Hey guys, welcome back to Basics With Babish
Where we're doing something a little bit more interesting this week: Steak.
Now there's only one king of steaks in my mind, and that is ribeye.
It is fatty, it's flavorful, it's expensive
You don't want to overcook it, so we're gonna take a look
at a time-tested method to make sure that you cook your steak reliably and predictably to medium-rare.
Which is the only way to cook your steak.
Then we're also gonna take a look at a more economical cut of beef: Skirt Steak.
This is a steak that is packed with fat and flavor and it's less expensive
And it will blow your mind if you just cook it and slice it correctly.
Now let's get down to basics.
*catchy intro music*
Alright guys first, let's take a look at skirt steak. It's a relatively inexpensive cut
that is packed with fat and flavor, but it just needs to be cut correctly to be tender and delicious
So you can see how the muscle fibers run perpendicular to the length of the steak
So we're going to need to cut across those after we're done cooking the steak
We cut across them, we get shorter muscle fibers
and more tender pieces of beef
and the steak is super rich
So it's gonna go well with the pan sauce that we learned how to make last week
Let's start by seasoning generously with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper only on one side of the steak.
It's so thin it will only need to season one side.
Then we're going to heat about a tablespoon or two of vegetable oil over medium-high heat until smoking
And then lay our steak down in the pan like this to prevent splattering
This is an instance when you're gonna want to use stainless steel
or cast iron because we want the meat to stick and eventually release
giving us both a golden brown crust and a bunch of beautiful fond in the bottom of the pot.
These steaks cook very quickly so
After cooking them once or twice you're gonna get a feel for exactly how long it takes to sear them
But until then reach for your trusty instant-read thermometer
I'm shooting for about 115 degrees
Because the steak is gonna come up about 5 degrees
after it's had the chance to rest for about 10 minutes under foil while we make our pan sauce
To see how to make the pan sauce check out episode 2 of basics where we use this beautiful fond
to make a red wine and shallot reduction.
After we've let our steak rest for 10 minutes we're going to unwrap the foil and get ready to carve
Now remember we need to cut perpendicular to these muscle fibers to make sure
that this meat is nice and tender
First for both ease of cutting and ease of eating, let's cut each of these pieces in half
and then on a bias which basically just means diagonally.
We're going to cut through the meat across the muscle fibers, and you can see despite its thinness
We've got this cooked to a perfect medium-rare
So we're gonna slice it all up thinly fan it out on a plate and then top with our pan sauce
Again, if you want to see how to make this sauce
Go check out Episode 2 of Basics.
Then if you're serving to a crowd a nice way to garnish is with a few sprigs of fresh herbs
or dispense with the garnishes and dig in
like the carnivorous monster you know you are. ;)
Now skirt steak makes for a great weeknight dinner.
But what about a special occasion steak?
For that we need a tomahawk rib-eye.
First we're gonna kill two birds with one stone
by both seasoning the beef and letting it come up to room temperature before cooking.
So we're gonna press it with salt and pepper on both sides and let rest at room temperature
for 30 minutes before we even think about introducing it to any heat.
The closer the steak is to room temperature the more evenly it's going to cook and the pre seasoning with salt
helps the meat retain moisture down the line.
So after about 30 minutes the salt is going to have been partially absorbed into the meat and
it's gonna look like this and for a cut of beef this thick we're gonna use the reverse sear method
that is, to place the steak on a rack in an oven at 225 degrees for about 45 minutes until it registers 115 degrees internally
it is so thick that when we sear the hell out of it in a ripping hot cast-iron skillet
It's not going to raise the temperature past probably 125 so once we get a bit of vegetable oil
smoking in a cast iron or stainless steel skillet
We're going to add the steak and sear until completely crusted on one side
Maybe one and a half to two minutes without touching it
once we've inspected the crust and make sure it's up to spec we're going to flip it over very very
slowly for dramatic effect, and then once we've flipped it
It's time to start butter basting
So we're going to grab a generous pat of butter maybe 2 to 3 tablespoons add it to the pan
Along with a peeled clove of garlic and a whole sprig of rosemary
These flavors are going to get infused into the butter as we lift and tip the pan slightly to one side so the butter pools
In the corner and we can scoop it up and spoon it over the top of our steak
but then going to flip the steak once more making sure we formed a similarly awesome crust on this side and
continue butter basting for maybe another 90 seconds. It's pretty hard to overcook such a thick steak, but you can do it
so don't don't push it. Once both sides have been properly seared and butter basted
It's time to sear all the beautifully rendered fat on the side of the steak. Simply hold it on its side like this for maybe
60 seconds until the fat turns golden brown and crisp like this
now that all surfaces are browned It's time to rest and carve. Now since we did the reverse sear method the muscle fibers are not all tensed up the same way
that they would be if we had just straight-up grilled this thing so we don't need to let it rest for as long as we
normally would: ten to fifteen minutes
in this case maybe we rested for no longer than five with the fried garlic and herbs over top
then remove to a cutting board and run a chef's or carving knife along the side of the bone removing it from the steak
hang on to this thing. It's a source of wonderful flavor, and it will make amazing beef stock down the line
but for now it makes for good presentation
you can slice on the bias if you like but with a large steak like this
I like it slicing straight down it makes for more of a steakhouse like presentation
a few fresh herbs make sure all the pieces are fanned out properly and
set the carved fat cap on the side for all the twisted beautiful minds
that want to eat it and that is how you make a bone-in reverse seared ribeye: the king of steaks
join me next week when we'll be making both of these steaks together in the bi-weekly
Basics with Babish live stream and join me the week after when we'll be taking a long hard look at chicken breasts
Not in a gross way
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