My Secrets to Perfect Grilling

Memorial Day weekend kicks off the summer grilling season at our house! One of my favorite meals when I'm eating at home is a ribeye grilled over a wood fire served with fresh sliced tomatoes. A thick ol' ribeye is perfect for a backyard grillmaster like me. You don't have to watch it every second that it's over the coals as you do a leaner steak like tenderloin. And it's a great-tasting cut time after time.

When the weather is good, I grill a lot because it's a quick and easy way to prepare a meal. I prefer to cook over wood coals, and my two favorite woods, mesquite and pecan, are readily available throughout Texas year-round. The downside to using wood rather than charcoal is that you have to plan ahead. You have to light the wood, let it catch fire and then wait until it burns down to coals before you can start grilling. So wood takes a little longer than charcoal, which is always a great second choice.

As the wood burns down into coals, I get the steaks ready by applying a rub. My special rub includes sea salt, coarse ground pepper, minced fresh garlic and dried oregano. I want to tell you: Put that on there, and it just doesn't get any better. I also like the Italian Grilling Rub in the recipe section on my website.

I like my steaks medium rare so I cook them about 5 to 6 minutes per side and turn them just once. The best tool to determine doneness is an instant-read meat thermometer. For medium rare, you want the internal temperature to read 140 to 145 degrees F and medium is 160 degrees F.

I like cold steak leftovers, so I always cook a few more steaks on the grill than I need for that meal. My family will either put the remaining steaks in a salad the next day or eat them in steak sandwiches.

Those are my secrets to perfect beef cooked on the home grill. I've got a different preference when I eat at a restaurant. But I'll save that for a future piece.

The Perfect Steakhouse Steak

While I love to cook, I do enjoy a good steak in a restaurant now and then. For me a good steak is essential to making restaurant dining pleasurable. Steak just has better flavor than any other protein that we can eat.

When I’m cooking a steak at home, I choose the ribeye. But a long time ago, I decided to order the filet whenever I ate at a steakhouse. The filet is from the tenderloin and the tenderloin is the leanest and tenderest of all beef cuts. Choosing this single cut solved two issues for me: I didn’t spend a lot of time reading the menu, and I’d always be satisfied with the combination of taste and tenderness when the steak arrived at my table. That’s because most steakhouse chefs have deep experience at cooking this thick premium steak perfectly.

I like the filet served with a side dish of creamed spinach and, if we’re drinking wine, I like the Silver Oak Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine is a longtime personal favorite of mine and I think it is ideal to complement the flavor of beef.

One of my favorite restaurants to enjoy filet and creamed spinach is The Little Rhein Steakhouse in San Antonio. This restaurant has been on the San Antonio River for as long as I can remember, and I’ll get over there to eat at least three or four times a year. I’ve always enjoyed sitting in the outside dining area overlooking the river on a fall or spring evening.

Feel free to use my ordering strategy with your favorite steak the next time you’re at your local steakhouse. And if you’re ever in San Antonio, check out the Little Rhein. It really brings together all the sights and sensations of the Alamo City.

Joining the Texas Rangers

If you've followed my blog or read my newsletter, you know my three passions in life are my family, my beef operation and baseball. So you can imagine my excitement when Texas Rangers' owner Tom Hicks appointed me as president of that professional baseball team.

My family agreed that I should accept the position. So I took over all aspects of the Texas Rangers' organization at the beginning of February. Between settling in the headquarters in Arlington and traveling to Arizona to watch veterans and prospects at spring training, time has flown by.

So I'm a little late in getting this message out to you. But I want you to know how important it is to me to balance out this new pursuit with everything else I have built.

At the top of that list is Nolan Ryan's Beef. I pledge to you that I will continue to maintain the highest standards for our beef products from our pastures to your table.

Today, I am on my Texas ranches checking my cows during their spring calving season. And even as you read this, many of your stores are rolling out a battery of new Nolan Ryan's Guaranteed Tender Beef products including pre-cooked burgers.

In partnership with Kroger, we also are launching a distinct new line of beef called Nolan Ryan's Premium Reserve.
This new line features beef from cattle of verified age and from identified producers who “never, ever” administered antibiotics or growth-promoting hormones. You told us you wanted this product, and now it will be available at Kroger by the end of March.

These are just a few ways I'll continue to listen to you at the same time I'm watching the Rangers move toward a pennant.

Before closing, I want to comment on the recent beef recall sourced to a plant in California. We did no business with the companies impacted by the recall. At the same time, I can assure you this was an isolated incident caused by a breakdown in process that may never happen again.

As an industry, beef producers follow best management practices that ensure animal care and provide our customers with only the safest, most wholesome beef. For an example, you need look no farther than Nolan Ryan's Beef procurement and processing program. Once you do, we feel certain you'll understand why you can be confident in the process controls we have in place. Visit our website at www.nolanryanbeef.com for more details.

Cow Watching

Over the years, my favorite pastime outside baseball is driving through a pasture looking at cattle. It doesn't matter whether they belong to me or one of my ranching colleagues.

I got the inspiration for this from one of my cattle mentors, Homer Herring, who has ranched for many decades in South Texas. When I just started in this business, Ruth and I visited Homer and his family every year. After lunch, we'd climb in his pickup and look at his cattle all afternoon. Homer would teach us how to determine whether his cattle progressed from the previous year.

We've adopted Homer's techniques for our own cattle. First thing Ruth and I do when we arrive at each ranch during calving season is check the condition of the cows and calves. Then we'll examine the pairs one by one to notice whether our personal herd decisions are helping move our calves in the direction that we want to go as a beef company. We repeat the appraisal again about nine months later when we wean the calves off their mothers.

The process doesn't stop even after the calves go into the feedlot. I'll make a visit every time I'm in the area to observe my calves in their pens and make sure they are making progress toward becoming what I consider the perfect beef animal. If you have tried our beef, email us at info@nolanryanbeef.com and let us know how we're doing.

I guess it's understating when I say I really enjoy looking at cattle. In fact I'll bore people riding with me because I look at them so long. I can't tell you how many times I've looked over at Ruth after an afternoon of driving through pastures, and she's been asleep. But Ruth and I will never stop doing it because we know the ranchers that truly excel in this business have a passion for their cattle and are always striving to get better.

Well, calving season is just around the corner and I'll enjoy every minute of driving those pastures.

Happy Holidays from the Ryan's!

On behalf of Ruth, myself and our entire family, I want to extend our sincerest wishes for a safe and happy holiday season to you and your family! We'll be spending the holidays at the ranch with our children and grandchildren. We hope that you'll be spending special time with your family and loved ones as well.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

A Day in the Life

People often ask me what I do these days now that I’m not playing baseball. Sometimes it can be hard for athletes to go from a professional career to the real world. But I’ve been blessed to continue to work in baseball while also focusing on my other loves – my family and raising beef. Balancing those three passions is my biggest challenge.

In baseball, I’m an owner of the minor league baseball teams the Round Rock Express and the Corpus Christi Hooks. On days that I’m home in Central Texas, I’ll work from my office. And if it’s during the season, I’ll attend as many of the Round Rock Express home games as I can.

I’m also special assistant to the president for the Houston Astros. That means I go to Houston a couple of times a month during the season. In the off-season, I attend the mini-camps, and then I go to spring training in Florida for a couple of weeks to work with the minor leaguers.

Every week I’ll also make it to one of my ranches. I have managers at each of the ranches and they do the daily operations, but I like to spend two or three days at each ranch working cattle or other chores that need attention. When I go to the Ray Ranch in South Texas, I’m just a short drive from Corpus Christi. So I’ll incorporate a trip to the Hooks office and maybe see a game or two while I’m there. That way I’ll combine my ranch visits and my baseball commitments on one trip to the area.

But of all the things I do, family is the most important. Ruth and I helped solve the family dilemma by moving to Central Texas to be near our three children and their families. Ruth’s parents also moved to the area so we’re all able to stay in touch on a regular basis. And being with my family makes the rest of my “jobs” all that much more enjoyable.

The Natural Approach

Some people confuse the terms “organic” and “natural.” Organic beef follows stringent requirements that include never allowing the cattle to eat anything but certified organic feed and never giving it antibiotics even for healing purposes.

By comparison, the beef that my partners and I send from our ranches to your plate is an all- natural product. We manage our cattle to meet the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) definition for natural: Our products never contain any additives. In addition, the products we produce are never more than minimally processed.

I've included a few pictures here of ranchers and partners involved in our program. The first photo is of Chuck Schronk, Charlie Harrod, a rancher from Arkansas, myself and Wendell Schronk of Beefmaster Breeders United, San Antonio, Texas. The second picture is of me talking with Dr. Charles Graham, DVM of Gonzales, Texas.

We provide our customers this assurance by working only with licensed feedlots that feed only high quality grain. We even guarantee that our cattle receive no growth hormone implants or antibiotics during the last 100 days of the feeding period to go beyond the “minimally processed” requirement.

But there’s much more going on with our natural beef products. Because we want to provide you with some of the finest beef that you’ll ever eat, we work with others in the beef industry to achieve huge strides in beef quality assurance.

That means we raise and handle our cattle with the finest care. Our customers have demanded this and we have moved much further down the road in providing high levels of cattle care than ever before.

Ranchers refer to the mood of cattle as their disposition. And it’s our goal to create an environment that generates only cattle with good dispositions 100 percent of the time. We have built our cattle working facilities so that our cattle are always comfortable. And we support beef industry efforts to educate the trucking companies that transport our cattle from the feedlot to the processing plant to ensure that they understand how to keep these cattle stress-free through harvest.

Our commitment to you doesn’t end there, however. Nolan Ryan's Guaranteed Tender Beef selects only the tenderest beef at the processing plant. We then age it for 14 days to be sure every bite is tender and full of flavor. We are proud that USDA certifies our tenderness and aging process.

Remember: Natural does not mean organic. However, perhaps what you are really looking for is beef that is minimally processed yet provides other quality and cattle-care components. If so, that’s what we produce with Nolan Ryan's Guaranteed Tender Meats.