Blog Post No. 1:   Become A Steak Master

Become a STEAK MASTER with these simple tips.

Few culinary experiences rival the satisfaction of savouring a perfectly cooked steak—juicy, tender, and bursting with flavour. Yet, achieving steak perfection can be daunting for home cooks. Fear not, for I’m about to embark on a culinary journey to demystify the art of cooking steak to perfection.

1.  Selecting the Right Cut

The journey to steak perfection begins with selecting the right cut of beef. Choose cuts such as ribeye, fillet, rump or sirloin for their marbling, tenderness, and flavour. Opt for cuts that are at least 1 inch thick for optimal juiciness.

2. Tempering and Seasoning

Allow your steak to come to room temperature for approximately 30 minutes before cooking. This ensures even cooking throughout the steak. Rub some olive oil into each side of your steak then season generously with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, ensuring to coat both sides evenly.

3. Mastering the Cooking Method

Choose a heavy-based frying pan for cooking, place on the heat dry, no oil, and allow to get hot for around 3 – 4 minutes. Lay the steak in carefully and just hear that sizzle. This is called ‘sealing’ and what it does is seal that side of the steak to keep the juices inside! After 2 minutes, with a pair of tongs, flip it over and seal the other side.

4. Basting

It’s now time to add about 25g of butter, this will melt quickly due to the heat you have in the pan. As soon as it’s melted tip the pan slightly, allowing the butter to pool then spoon it over the steak. Now put the pan down flat, turn the steak over and repeat. There are two reasons why we do this, the first is that butter makes the taste oh so much better and the second, a more scientific reason is to allow the pan to cool slightly so as not to burn the butter. You can add herbs at the butter stage if you wish to enhance the flavours.

5. Resting

A very important part of the process is ‘resting’ the cooked steak. Remove from the pan and place on a warm plate for 5 – 10 minutes. This allows the juices to redistribute themselves throughout the meat, ensuring a moist flavourful, perfectly cooked steak.

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE YOUR STEAK COOKED?

How it’s cooked affects the texture, flavour, and juiciness of your finished steak.

Rare – 50ºC - Remove from heat at 48ºC. This steak has cool-to-warm red middle, and soft, tender texture. This is an excellent choice for leaner steaks like fillet that don’t have too much fat to melt.

Medium Rare - 54ºC - Remove from heat at 52ºC. This steak has a warm red middle – perfect steak texture with a nice brown crust. Cooking to medium rare allows the fat (marbling in the steak) to render and add buttery, rich flavours to your steak. This is the ideal cook for a juicy, flavourful steak.

Medium – 60ºC - Remove from heat at 58ºC. The steak will have a hot pink centre and slightly firmer texture. The longer cooking time will make your steak slightly drier and the bite less tender. Perfect for a ribeye steak to allow the centre fat to render into deliciousness!

Medium Well - 65ºC - Remove from heat at 62ºC. This steak will have a mostly brown centre with a firm texture. The meat will be drier as water evaporates during the cooking process.

Well Done – 70ºC - Remove from heat at 68ºC This steak will have no colour left, will be very firm and much drier. The meat loses fat and moisture as it cooks, resulting in a dry, tougher texture.  I wouldn’t recommend this cook as to me this is tasteless!