Is it the dry-aged meat, that flashy finishing sauce, or is it just your mind playing tricks
on you?
Steaks at home never seem to hit quite like they do at a restaurant — here's why.
Butter.
Such a simple and widely used ingredient, yet when it's softened and mixed with just
a few other fixings, it transforms into a complex bomb of fat-sealed flavor known as
compound butter.
A wide range of different ingredients that can include things like fresh herbs, roasted
garlic, citrus zest, brown sugar, lime juice, and chili peppers are whipped with butter
to inject a massive amount of extra flavor into it.
Restaurants often use compound butter to enhance the taste of everything from chicken and waffles
to cuts of steak.
In fact, according to Anthony Bourdain, the reason why everything at restaurants tastes
better generally comes down to one thing: butter, and lots of it!
There's a good chance that when you order a nice steak from a great restaurant, compound
butter was involved somewhere along the way.
Some steakhouses like Fleming's even offer diners a choice of different types of compound
butter to choose from for their steaks, like smoked chili butter or herbed horseradish butter.
Aside from the flavor it imparts, a dollop of compound butter can also add some highly-appetizing
visual appeal to the plate.
Be honest: Is there anything more mouth-watering than the sight of compound butter seductively
melting down the charred edges of a freshly grilled steak?
The flavor-packed compound butter that the kitchen whipped up to baste your beef with
is a big reason why that restaurant steak of yours tastes so unbelievably delicious.
Knowing the right people and having the right connections comes with certain privileges
in life — even when it comes to steak.
Restaurant owners often depend on big distributors and meat processors for their cuts of steak.
The direct relationships with meat suppliers give kitchens special access to top-notch
beef products.
Now, doesn't that sound like something you should get in on?
Not so fast!
"STOP!"
Because many food suppliers are structured to only do business with licensed food vendors
like restaurants, they typically don't work with the general public — though there are
still some distributors who will sell directly to consumers.
Some of these operations, like the one at Miami Beef, are truly impressive in their
size and scale, producing up to 100,000 pounds of beef over the course of an eight-hour shift
with the ability to customize orders.
Having direct access to some of the highest-quality cuts of beef in bulk makes it much easier
for restaurants to pump out consistently great steaks from their kitchens.
So when you go out to eat at a steakhouse, you're not just visiting a restaurant — you're
essentially being handed the keys to some special cuts of meat that might be difficult
to track down at the places that you normally shop.
You may have heard the term sous vide before, but if you're unaware of what it means, allow
us to enlighten you.
Sous vide — a French term that translates to "under vacuum" — is a cooking method
that involves submerging vacuum-sealed food in temperature-controlled vessels of water.
There are several advantages to using this method, such as being able to cook food to
a precise level of doneness while maintaining its moisture and succulence.
You also don't have to babysit food while it's cooking sous vide — the machine does
it for you.
"It takes a real genius to f- - k up the sous vide, David, let me tell you!"
The sous vide cooking method can be used for a variety of dishes with all kinds of different
ingredients, but where it shines the most might just be steak.
According to Food & Beverage Magazine, it's very common for steakhouses around the country
to pre-cook steak using sous vide.
The reason so many chefs use sous vide for steak is that the temperature settings allow
for precise temperature control and dependable, consistent results.
Sous vide makes it possible for restaurants to keep partially-cooked steaks warm by the
stove, ready to be finished on the grill as orders come in — all while maintaining tenderness
and the ideal temperature.
So if you go out for a steak and take that first juicy bite and notice its perfect color,
it might be due to the sous vide method being used in the kitchen.
Fortunately, there are plenty of commercial sous vide devices you can buy for your home
kitchen if you want to try to approximate one of the restaurant industry's best tricks.
As you can imagine, pans play a big role in the cooking process.
Different types of pans have their own unique strengths and weaknesses, depending on the
material that they're made from.
While cast iron pans can last a lifetime, they're also heavy to handle — and even
though stainless steel pans are more lightweight, they also require more oil to prevent food
from sticking.
The best choice for chefs is a high-quality carbon steel pan.
It surpasses the alternatives for several reasons.
For starters, carbon steel pans are great at browning, which is caused by the Maillard reaction.
The most delicious steaks at restaurants have a crunchy, brown crust on the outside that
provides a nice contrast in texture with the soft tenderness on the interior.
Restaurants know that carbon steel pans are a great vessel to achieve that crust — which
makes them perfect for achieving that top-notch texture we're all craving when we go out for
steak at a restaurant.
They're also somewhat nonstick and they're lighter than cast iron pans.
At the end of the day, a chef is only as good as the pan in hand, and you better believe
that restaurants make sure the kitchen has some nice ones ready to go.
You might be thinking something like, "Hey, I have an oven at home.
I can cook with intense heat too."
"That's adorable."
No offense, but while it's true that the oven in your kitchen can get hot, most models tend
to max out at about 500 degrees Fahrenheit.
That temperature pales in comparison to what broilers in professional kitchens are capable
of, some of which can reach nearly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Restaurants often use broilers for steaks since broilers offer a large surface that
cooks consistently and evenly.
Broiling at high heat is another great way to achieve that gorgeous browning on steaks
from the Maillard reaction.
Since these special broilers can tend to run between $15,000 to $25,000, it's safe to assume
that most home cooks don't have the kind of scratch lying around to purchase one of these
bad boys.
By having access to high-quality, professional equipment like special broilers that can produce
super intense heat, restaurants are able to cook steaks in a consistently hot atmosphere
that most home kitchens simply can't compete with.
There's a good chance that you've heard about a few important steps to take with steak.
Among these, one of the most common recommendations is to bring the steak to room temperature
before cooking and then allow it to properly rest once cooking is done.
Yet many home cooks may skip these steps, not fully realizing their importance for producing
a restaurant-quality steak.
Bringing steaks to room temperature allows them to cook more evenly and also loosens
up their muscle fibers.
According to Chef Kevin Thompson of the acclaimed New York Steakhouse in Bangkok, his kitchen
always does this with steak, making sure to allow each cut to reach room temperature.
He makes sure to give the steaks a proper resting period after they're cooked as well.
"Sometimes patience is the key to victory, sometimes it leads to very little and it seems
like it's not worth it."
Oh, but trust us, dear viewer, this is very much worth it indeed!
The resting period is particularly important; some even consider it one of the most crucial
parts of the cooking process.
The reason this is important is that the juices inside of the steak need a chance to reabsorb
into the muscle fibers and settle back down throughout the meat.
But how long should you let your steak rest?
Usually, the resting period should be anywhere between five and 20 minutes, with some wiggle
room depending on factors like how long the steak was cooked and how thick the cut is.
Good restaurants understand the importance of this step and that's part of the reason
their steaks are so tender.
Once the steak is cooked and hits the plate, it can be tempting to call it a day and dig in.
While many home cooks consider it a job well done at this point, some chefs will take it
a step further for the sake of flavor.
Case in point: Chef Robert Irvine from "Restaurant Impossible" likes to grill up New York strip
steaks and drizzle them in a homemade romesco sauce that's made with roasted red peppers,
cherry tomatoes, garlic, almonds, and lemon juice.
But that's just the beginning — delicious steak sauces don't stop there.
Some may insist that a good steak doesn't need any sauce, and while we're inclined to
agree, who doesn't appreciate an extra dose of flavor?
The fact remains that some of the best steakhouses feature homemade sauces to compliment their cuts.
B&B Butchers & Restaurant has a dish of sliced sirloin over hash browns with mushroom marsala
sauce.
Some steakhouses, including Knife, which is run by "Top Chef" contestant John Tesar, even
offer different sauces on the side for their steaks, such as chimichurri and salsa verde.
So if you find yourself enjoying a particularly tasty steak out at a restaurant and it's glazed
with a little something special, take a moment and give credit to that delicious, lip-smacking
finishing sauce.
"Sauce me!"
Dry-aging is another step that restaurants often take to deliver some big flavor in their steaks.
But what does this process entail, exactly?
Well, dry-aging is when large cuts of steak are left in special refrigerated rooms that
consistently circulate cold air around each piece of beef.
Enzymes in the steak's muscle tissue slowly break down and soften the meat, deepening
its natural flavors and vastly improving its taste and texture along the way.
Essentially, the dry-aging process tenderizes steak and condenses the flavor of its beefiness
through evaporation.
In other words, you can think of dry-aging as a rather time-consuming way of concentrating
the meat's flavor.
While many of us have heard that it's best to pat steaks dry before cooking them, it's
safe to say that the dry-aging process for a high-quality steak in a restaurant is a
longer procedure that's a bit more involved and difficult to do at home.
So if you're wondering why that rib eye at your favorite steakhouse is packed with outrageous
flavor, it's probably because it was professionally dry-aged in its own special climate-controlled
fridge for a while.
And since most of us don't have the space or equipment to safely dry large slabs of
raw beef at home for long periods of time, restaurants have the upper hand here once again.
Clearly, a lot of factors contribute to producing a tasty piece of steak.
Between the quality of the cut, top-notch equipment, and the chefs in the kitchen, there
are a variety of influences that directly impact the food and shape the overall experience.
"The Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious."
While the Matrix may or may not be influencing your perception of the steak in your mouth,
research in the field of food psychology suggests that there is a wide range of more subtle
details that play a vital role in how you perceive the quality and taste of your food.
Dr. Charles Spence, an experimental psychologist at Oxford University, has made it his mission
to learn more about how our brains process multi-sensory information — including seemingly
trivial details like the color of our dinnerware and the lighting of a restaurant.
At first blush, many of these influences may seem unimportant and practically inconsequential,
but his research has uncovered some surprising discoveries.
As it turns out, even the weight of your utensils can affect how sweet or salty your food tastes
— and you're more likely to enjoy a dish if it has a more descriptive name on the menu.
The next time you're out at a restaurant and you're blown away by a steak, there's a good
chance that a number of subconscious influences are affecting your perception and taste in
a way that you're completely unaware of.