Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all :doing_it_wrong:)
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Maybe not "all" of you, but you know who you are. Even if you're in denial.
We're going to go for a cook-and-eat steak. Avoid your tough cuts, and go straight for the good stuff. Tenderloin, rib-eye, T-bone, porterhouse. I'm using striploin, which isn't 100% the best, but it'll do. I'd just bought a Striploin primal, cut a few pounds of it down for another purpose, and cut steaks from the rest.
These have been sitting in the fridge "dry aging" for 5 days. They're wrapped in paper towel, put on a cooling rack, and parked way in the back to get all the cold, dry air the fridge has. Change the dressing every day. This removes a good amount of excess moisture that makes meat taste watery. It's cheap, and improves your steak a billion percent.
Before starting any prep, take your best cast-iron pan, put it in the oven, and crank it up to 500f. 525f if your oven can do it. This will take a good 10-20 minutes to get to heat. That's okay. We've got some prep.
(Now before you chime in OMFB BBQ-- as in literal BBQ-- yes, you could do this over extremely high-temp coals. But then again, you'd have to spend all that time and energy firing up some coals just for a steak. What we're about to do is good enough, and I would challenge anyone to tell the difference).
These have been sitting out for close to an hour, to bring the meat up to room temp. This way, I can cook the insides faster, while minimizing the amount of time the outside is exposed to heat. The goal here is to cook the steak as quickly as possible, and to have as much "inner goodness" as possible. You want the thinnest layer of "sear" you can get. A hard outline, not a soft gradient from black-to-red.
Now, the secret to a good sear is a coat of Kosher salt. It will draw protein-laden moisture up to the surface during cooking. Not much, but just enough to get a maillard reaction going (browning goodness).
But uh-oh. We dried these steaks too well. There's nothing for the salt to adhere to, and it's falling off as soon as I flip the meat.
OIL TO THE RESCUE!
I've chosen Avocado oil because it has a very mild flavor, and one of the highest smoke points of all oils. Remember, we're dealing with 500+ degrees f of heat. Yes, it's on the more expensive sides of oils-- and yes, it's good enough that I would use it in place of some EVOO-- but it's not like we're using much. A drop:
Just enough to rub across the entire surface. This not only will allow the salt to adhere to the meat, but also acts an excellent heat transfer, helping to draw the hot oven air into the meat itself. Rub the oil on, a pinch of salt on each surface (top and bottom). Wash up, and we're ready to go to cooking. But this is going to be a fairly quick process. So lay out your exit-plan now:
On the left, a wooden block to rest the hot pan on. On the right, a plain old plate, with a cooling rack on top. I'm going to remove the steaks from the pan, and place them on the rack. This way, while the meat sets, the juices will drip onto the plate-- rather than ruining a perfectly good crust. And if you have a dog-- put that plate out for her afterwards. YOU'RE THE BEST!
Okay, time to get this meat cooking! Open your oven, but stand back. At 500f, whatever bits of crumbs you have in there-- and whatever seasoning you have on your cast iron-- is going to billow out in smoke in your face.
Yes, there's two of them in there. I'm only using one. I always leave my cast irons in the oven. They're amazing and holding onto heat, which is what you want an oven to do.
Grab the pan from the over USING HEAT PROOF GLOVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Turn the pan handle AWAY so that you can't just reach out and grab it. Trust me. As many reminders of "OMFG HOT HANDLE" as possible will serve you well.
Pan on the stovetop, and turn the element up as high as it will go.
Meat into pan, and instantly you get that satisfying sizzle.
One minute and one minute only, then flip. You'll already be getting a beautiful crust. You can still see red, but that's okay. We aren't done yet.
One more minute, then pan (USE THAT GODDAMN GLOVE!) goes back into the 500f oven.
Set a timer for 1 minute. We're dealing with 1" thick steaks, and aiming for rare. 1 minute at most. If they were thicker, or you wanted to burn them, you can go longer.
Get ready....
ONE MINUTE IS UP! Open the door and flip those fuckers as fast as possible. Stop wasting heat! And notice when you flip them, no red surface left. Told you.
Close the oven, cook 1 minute more, then evacuate the pan to your trivet / wooden block. USE! GLOVES!
Look at them. LOOK AT THEM! Perfectly seared, delicious.
But are they done? Rare is 130f. Let's use our instaread... which climbs easily to 120 when I took the picture, and was coasting to 130. Perfect!
Take them out of the pan and onto the cooling rack. You're going to leave them there for 10 minutes, or until the meat is under 110. That will allow the meat to cool and contract enough that it won't just bleed everywhere when cut. If your house is very cold, cover loosely in foil. Now's a good time to turn off the oven.
Take a few minutes to admire while you wait:
Yes
Oh baby
Delicious meat
Okay, 10 minutes are up, let's check the temp...
perfect. You can serve this directly, but Heather loves thin-sliced meat-- and I want to show off the insides. So off to a clear cutting board. Take the sharpest, best-honed knife you have. Cut AGAINST the grain, and on the bias:
AND LOOK AT THAT BAD-ASS MOTHERFUCKER! Perfectly cooked. The thinnest layer of "cooked" I could get, and a big, juicy inside. It isn't brown fading to pink. There's a hard, hard line between "a bit of done" and "omfg proper beef".
Sliced up, and served with a side of roasted veggies and Paneer Masala.
And THAT is how you make a proper steak. I didn't have to muck with coals, or long cooking times, or any fancy-pantsy special equipment. A bit of prep, 4 minutes cooking, and 10 agonizing minutes waiting to dig in.
Enjoy my juicy meat, everyone.
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There's also a few things to keep in mind if you like to hunt for venison and want to do your own processing:
(1) For deer, elk, and other such ungulates, there is a gland behind the hock. The first thing to do when you go up to your future food is to cut around that gland with as much buffer space as you can to remove it and toss it far away. Clean your knife really well or use a different one to do the rest of the gutting process. This gland releases hormones that give the meat a really nasty gamy flavor.
(2) Once you begin processing your meat, follow one simple rule: cut off everything that's white (or not meat-red). Everything. You'll end up with steaks that are only 1.5 to 4 inches in diameter, but they will be the best venison steaks you've ever had. If the meat is too marbled with white to get it all in a timely manner and still have enough meat to be worth the work (e.g. from the neck), then just remove what you can and turn it into burger or dice it into stew meat.The way we've always cooked these tiny, amazing steaks of awesome is just to dip them into a bowl of flour and then cook them in a cast-iron skillet on the stove.
Edit:
(3) Lorne mentioned this already, but I want to reiterate: cutting the meat should be against the grain. That means the muscle should be cut so a side-view cross-section of the the fibers look like this:
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
but not like this:
≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡
and not like this:
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
This is the biggest factor in determining how tender your steak will be, regardless of how much you cook it.
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@Lorne-Kates Just take an entite piece of meat, cover it in coarse salt and put in a metal spike 40cm over a pile of coal burning until it is no longer raw.
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Lol you put that much effort into before, I didn't like how English Restaurants Cooked them.
Fucking hell mega saddo.
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@lucas1 said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
Lol you put that much effort into before I didn't like how English Restaurants Cooked them.
Fucking hell mega saddo.
How what I word use thing help
Or are you missing something from that sentence? Cannot into parser.
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@lucas1 said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
Lol you put that much effort into before I didn't like how English Restaurants Cooked them.
Fucking hell mega saddo.
Enjoy the infested rat-meat you managed to pry from a hobo's anus. Splurge!
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@pydsigner Fixed.
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@Lorne-Kates Are you too regularly shopping at Tesco?
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@lucas1 said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
@Lorne-Kates Are you too regularly shopping at Tesco?
They don't have stores in , see the whole cutting a steak from a live animal thing in the other thread
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@pydsigner I've shot and killed my own food before. What is your point?
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@Lorne-Kates said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
I've chosen Avocado oil because it
Look, we all know the real reason you chose .
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@lucas1 said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
@pydsigner Fixed.
Before:
Lol you put that much effort into before I didn't like how English Restaurants Cooked them.
After:
Lol you put that much effort into before, I didn't like how English Restaurants Cooked them.
Turning a fused (sentence?) into a comma splice is not a fix.
into before
is the main cause for confusion here. English allows neither a preposition nor an adverb as an object of a preposition.Possible correction(?):
Lol! You put that much effort into preparation before eating it! I didn't like how English restaurants cooked steaks.
Although, I don't understand how those two sentences are related. Maybe they aren't, and you're just making some statements whose only relation is that they involve steak? Maybe it's intended to imply that English restaurants don't properly prepare their steaks? It's hard to see which you mean.
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@djls45 Good breakdown of my fuck ups. Thanks man.
"Lol you put that much effort into it before, I didn't like how English Restaurants Cooked them."
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@djls45 I will be the first to admit my English is crap. I balls up all the time on stuff like this.
I however do make an effort to do it properly.
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@lucas1 said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
@djls45 Good breakdown of my fuck ups. Thanks man.
"Lol you put that much effort into it before, I didn't like how English Restaurants Cooked them."
That... still doesn't explain the relationship between the sentences.
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@pydsigner No, but at the same time I don't give a shit.
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@lucas1 said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
@pydsigner No, but at the same time I don't give a shit.
You should care about your inability to communicate, because I promise you it isn't helping you any more in RL than it is here.
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Lets break it down for you:
- Some guy doesn't like how I might cook a piece of meat on another thread.
- I contradict him.
- I have some comments which are asinine at best.
Do you think I will care in a week or two?
Will you care?
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@lucas1 the very foundation of this forum is pedantic dickweedery, of course they'll care
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@pydsigner said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
They don't have stores in
Usually we just grab a beaver or two from the backyard
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@bb36e oh I am sorry not sorry.
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@pydsigner said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
@lucas1 said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
@Lorne-Kates Are you too regularly shopping at Tesco?
They don't have stores in , see the whole cutting a steak from a live animal thing in the other thread
We have one giant Megacow that wanders the country. It just goes back and forth, coast to coast. The path it has stomped out is known as The Trans-Canada Highway. As it passes a village, blocking out the sun, the village's bravest warrior attempts to climb the Megacow and take a slice of it's meat. Most die in the attempt. Those than manage to live are able to feed their village for many moons.
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@lucas1 said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
"Lol you put that much effort into it before, I didn't like how English Restaurants Cooked them."
You're so vain, I bet you think this thread is about you
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I am going to bed soon. fuck it.
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@Lorne-Kates It fucking obvious is about me because of the title. Don't try to be cute. You can put emoticons around it but it doesn't change the fact it is you having a go against me.
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@lucas1 said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
@Lorne-Kates It fucking obvious is about me because of the title. Don't try to be cute. You can put emoticons around it but it doesn't change the fact it is you having a go against me.
So me buying steaks and prepping them days before you ever opened your meat-ruining mouth, and taking the time to not only document the entire process but to also crop, resize, frame and upload each picture-- plus write the article around the pictures-- is a run at you.
Yes, that sounds likely.
You are an egotistical cunt.
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@lucas1 said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
@Lorne-Kates It fucking obvious is about me because of the title. Don't try to be cute. You can put emoticons around it but it doesn't change the fact it is you having a go against me.
I dunno - after reading that, it sounds like a fantastic way to prepare them. I know I've been
@Lorne-Kates, I've saved that into my recipe stuff for future use!
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@bb36e said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
Usually we just grab a beaver or two
So then, you'd be a perfect fit for President Trump.
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@bb36e This website was originally called The Daily Pedantic Dickweedery. But it was too long a name.
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Overcooked, Lorne, but your technique is pretty good. Have yourself an upvote.
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This post is deleted!
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@lucas1 said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
I've shot and killed my own food before.
I just imagined @lucas1 pulling out a gun during a family dinner and unloading it into his plate.
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@bb36e said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
Usually we just grab a beaver or two from the backyard
Do you shave them usually?
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@Lorne-Kates said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
So me buying steaks and prepping them days before you ever opened your meat-ruining mouth, and taking the time to not only document the entire process but to also crop, resize, frame and upload each picture-- plus write the article around the pictures-- is a run at you.
In that case the title should be "Lorne has a steak with Lucas"
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@Lorne-Kates oh man. I wish I wasn't grossed out by steaks...
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@cartman82 said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
@Lorne-Kates oh man. I wish I wasn't grossed out by steaks...
Eh? Is that an all-meat thing and you just narrowed it to the local context, or is it really something about steak in particular?
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@Dreikin said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
Eh? Is that an all-meat thing and you just narrowed it to the local context, or is it really something about steak in particular?
The bloody look and taste of steaks disgust me. It looks good until you slice it, though.
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@cartman82 said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
@Dreikin said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
Eh? Is that an all-meat thing and you just narrowed it to the local context, or is it really something about steak in particular?
The bloody look and taste of steaks disgust me. It looks good until you slice it, though.
Aha. My grandmother's like that - won't eat steak unless it's all the way done (and doesn't really care all that much for it even then).
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@bb36e said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
Usually we just grab a beaver
Are you Donald Trump?
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@Lorne-Kates said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
Kosher salt
Serious question: Why do so many American recipes specifically require Kosher salt? Is this somehow not NaCl, but something entirely different? This always irritates me.
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@asdf said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
Is this somehow not NaCl, but something entirely different? T
It has a much larger crystal size than your table salt or popcorn salt. It's also just as easy to find these days, so might as well specify.
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@Lorne-Kates said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
This way, I can cook the insides faster
Sorry - I thought this was steak you were preparing.
If I wanted to eat leather I'd go to the local shoe-shop.
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Ah, so it's just another name for coarse salt? That's a weird way of saying "coarse salt".
TIL.
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@asdf Yeah, for a long time the only call for coarse salt was kashering, so they labelled it kosher.
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@PJH One minute per side? Lucky if it gets 30 seconds over here.
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@tufty said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
Lucky if it gets 30 seconds over here.
Well, yes.
All that's needed is sufficient heat+time to kill the bacteria on the surface of the steak, and it's ready...
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@tufty said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
Overcooked, Lorne, but your technique is pretty good. Have yourself an upvote.
Moo.
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@fbmac said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
@Lorne-Kates said in Lorne Shows You How To Cook A Steak (you are all ):
So me buying steaks and prepping them days before you ever opened your meat-ruining mouth, and taking the time to not only document the entire process but to also crop, resize, frame and upload each picture-- plus write the article around the pictures-- is a run at you.
In that case the title should be "Lorne has a steak with Lucas"
Lucas is a mis-steak.