Steak Revolution

Now that you know what to look for when choosing a perfectly delicious steak, let’s consider the three best ways to cook it: grilling, frying, and reverse-searing. You can push any steak to perform reasonably well using any one of these methods, but you will have much more satisfying results when you can properly connect the right steak to the right method.

GRILLING

The biggest advantage to grilling a steak over charcoal or gas flame is that you can create an environment that is both hot and dry. Using a gas grill, the cooking environment is somewhat less dry, since the combustion of propane or natural gas produces some water vapour. (If you doubt this, hold a glass a few inches above your gas flame for a second and watch it fog up.) Hardwood lump charcoal (which is my favourite way to grill steak) burns significantly hotter than gas. Still, gas offers a more than tolerable alternative to charcoal grilling.

This hot, dry way of cooking works well for thicker steaks because you can develop a flavourful crust without the impediment of moisture, and add flavour to the steak as it connects with smoky and gaseous flavour compounds. Grilling also helps to avoid poaching, since the moisture outside of the steak evaporates quickly, letting the meat inside the steak cook by conduction from adjacent mass instead of from steam. It also works well for marinated steaks, which will have taken on moisture, some of which they will readily expel (if cooked in a pan this would lead to serious disappointment). Drippings from marinated steaks on gas grills and charcoal simply add to the smoky flavour effects.

The development of a nice dark crust is key to being able to manage your steak properly on the grill. As the steak darkens, its surface will harden, and the previously sticky proteins will bond with sugars, causing it to lose its grip on the grill. This allows you to turn the steak without leaving some of it attached to the grating. Achieving a good crust is also one of the factors that, along with relative weight, shrink, firmness, and bounce (from pressing with one’s finger) lets experienced steak cooks know when the steak has achieved optimal doneness.

Steaks that are between 3/4 inch and 2 inches thick are ideal for grilling. For really, really thick steaks (over 2 inches thick), unless you are prepared to manage your grill for a longer cooking session, hotter grilling can be a challenge. Your steak may end up charred, with a worn-out, frayed crust, or unevenly cooked, or dry due to heat stress compressing the meat and expelling its juices. There are, of course, remedies. In fact, some steak cuisines not only account for long grilling times with gigantic steaks, but seek them out. These steak masters, like the asadors of Argentina, create slower cooking temperatures by burning down wood or charcoal to cooler embers, or by raising the meat farther above a hotter fire. Accomplished backyard grillers will develop a crust on the hot part of their grills, then adjust the coal or gas to create cooler parts, and then cover the grill to roast the steak. This also creates an opportunity to add incredible smoky flavours by adding a little wood to the charcoal (or right on top of the heating plate in gas grills; see here for more).

For most thinner steaks (less than 3/4 inch thick), a hot grill will simply cook the meat too quickly. You won’t get a crust at all, and you run the risk of overcooking your steak. If you let the coals cool or turn the gas down, you won’t be able to generate enough heat, which leaves too much moisture on the surface of the meat, impeding browning and encouraging poaching. A poached steak has just one possible texture, and it’s never what you want.

THE TAKEAWAY FOR GRILLING STEAK: Grilling adds divine smoky flavour and colour in a hot, dry environment, and is ideal for any steak between 1 and 2 inches thick. (With the exception of skirts and flanks, truly thin steaks don’t do as well on a grill.) Poaching is easily avoided here, so you can cook moist, marinated steaks perfectly.

FRYING

As long as your cooking surface is hot enough, frying can be just the right way to cook a steak. A sufficiently hot pan will overcome the moisture on the surface of your steak and help it develop a tasty crust. By “hot” I mean hot enough so that when you hold your hand above the surface of your pan or griddle, you know immediately that it would be a terrible idea to actually touch the pan. To achieve this temperature, preheat your dry pan for about 5 minutes over high heat on an average household stovetop. I recommend using a heavy cast-iron pan, heavy-grade stainless-steel pan, or a frying pan that has a “cookie” bottom, all of which absorb, hold, and conduct heat more evenly.

Frying really should be done with the aid of some kind of fat, to prevent sticking and to help cook the steak more evenly (the fat helps distribute the heat over the surface of the meat). Since I know you’re not a vegetarian, this might as well be animal fat (lard, tallow, duck fat, bacon fat, chicken fat, or a combination of butter and another oil to raise the butter’s smoking point). Animal fats—with the exception of butter, which contains milk solids—have a higher smoking point and are generally more stable at higher temperatures. They also have the advantage of being saturated and unprocessed. Vegetable oils meant for cooking are highly processed to raise their smoking points. They are also unsaturated fats, meaning that they can create toxic free radicals in your food, especially at high cooking temperatures, so it’s best to avoid them.

Even though you can heat a pan to temperatures in excess of 400°F on a stovetop, the temperature will plummet the moment the surface of the pan comes into contact with your steak. But we can work with this. Some decrease in temperature is actually desirable, since we are cooking with a thin to moderately thick steak (between very thin to less than 1 inch thick), and that steak will cook internally quite quickly.

Frying is just as active an activity as grilling, perhaps more so. You must watch and tend to your steak in the pan, taking advantage of the whole surface for its searing, crust-making hot spots, as well as its cooler, mellower spots. If your pan is not hot enough, your steak will cool the pan to the point where it is just hot enough to drain the steak of its juices, which will bubble up and steam your steak, poaching it to an unrecoverable greyness and woolly interior.

For steaks with fulsome fat caps, you can melt the cap to cook the steak in its own fat. Using tongs, simply hold the steak cap-side down on the hot pan until enough liquid fat renders and pools in the bottom of the pan.

Whichever fat you use for frying, your goal is to sear your steak and quickly develop a crust, while cooking it to just under medium-rare (about 120°F) or a little higher for medium-rare. Pan-frying also creates the opportunity to baste your steak (see here) and to make pan sauces when your steak is happily resting (which it should do for at least a full 5 minutes or a little longer; see here).

THE TAKEAWAY FOR FRYING STEAK: If your pan is hot enough, frying creates a nice crust quickly, without overcooking the steak. This method works best for thin and moderately thick steaks (just under 1 inch thick). For a 1/4-inch striploin, frying is quite possibly the surest way to steak bliss. Some fat in the pan is necessary, preferably animal fat. Frying is a gateway to basting recipes and delicious pan sauces.

REVERSE-SEARING

Reverse-searing is a tremendously useful technique for cooking larger, thicker steaks. It provides a great deal of control over doneness and leads to a perfect crust, right at the end when the steak is seared. This method is great for steaks between 1 and 3 inches in thickness (or more, if you’re that sort of person, but then we’re really talking about a roast beef, aren’t we?).

Reverse-seared steaks are first slowly cooked to near-doneness in a low-temperature oven, then seared very quickly in a hot pan on the stovetop. The only extra things you really need are an abundance of time and an instant-read thermometer.

Slow heat cooks the meat evenly all the way through, allowing a gradual breakdown of tissue, enzymatic action at low heat (which makes the steak more tender), and the melting of fat. It will also dry out the surface of the steak so that when it comes time for the final sear in the pan, a delectable crust will form almost instantly with much less smoke than it would take to sear it before oven cooking. (So, if you live in an apartment, or can’t open the windows in your house because it’s freezing cold out, you have another reason to be thankful for this method of cooking.)

When reverse-searing, it’s important to note that you aren’t fully cooking the steak in the oven. You are almost cooking it through. You finish cooking by searing the steak in the pan for just a couple of minutes, raising the temperature of your steak another 5°F or more. You move your steak from the oven to the stovetop when your steak reads an average of 118°F, or 115°F in the thickest, meatiest part of the middle. Depending on the size and shape of your steak, oven cooking takes about 30 minutes per pound of meat (for steaks 1 1/2 pounds or more) to get the steak to its desired pre-sear temperature. Steaks that are fairly heavy but spread out and not that thick will be brought up to temperature more quickly than a thicker steak of the same weight.

IF YOU WANT TO SEAR AND THEN OVEN COOK

If you’re short on time, have a thick steak on hand (1 1/2 inches or more), and need to cook indoors, follow this short-cut method. Preheat your oven to 400°F. Meanwhile, heat a dry pan on your stovetop until it is truly hot—a full 5 minutes over high heat. Anoint one side of your steak with the fat or oil of your choice—just enough to coat—then place steak fat-side down in the pan. Leave the steak alone for about 3 to 4 minutes, until you can see the edges bordering the underside of the steak darken, indicating that the surface on the pan side has in fact darkened nicely. (The searing will probably throw off a lot of smoke, so make sure your exhaust fan is on.) Turn the steak over, turn off the stovetop, and immediately transfer the pan to the preheated oven. Roast the steak, uncovered, for 12 minutes per pound of meat. (Use less time for cuts that are thinner, even if they are just as heavy.)

When oven cooking first, the slow increase in the steak’s temperature also means that the meat is far less stressed from the heat, allowing some structures to break down without pressurizing the meat, which might otherwise squeeze out its juices. The meat loses less moisture overall than it does using the sear-then-oven method, and it cooks much more evenly. I’m so fond of the reverse-sear that I’m only going to advise using the sear-then-oven method in this one instance: Do it only if you don’t have time to reverse-sear. (If you feel you need to sear your steak and then oven cook it, take a look at the sidebar above.)

When reverse-searing, your oven will be occupied for a relatively long time, and at a low temperature (anywhere from 180°F to 225°F), so be prepared to make the rest of the meal using the stovetop. (On the bright side, you will have time to cook everything else at an even pace, perhaps with a glass of something to improve your patience and, if necessary, your humour.) Marginal improvements to texture and tenderness can be made by bringing the steak up to its pre-sear temperature in a lower-temperature oven (like 180°F, and I wouldn’t try anything lower than that), but 225°F works perfectly well. This is the temperature I use in the recipes in this book, since it gives more than adequate results in less time. You may lose a smidgen more moisture at this higher temperature, but the difference is not that noticeable. You can cook the steak directly on the middle rack of your oven, lining the rack below with a sheet of aluminum foil to catch any moisture that drops out of the steak, which will prevent your oven from smoking the next time you use it. I use a wire cooling rack to support the steak in the oven, which allows hot, dry air to circulate freely around the meat, drying out the surface. Turn the steak once, halfway through its pre-searing time, to ensure the surface dries evenly.

When it comes time to sear your steak (when the steak reaches an internal temperature of 115°F in the meaty middle, or an average of 118°F when tested in different parts of the steak), have a very hot pan at the ready. Coat one side of your steak with a little fat or oil of your choice, or hold the fat cap to the hot pan until enough fat renders out, then sear both sides for about 1 minute each, or until you like the crust and the steak has an internal temperature approaching 125°F in the meaty middle. Remove it from the pan and let rest for about 4 minutes, uncovered (longer won’t hurt).

THE TAKEAWAY FOR REVERSE-SEARING STEAK: Slowly cook steaks that are more than 1 inch thick and up to 2 1/2 inches or more in a 180°F to 225°F oven, then sear them with a little fat in a very hot pan. The pre-sear takes 30 minutes per pound of meat for steaks weighing 1 1/2 pounds or more. Remove steak from the oven when it reaches an average temperature of 118°F, or 115°F in the meaty middle. Use an instant-read thermometer to take the steak’s temperature for the pre-sear, and the sear itself. Stop searing when you have nice crust and the internal temperature of the steak is approaching 125°F in the meaty middle. This method provides lots of control for perfect doneness and enhanced texture and tenderness, with less resting time and searing time (though more cooking time).