T-Rex Rib Eye from the Tomb Raider Cookbook

For my next recipe from Tomb Raider: The Official Cookbook and Travel Guide, I selected one of the North American dishes, a T. Rex Rib Eye. Now I know what you’re thinking. Do I really have to go back in time 60 million years to hunt a dinosaur and skin it for a steak?

Alas, no, as thrilling as that would be. This recipe uses a ribeye steak, but you could think of yourself as eating a fresh kill if you want. The T. Rex is among Lara Croft’s most enduring opponents, appearing in the first Tomb Raider game in a shocking boss fight after you’ve dispatched a number of red velociraptors. T. Rexes subsequently appeared in Tomb Raider II, III, Anniversary, the mobile games Lara Croft: Relic Run and Tomb Raider Reloaded, and in the season 1 finale of the Netflix anime, Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft. In fact, Lara’s killed so many, she has a T. Rex head on her wall in Tomb Raider III.

As you might expect, the T. Rex in each of its Tomb Raider appearances is a fearsome creature. In the first Core Design trilogy, the T. Rex can damage Lara on contact and also kill her instantly should it bite her. Given their size differences, Lara’s best advantage is to use enclosures around the environments to safely pick the beast off. Anniversary, as a remake of the first Tomb Raider, has the most cinematic battle with a T. Rex, in which you provoke it into lunging at spike traps until it’s wounded enough that it crashes into a ruined palace that collapses on its head, killing it.

But you’re not here to read about T. Rex fights in a game. You want to know about the recipe, and whether I enjoyed it. I did. It's a rib-eye steak, and while it’s supposed to have a bone, I used a boneless steak that I had in my freezer, but otherwise cooked it the same.

There’s not much to say about a steak really. It’s best cooked medium rare (in my opinion), with butter for basting, garlic for flavor, crusty bread to dip into the juices, and any of a multitude of sides. I like bearnaise sauce, fries, a baked or mashed potato, creamed spinach, mushrooms, risotto, asparagus or mac and cheese alongside my steaks (not all at once, of course). In this instance, I paired my steak with Ina Garten’s Easy Parmesan “Risotto” and some roast asparagus.

You begin by salting your steak 1 hour to 3 days before you’re going to cook it. In my case, I did it a few hours ahead of time. Then you make a simple compound butter with herbs; this, too, was done ahead. I planned the asparagus as a simple side vegetable, and the risotto was chosen because I’d made a batch of chicken stock earlier in the week and wanted to use some of it in a dish.

First, you sear the steak. The recipe calls for using a 1 1/2 lb rib eye that’s 1 1/2 inches thick and cooking it for 5 minutes a side to desired doneness. Mine was an inch thick, so I tried cooking it for 4 minutes a side. It ended up being medium well, so I probably could have done with 3 minutes a side. I’m still learning with grilling, it’s a process. On a side note, the risotto, which is cooked in a Dutch oven rather than on the stove the traditional way, was a tad overdone. It probably could have done with half an hour. The method works, so I’ll play around with it to make sure it comes out perfectly.

If you want to make this recipe for T. Rex Rib Eye yourself, you can find it in Tomb Raider: The Official Cookbook and Travel Guide. You can find Ina Garten’s recipe for Easy Parmesan “Risotto” on her website here. For the asparagus, I cooked it in a 350 degree oven with olive oil, salt and red pepper seasoning for 5 minutes.