Hey there, and welcome back to NoRecipeRequired.com.
Itís Dave, and tonight Iím going to show you how to cook a steak.
I always get comments from friends and relatives, and people posting on the website, ìTell
me more about how to cook a steak to the right donenessî.
Iím going to go through really five basic rules that I follow to get you to a good steak,
right doneness, great flavor, every single time.
Letís ah, letís go ahead and get to it.
Ok, so, weíre going to talk about cooking the perfect steak, and my five rules for cooking
the perfect steak.
First rule is Know Your Steak.
What do I mean by that?
So obviously, you need to know what youíre cooking.
You need to know, this is a ribeye, are you cooking a ribeye, or are you cooking a New
York Strip, or a filet mignon or a London broil.
What are you cooking?
Because thatís going to help determine the doneness, and what you can do, and what the
right meat and the best temperature to cook it at is.
You know, something like a flank steak, I think can go a little bit further done than
say a filet mignon.
You also want to know the thickness of the steak right.
The thickness will determine the time that is required to cook.
The thicker the steak, the longer the time itís going to take to get to the right temperature
in the middle of the steak.
You also have to look for things like, the bone.
This particular steak is a bone-in ribeye.
The bone will generally delay the cooking process, make it a little bit longer.
So the meat right here along the bone, will tend to stay a little less cooked, or more
rare than the rest of the steak.
Once you observe, pay attention to,î ok this size steak took this long to cookî, you become
accustomed to gauging the right temperature.
And you know the thickness will also determine how much seasoning you need on the steak as
well.
Rule number 2 on the steak, is to give it a good seasoning.
When I talk about seasoning Iím talking about salt and pepper.
If you wanted to do some other kind of spice, you know chili powder, cumin, whatever you
want, absolutely you can do it, but that salt and pepper is critical.
And again itís influenced by knowing your meat.
If youíve got a thicker piece, like this you need more seasoning, to carry all the
way through the piece, if youíve got a thinner piece, you can get away with less.
I like to use kosher salt, because its got a thicker grain to it and it kind of sticks
to the meat better, and then I use fresh ground pepper as well.
I give that seasoning a good press down into the meat as well, and you want to season both
sides.
Itís important to season both sides, again because youíve got a big piece of meat here,
and who knows, you may cut it in half while youíre eating it, and only get one sided
seasoned taste in your mouth and you donít want that.
You can be pretty generous, especially with a steak this size, because of a bunch of the
seasoning is going to fall off, either in the pan or on the grill, however youíre cooking
it.
Once you get it seasoned, weíre ready to sear it off.
Ok letís talk aboutÖwhat are we on, fourth, fifth, sixthÖthe third rule of great steak
cooking, and that is getting a great sear.
This might be the scariest part for a lot of people, because you gotta go with a pan
that is really blistering hot.
If youíre outside on the grill, same principles apply.
You want to get the grill as hot as possible.
You know a nice little test, Iíve got a bowl of water here, and itís a dry plan, and I
just put a bit of water in there, and see how it dances around the pan?
Thatís what youíre looking for.
The pan is super super hot, the pan should probably be smoking just a little bit, and
certainly itís going to start smoking once I put this oil in it.
I want to make sure that the water is out of the pan before I put the oil in it.
Oil and water donít mix well.
Iím going to go ahead and put a good couple drizzles in there, make sure I have the bottom
coated, you can see the smoke coming off the pan.
Thatís what weíre looking for.
And you should hear a lot of noise once we drop our steak in.
[sizzling] So that noise is exactly what weíre looking
for.
That the sear on the steak, and itís going to get that nice tasty crust on the outside
and itís obviously going to cook the piece of meat.
So the key factor here, in addition to a hot pan, is really not flipping the meat.
Notice Iím not going in there and moving things around or even really shaking the pan.
It wonít stick, donít worry about it.
After 4 minutes, Iím going to say for this piece of steak, Iím going to go ahead and
flip it over.
Weíre going to so the same thing on the other side.
All at full heat, as high as it can go.
And then weíre going to finish it off in the oven.
Ok, my 4th rule on cooking a great steak, is all about doneness.
You gotta know, personally, how well you like your steak done.
Are you a raw person, are you a well done person?
Iím probably in the middle, medium rare, I like to lean towards rare rather than lean
towards well done.
But frankly itís up to you.
Now thereís two good ways I know about to tell doneness.
One is to use a meat thermometer.
I like to use this kind, you know, that has a nice long string attached to it, and the
read out over here, so you can stick this in the meat, and have this outside of the
oven.
Once you get to the desired temperature, you can pop it out.
I donít particularly like the kind where, well I guess, itís more a use than a kind
of thermometer.
I donít like the technique of testing it, pulling the thermometer out, waiting a few
minutes, testing it again, creating new holes in the meat.
Thatís really just puncturing the meat and driving the juice out of the steak.
If youíre going to use one, put it in and leave it alone until you get to the right
doneness.
Like I said, for me Iíll put it out probably 125, maybe between 125 and 130, for a nice
medium rare.
Lots of temperature tables out on the internet you can find one pretty easily.
The other way to test doneness is to use the firmness of the meat technique.
Let me show you on my hand.
So the firmer a piece of meat feels when you tap it, the more well done it is.
The more it gives, the less well done it is, the more on the rare side it is.
So a simple test to get used to it, is to use a finger technique here by rotating you
finger, you touch your index finger and this puts kinda the least tension on this little
paw part of your hand here.
And that generally equates to a rare piece of meat.
If you go to the middle finger, youíll notice it gets a little firmer, and we start getting
into a medium piece of meat.
Now you go to the ring finger, firmer yet.
All the way to the pinky, if you feel that, itís pretty darn tight right here, and this
is ah, essentially, kinda the feel of a well done piece of meat.
I think itís a little tough to gauge this, and then test the meat, and then go like that.
The point is more just to get you familiar with how softness and the feel of the meat
vary with the temperature.
And then the first few times you cook a steak, or maybe use one of these thermometers, feel
it as you go along and remember what those different feelings are like so that you can
replicate it over time.
You definitely want to make sure your steak is done to the right temperature, that is
a key factor.
Okay, my steak has been searing for about 4 minutes now, and this is why I say it can
be scary, you can see all the smoke coming off the pan.
If youíve got a hood oven, or a hood vent, you should probably turn it on.
The pan is starting to look a little crusty on the outside, but we flip it over, and itís
absolutely fine.
Youíve got, Youíve got that nice char on the outside, all the fat is kinda of rendered
off, and burnt off, which is absolutely what weíre looking for.
And yet that center is still going to be nice and pink when we cut it.
So I went ahead and turned this over, and the other side is going to sear off.
And while it does that, to finish cooking, it would take a really long time, and weíd
have to a few flips, and I donít really like to flip meat, or steaks around a whole lot.
I generally do one side, then flip it around, do the other side, and thatís pretty much
it.
Iím going to go ahead and take this, put it into a 400 degree oven, and itís probably
going to take about another 8 minutes or so for this side to get it to the doneness I
want.
You can either, like I said, either use the meat thermometer, or start using the old feel
test.
Ok, so I just pulled the steak out of the oven, and the ah final rule in the five rule
plan, is to let the steak rest.
Iíve got some aluminum foil here, Iím going to go ahead and drop the steak on there, and
then wrap it up.
Resting the steak you know allows all the juices in there to you know to just kinda
relax and cool down a little bit.
The foil will actually keep the steak kinda hot.
But if you cut into it now, everything just kinda runs off onto the plate, and you actually
end up with dry steak, even if itís uh to the proper doneness, rare, medium rareÖuh
doneness.
So go ahead wrap it up, steak this size at least 5 minutes, you know up to 10 is totally
fine.
You can keep it in a warm part of the kitchen, maybe top of the stove.
You donít want it on direct heat because it will continue to cook.
Ok, I just removed my steak, from the foil, let it rest.
By the way, the juice that collects in here, if youíve got a sauce going I would definitely
add that, it is absolutely awesome.
And then you can go ahead and serve your steak any way you want.
You can serve it whole, give the whole piece to somebody, or go ahead and slice it like
Iím doing, and just serve up a few pieces at a time.
Let me grab a little plate here.
And we got a perfectly cooked, a little piece of ribeye here.
Make a little tower eh, why not?
Go ahead with our side dishes around the steak.
I see you next time on www.noreciperequired.com.