Expert Article
How to Cook a Perfect Steak
A step-by-step guide on perfecting steak
Food is so funny, everyone knows what tastes good yet not everybody knows how to make it taste good. There is also nothing more primal than steak. Yet this seems to be the most hotly contested cooking item. Cooking a steak is easy, but doing it well brings you down a rabbit hole of understanding chemical reactions and deep food science. My first memory of steak was…abysmal. I hated steak. I thought it was too tough and didn't have enough flavor. I would rather have a hamburger. After hundreds of steaks, countless food classes, and hundreds of hours of online instruction I have finally changed that opinion. Now I can clearly outline it for you to impress your next date, and save yourself hundreds of hours.
Picking the perfect steak:
It all starts at the grocery store. Regardless of what cut you want, the most important factor is amble marbling. As Gordon Ramsey states in a masterclass article, “Marbling is the white flecks of intramuscular fat in meat…affects meat's juiciness, tenderness, texture, and flavor.”
The photo shows the difference in marbling between cuts of meat. Marbling will be a large determinant of the flavor and tenderness of the steak. No matter how well you cook a steak if it is poorly marbled it can only taste so good.
If you are picking out a ribeye, be mindful of the ribeye cap. This is the outer portion of the ribeye that is known as being the most tender and flavorful part of the steak as Kenji, a New York Times culinary director described. The larger the cap the better.
Attributes to be mindful of:
Marbling
Thicker steak will allow more time for crust to develop when cooking
Tenderness of the specific cut
Flavor of specific cut
Preparing the steak:
Every person salts wrong. If you salt before the cooking process you are just salting the outside. Dry brining is a process where you salt the steak for hours before cooking and let the process of osmosis allow the salt to penetrate the steak. Sasha Marx, an award-winning restaurant chef, outlined the benefits in his article. He explained how it allows for the salt flavor to be present throughout the steak while also tenderizing the cut. The optimal time to dry brine depending on the thickness of the steak is below.
Cooking the steak:
Two inferior methods of cooking steak are often used in restaurants but have their downsides making them suboptimal to making the perfect steak:
Sous Vide
A recent innovation that allows great control and consistency and is often used in restaurants. Sous Vide cooks the steak by slowly warming the steak up to temperature in a warm bath of water. The steak is put in a bag and dropped in the water where the device regulates the temperature. While this process does take a while it allows for evenly cooked steaks. After the steak is cooked, you then take the steak out of the bag and sear it to create a crust.
This is not my preferred method because of the inability to get a good sear and also the microplastics. Water is the enemy of a sear, and because the steak is vacuum sealed in the bag the moisture that gets released in the cooking process surrounds the outside of the steak. This moisture combined with the steak already being at the perfect temperature makes it very hard to develop a sear without overcooking the steak. In a scientific article published in the Environmental Health Perspectives, “...products sampled leached chemicals having reliably detectable estrogenic activity including those advertised as BPA free. In some cases, BPA-free products released chemicals having more EA than BPA-containing products.”
Reverse Sear:
This is a popular method for those without a Sous Vide machine and instead an oven. While there aren't the health risks of sous vide, there is more juice lost in this process and less control than the sous vide.
My patented way:
I created a method that values the even doneness of sous vide while also creating a strong sear. A strong sear is crucial to the texture of the steak and the meaty flavor. An even doneness creates a tender cut of steak that melts in your mouth.
A cast iron is a thicker pan that holds heat very well. This heat retention means that when the steak hits the pan the pan will not decrease in temperature. This higher temperature is crucial to ensuring a strong sear on the steak.
You want to use avocado oil as it has a very high smoke point. The increased smoke point allows the oil to get to a higher temperature before burning. The pan should be to the point of smoking which is at 530F.
The reason for the hot pan is to create a maillard reaction. Acton, a food scientist at Clemson, describes the maillard reaction as, “Maillard reaction is the non-enzymatic browning reaction of reducing sugars with amines and typically involves amino acids, proteins, and peptides.” The maillard reaction is the browning process where proteins are transitioned and the crust of the steak is formed. Schulze, who has a Ph.D. in food science, talks about why we find the maillard reaction so delectable, “The Maillard reaction is evolution's way of combining these two signals(nutrition and general harmlessness) into one super-signal, specific to the roasty or browned flavors of cooked food.” This browning process is what creates the strong steak umami flavor. The maillard reaction happens around 300F.
So why does the pan have to be over 500F, wouldn't that just burn the steak?
No, as soon as the room temperature steak hits the pan the heat transfer instantly cools down the pan to around this 300F level.
Before putting the steak in the pan it is very important to dry off the steak and remove any moisture on the surface. Any moisture will create steam and slows the maillard and browning process.
If cooking a new york steak make sure to cook the fat cap first. This will release oil into the pan aiding in the searing process. Additionally, the fat cooks slower than the meat, and cooking it first will ensure both are cooked at the end.
When the pan is hot and there is a healthy amount of oil in the pan press the steak in the pan. Then move the steak after 1 minute to a new part of the pan so the temperature can be at the optimal level.
After the sear is developed on one side of the steak you want to flip the steak to a new part of the pan. Move the steak every so often until a sear is developed. It should look like this
Then you rest the steak. This is very important as it will continue to cook. This process is called carry-over cooking. The heat from the outside of the steak will transfer inwards, cooking the inside. This creates even doneness. If you try to keep the steak on the pan until the internal temperature is reached then it will lead to an overcooked exterior and only the very center being cooked to the ideal level. This will make the steak overall more tough and well done.
Often after searing and resting the steak will still be under the 120F needed for medium rare. This is when we are able to finish the cooking process while adding flavor to the steak. Place the steak back in the cold pan with butter, garlic, rosemary, and time. This is when you baste the butter over the steak. This will add flavor from the aromatics to the steak and increase the depth of flavors.
The final step is cutting into your perfect steak and enjoying it.
Recommended sauces:
Bearnaise
Bordelaise
And never A1 sauce.
Citations:
Alt, J. Kenji. “Meet the Ribeye Cap, the Tastiest Cut on the Cow.” Serious Eats, Serious Eats, 1 Nov. 2023, www.seriouseats.com/meet-the-ribeye-cap-the-tastiest-cut-on-the-cow.
J.C. Acton, P.L. Dawson, 25 - Impact of proteins on food colour,Editor(s): R.Y. Yada, In Woodhead Publishing Series in Food Science, Technology and Nutrition, Proteins in Food Processing, Woodhead Publishing, 2004, Pages 631-668
Marx, Sasha. “Dry-Brining Is the Best Way to Brine Meat, Poultry, and More.” Serious Eats, Serious Eats, 31 Oct. 2023, www.seriouseats.com/how-to-dry-brine.
Schulze, Eric. “An Introduction to the Maillard Reaction.” Serious Eats, Serious Eats, 13 May 2023, www.seriouseats.com/what-is-maillard-reaction-cooking-science.
“What Is Marbling in Meat? Learn about the Different Types of Marbling and What Factors Impact Marbling - 2024.” MasterClass, www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-marbling-in-meat-learn-about-the-different-types-of-marbling-and-what-factors-impact-marbling. Accessed 9 Feb. 2024.
Yang CZ, Yaniger SI, Jordan VC, Klein DJ, Bittner GD. Most plastic products release estrogenic chemicals: a potential health problem that can be solved. Environ Health Perspect 2011;119(7):989-996.
Picture 1: https://playswellwithbutter.com/cast-iron-steak-recipe/
Photo 3:
https://theblackironblog.com/2020/05/25/butchering-ribeye-cap-steaks-at-home/
Photo 4: Science of Great Barbeque and Grilling by Meathead Goldwyn
Photo 5:https://www.zwilling.com/uk/zwilling-enfinigy-sous-vide-stick-white-53102-802-0/53102-802-0.html
Photo 6: Taken by me
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