American vs Japanese Wagyu

today we're doing a nice little comparison today's video will be a little bit different than what we traditionally do instead of just making one hero dish we're actually going to do more of a comparison people often get confused by how many different types of meat there are there's so many terms that fly around wagyu kobe beef steak a5 and then within wagyu there's all these very particular names that can actually get quite confusing and on top of that there are a million different cuts of meat tenderloin sirloin tomahawk i get it it gets really confusing but today we'll do a nice simple comparison that i think will be really fun i've got two strip loins right next to me but one of them is american wagyu while the other is japanese wagyu so we'll get a nice simple comparison going fundamentally what makes these two things different how do they look different how do they cook different what's the difference when you're cooking them and i think most importantly what's the difference in taste flavor this right here is an american wagyu strip one take a really nice close look at the marbling on this already you can tell this would be a much higher quality piece of meat compared to the beef you might get at the supermarket up the road if i were to go into that supermarket and lay this next to all the other meat your eyes would be drawn right to this piece while it may not be the prettiest marbling you've ever seen there's a really good blend between fat and meat here but just wait until you see the japanese wacky this right here is the same cut except instead of american wagyu this is japanese a5 wagyu to get into specifics this is an a5 takamori stripline both are between 10 and 12 ounces so i'm keeping everything pretty standard across the board to compare these two pieces but right away can't you see that difference in marbling just look how complex and amazing it is up here you would be an absolute awe if this was sitting at your supermarket next to everything else while the american stands out nothing compares to what i'm holding right here now you'll notice i'm still holding these in the packaging i've talked about this before but particularly in our japanese wagyu here if i hold that fat it's going to start melting immediately in my hand all this wagyu as usual is from my go-to spot the wagyu shop that has never and will never be an ad this is where i buy my wagyu beef i've tried literally every single place you can get wagyu online and this is my spot before we cook these up let me go ahead and tell you a few of the differences between these two because it'll kind of help with context to know what we're getting ourselves into the most important difference between american and japanese wagyu is all about genetics japanese wagyu are full blood which means that both parents must have a hundred percent wagyu genetics obviously that's not the same case for american wagyu the genetics are verified through dna testing and bloodlines are very carefully traced now on the other end of the spectrum american wagyu are crossbred which means that the parents are one full-blood wagyu cattle crossed with another breed which usually happens to be black angus but american wagyu do have to be at least 50 wagyu genetics not surprisingly outside of genetics the way these are raised makes another huge difference aside from american wagyu being domestic and japanese wagyu being imported of course the cattle are fed for different lengths of time american wagyu are fed anywhere between 250 and 450 days japanese wagyu are fed for over 600 days and many times over 700 days that's an insane difference in terms of the actual product we've obviously tried japanese a5 numerous times now and we know that it'll have that melt-in-your-mouth buttery texture the actual color is also a little bit lighter more pinkish the actual loins and steaks that are cut from them are naturally going to be wider knowing that japanese cattle are much larger than their american counterparts now we won't quite be able to cut this with a fork the way we can do with japanese wagyu but this will still be much better than any usda prime product i don't know about you but i'm getting a little tired of just talking about these steaks let's cook them up and try them out now that i've got both my steaks laid out on my cutting board it's time to season them up they've been resting out of room temperature long enough that we're ready to cook them you don't want to rest these for too long at room temp especially the japanese wagyu because there are just so much fat there and like a stick of butter it's going to start melting on you i like to keep it very simple when cooking wagyu i really like to taste the flavor that's within just a little bit of salt over the top of each one i'm going to use a really fine salt today both of these cuts of meat are the stars today and we're just trying to compare them as they are i don't need any fancy salt action right now i'll flip both of them over and salt the other sides then once some of that salt is spilled all over my cutting board i'll gently press the edges of each cut of meat to make sure that everything is coated in salt same thing for my piece of japanese wagyu now that we've taken them out of the packaging i want to show you another close-up look at that marbling it really is fascinating how perfect these pieces of meat are and it's a treat every single time i get to cook one of these up and i don't want to leave out the american wagyu that is a damn good-looking piece of beef right there but again the difference in marbling kind of reminds me of a parent and child making an art piece next to each other everything's always relative and one of them is going to turn out looking pretty silly compared to the other ones now these are well seasoned let's cook them up now i'll crank the heat up with my carbon steel pan you can see that this bad boy has some weird coloring on it and like a cast iron it's going to build up that dark patina patena whatever it's called over time to start i think i want to do my american wagyu because it's a little bit thicker so i'll leave it a little bit more time to rest before we cut these open once my pan gets nice and hot these steaks are going to be cooked in slightly different ways the american wagyu has a nice fat cap here so to lubricate our whole pan and start the cooking process i'm going to render off this fat now once that oil gets nice and hot lay your pan flat and start to build up that crust leave this here and just let it go for several minutes to build up that crust and once you get a nice crust on that first side flip that over once your meat is finished take this out and first admire that crust that you got in there but then rest it for about 15 minutes on a wire rack now for our second steak i had to cut off the corner because i didn't think the whole thing would fit in my pan but this actually helps me out this little piece of fat right here will help to lubricate up the pan the same way we have that fat cap for our american wagon as you can tell this japanese wagyu does not have much of a fat cap on top the whole thing is a fat cap so i'll toss in my little trimmings here and let that fat start to render off in the pan basically just move those around until you can see a small pool of oil build up in your pan we need to make sure that this pan is really hot for the japanese wagyu because it doesn't cook for long on each side at all now once our pan begins to smoke we're ready to put this in again pretty quick on each side we're just looking for that nice thin crust and getting it a little bit cooked on each side and listen for that sizzle now just leave it if we have a hot pan here it shouldn't take very long to get a crust so i'm now going to flip this over we nailed that crust absolutely killed it once we're all set here i'll carefully lift out this piece of meat admiring that beautiful crust on there and lay it down to rest as well i'm really happy with the crust and the color that we got on both of these steaks what's interesting is that even though we have the same temperature you can see that this gets a slightly lighter crust than this one i'm honestly not sure why that is but let's cut into these bad boys i'll start by moving my tray out of the way and resting them both down on my cutting board let's start by looking at the crust on that american wagyu this thing is absolutely dripping that crust that we got in there is just incredible and no it's definitely not burnt i am so excited to cut into this bad boy now let's move on over to our japanese strip line as you can see this thing's got a really nice crust as well it doesn't have quite as thick a crust built up with that said it's still got a really nice hard crust on here and it's also just dripping with juice and fat let's cut into both of these and see how they look to start i'll grab my knife and just go for it with this one i want to start right down the middle and here we have the moment of truth perfect keep in mind that we could eat all of this meat raw i know you've heard of steak tartar i'll cut through this entire steak just so we can flip it up and give it a little bit more seasoning at the middle there i also just want to show you this up close this right here is a perfectly cooked piece of wagyu like a lot of people i typically like my steak medium rare and temperature wise this is dead on medium rare right here now before we season that anymore let's cut this one open too these are a heck of a lot easier to cook because again you really just quickly need to sear it on either side it's not too hard to cook up a piece of really high-end japanese wagyu in my opinion as long as you know the correct technique i'll flip all these pieces up and right away i can tell that it's perfect again it's fairly hard to mess up the cooking process of this one as you can see with this japanese wagyu here we've absolutely killed it and if you look even closer you can still see that perfect marbling of fat and beef to start i have a little treat a nice little additional twist for our video over the last week or so i've been curing egg yolks it's a very simple process and i'll make a video on it soon but right now i'm digging out one of these egg yolks inside this even mixture of salt and sugar is a cured egg yolk once i brush off the rest of that sugar you have your cured egg yolk now once we've rinsed it off with water you can see that we have that perfect beautiful yolk that almost looks like a dried apricot i've already gone ahead and dried the rest of the yolks in the oven so we're now at the point that i can take one of these yolks and take a little microplane grater here and really nicely grate it over the top of my beef you can see that that's just like parmesan cheese it's actually really cool then i'll hit my beef with just a little bit of white flaky salt to season the inside of that beef that we couldn't hit when we seasoned initially as far as i'm concerned that right there is one of the most beautiful bites that you can possibly have when it comes to food now that these beauties have been treated with yolk and flaky salt let's eat now this is the moment we've clearly all been waiting for on the left we have american wagyu and on the right we have japanese a5 wagyu both the same cut both the same size around 10 12 ounces both with the same seasoning we kept this fight as even as we could since we cooked the american first i feel like it's only fair if we try it first here we go oh that is gonna be hard to beat that that's fire is it actually good yeah the way that i'm going to think about the american wagyu is that it's the best piece of normal steak that you could possibly ever have think about going into any steakhouse and getting the nicest steak on the menu maybe one that's not wagyu and having them cook it perfectly serve it nice and bubbly hot and treat it with just the right amount of seasoning that's what we've nailed right here it's got that perfect chewiness but also that perfect combo of fat there that's just so hard to beat but now let's hop over to that japanese wagyu see what we got going on again that looks pretty damn ridiculous but i'm not gonna say anything until i try it so let's go i do want to start by saying that i can very easily just tear this apart it's soft it's amazing but i'm not going to get biased here we go i see a balloon floating up outside i got distracted see the balloon oh yeah it's pretty cool huh i love balloons it's so crazy good i got the perfect answer for everybody we kind of knew a lot of this stuff going into it this one definitely has a higher balance of fat to me but this one over here is more similar to your traditional steak but it's also just the best dang traditional steak you could ever ask for so here's how i'll put it if i'm having one little tiny bite and i want that perfect amazing insane bite of meat that's gonna blow my mind i'm probably gonna choose that hot bubbly buttery piece of japanese wacky and let me just tell you that that cured egg yolk on the top is insane but if i'm sitting down to eat a really good steak and i want to have an entire thing for my dinner i'd probably pick the american wagyu every single time with that said these were both insane and i'm really happy that we did this the other thing that i do love about the american wagyu is that i can get that really nice thick crust on there and there's something about eating meat with a really nice crust on the edge i just absolutely love it's just hard to beat and if you grow up eating steak that's how you have it so it's just nice to have it that way with that said i really hope you enjoyed the video please don't forget to like comment subscribe and i want to thank each and every one of you for all your support hope you loved it in the meantime i hope you'll excuse me because i got a lot of meat to eat oh oh god

Channel: Nick DiGiovanni

Views: 2,096,205

Keywords: wagyu, steak, japanese wagyu, american wagyu, Nick DiGiovanni, Cooking, Food, Chef, Recipe, Gordon Ramsay, Kitchen, ASMR, MasterChef, Osmo Salt, Salt Bae, Learn To Cook, Knife Drop, Cookbook, Kid-Friendly, Kid’s Recipes, Kid’s Cooking

Id: 0UDqfRn_ECk

Length: 10min 42sec (642 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 23 2021