 and Sh7,000, the question of how the pricing is done arises. When purchasing the initial cut, the cost is inclusive of the bones, most of which will not make it to the plate.

The cost also does not take into consideration the delivery cost and positioning of the restaurant. According to Chef Karan, the cost of transport, labour, yield, wastage among others result in the cost tripling or quadrupling by the time it is on the plate.

Prime cuts

Prime cuts of beef include the rib-eye steak, T-bone steak, the New York strip, Sirloin, tenderloin (filet mignon), which are usually in high demand from clientele frequenting high-end hotels.

The high demand for the pieces, which are less than 10 each in a single cow, is what raises the cost.

“In Kenya, we do not have an efficient butchering system where you can just order specific cuts,” explains Chef Karan, “we usually get a part of the carcass and do the cuts ourselves.”

As a preference by the chefs Karan (Norfolk), John (Sankara) and Ceaser (Hemingways), using a seasoning of salt and pepper, steak should be served rare or medium rare.

“The animal is already dead, there is no need to kill it again,” jokes chef Karan.

The common misconception according to the chefs is that the juices from rare meat is blood.

“The animal has been drained and aged, so what is left are just the natural juices that give the steak its flavour,” he explains.

According to Chef John, overcooking a steak to the popular ‘well done’ drains out all the flavour and juices leaving a chewy, stringy chunk of meat.

A personal trick by chef Karan on how to disguise the redness in the meat for a first time is to douse it with the sauce that accompanies the steak.

At Hemingways, the steak is grilled in a unique josper oven that uses charcoal and gives the meat a uniquely smoky taste, a signature taste for the hotel.

On hand at the Morendat farm to give the BDLife crew a tour, Tom takes us through the different breeds at the farm. The Simmental cows are mainly used for milk. A cross of a Simmental, Angus (25 per cent) and Boran (25 per cent) makes for a good steer.

Correct Feed

According to Tom, good beef comes from having the correct feed for the cattle, the right breed, knowledge on how to slaughter and the ageing process.

Before slaughter, the steers are usually on a 180 day grain feeding programme. This feed consists of lucerne hay, dry maize and wet maize specially fermented and mixed for the cows.

A Boran cow takes twice as much feed to give 55 per cent dressing (the amount of meat expected from a fed steer), whereas a Simmental steer will have a 60 to 65 per cent dressing.

By the time of slaughter, the cows weigh about 650-670 kilos live weight. Each animal has a well-documented history including the parent breed, hardiness, weight at birth all the way until slaughter. The animals not slaughtered are kept or sold to other ranches for breeding.

Premium product meat is not limited to the beef alone. Hotels are now adding Molo lamb and Dorper lamb to their menu. Dorper lamb at the Morendat farms usually weighs 40 kilos at slaughter.