Dude...frozen steak. So good. Cooking them all this way from now on

[Howard]

It's simply ignorant to claim that fast table turnover is the reason for high cooking temperatures and that was your original claim.

I concede and retract my claim on this point as I have no way of proving that I am correct even if the truthiness speaks to me.

 

[slayer202]

know what's really good? twinings organic earl grey tea

 

[UglyCasanova]

I've found the best method for me to cook a steak is by getting my coals good and hot on one side, but instead of searing the meat first I use indirect heat to get my meat almost to the doneness I'm after, then place over direct heat to sear both sides. Rest, and its done.

 

[sourceninja]

I wish my stove could get hot enough to cook steak. I have to wait for the weather to break so I can cook outside on the grill (I'm not standing out in the 30F and rain to cook steak).

 

[spidey07]

Meh. I still am the master of steaks. Hot coals, out of the fridge for at least 2 hours. Copious amounts of salt and pepper. 4 minutes per side, poke to check doneness. 1.5" thick.

The outer 3-4 millimeters is gray, perfect crust and the rest is nothing but perfect medium rare. It's not that hard.
---
-grey-
-MR-
-MR-
-MR-
-MR-
-MR-
-grey-

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

^ Grilling outside is by far what I miss the most about having a backyard. No place for a grill near my apartment building. Cooking inside just smokes up the whole place. Drives me nuts.

 

[waggy]

^ Grilling outside is by far what I miss the most about having a backyard. No place for a grill near my apartment building. Cooking inside just smokes up the whole place. Drives me nuts.

oh man that is one reason i love having a house. i love grilling out or just sitting outside drinking a beer.

 

[Howard]

I wish my stove could get hot enough to cook steak. I have to wait for the weather to break so I can cook outside on the grill (I'm not standing out in the 30F and rain to cook steak).

You have other methods available.

 

[spidey07]

You have other methods available.

Like not being a puss and fire that grill up. No need to stare or tend it.

Get your heat right. 4 minutes per side. Poke for doneness. Wait 30-60 seconds poke again. Off.

If it takes more than 15 minutes to cook a steak to serve you're doing it wrong.

 

[kage69]

Hey, there is nothing wrong (or puss) with using a broiler to cook steak.


I like grills as much as the next guy, but credit where credit is due. Broilers do great char.

 

[DrPizza]

At what heat level? I can't manage that unless I know the people I'm serving don't care for maximized medium-rare.

EDIT: That is, with conventional cooking.

I believe Alton Brown's instructions for pan searing a steak included 40 seconds on side 1, 40 seconds on side 2, 2 minutes in oven on side 1, 2 minutes in oven for side 2. Medium rare.

Apparently, you can't get a cast iron pan hot enough; jiffy bake oven or something?

 

[Howard]

I believe Alton Brown's instructions for pan searing a steak included 40 seconds on side 1, 40 seconds on side 2, 2 minutes in oven on side 1, 2 minutes in oven for side 2. Medium rare.

Apparently, you can't get a cast iron pan hot enough; jiffy bake oven or something?

I can't get a cast iron pan hot enough?

I recall at one point I did try his method a few times. There was just too much gray:MR ratio for my taste, although oven baking has the advantage of cooking both sides at (almost) the same speed which is cumbersome to do in a pan.

 

[DrPizza]

At what heat level? I can't manage that unless I know the people I'm serving don't care for maximized medium-rare.

EDIT: That is, with conventional cooking.

I can't get a cast iron pan hot enough?

Apparently not, if you find it unbelievable that you can get a 1" thick steak to medium rare in 5 1/2 to 6 minutes. By 9 minutes, it's well done.

 

[Howard]

Apparently not, if you find it unbelievable that you can get a 1" thick steak to medium rare in 5 1/2 to 6 minutes. By 9 minutes, it's well done.

Let's not get confused here.

You can get the pan as hot as you want but it is hard to cheat the laws of physics. Fourier tells us that in order to get hotter faster, you need a higher temperature gradient. This is perfectly acceptable if your only goal is to get the middle of the steak to ~135 F (after carryover). But, for me, I can't stand having anything over that temperature anywhere inside the steak except just under the sear. Obviously this requires a substantially cooler outside heat source or you're just inevitably going to overcook a portion of the steak, and that means it takes longer for the middle to heat up.

 

[Howard]

Perhaps some empirical testing is in order? It is my recollection that I took over 10 minutes to do my last steaks in the pan but it could be more or less time than that. An infrared thermometer and a well-seasoned cast iron pan could give us about the same apparatus.

 

[BUTCH1]

Stop the pissing contest.

AT Moderator ElFenix

Wow, I didn't use abusive language and even offered a compliment in "I like your style", I was unaware that arguing was no longer allowed on ATOT, I will refrain from any further disagreements in future post's..

 

[Fritzo]

Wow, I didn't use abusive language and even offered a compliment in "I like your style", I was unaware that arguing was no longer allowed on ATOT, I will refrain from any further disagreements in future post's..

No you won't.


:sneaky:

 

[CycloWizard]

Let's not get confused here.

You can get the pan as hot as you want but it is hard to cheat the laws of physics. Fourier tells us that in order to get hotter faster, you need a higher temperature gradient. This is perfectly acceptable if your only goal is to get the middle of the steak to ~135 F (after carryover). But, for me, I can't stand having anything over that temperature anywhere inside the steak except just under the sear. Obviously this requires a substantially cooler outside heat source or you're just inevitably going to overcook a portion of the steak, and that means it takes longer for the middle to heat up.

Fourier only tells you how heat is conducted within the meat. However, the cooking (browning and searing) itself involves chemical reactions. If you really want a seared layer and the rest a uniform 135°, all you would need to do is sear the thing, then set it in an oven at about 150° for a short while. I'm not sure this will turn out the way you would like it but it will give you what you asked for.

 

[Fritzo]

Meh. I still am the master of steaks. Hot coals, out of the fridge for at least 2 hours. Copious amounts of salt and pepper. 4 minutes per side, poke to check doneness. 1.5" thick.

The outer 3-4 millimeters is gray, perfect crust and the rest is nothing but perfect medium rare. It's not that hard.
---
-grey-
-MR-
-MR-
-MR-
-MR-
-MR-
-grey-

It really is this simple, but I LOL at everyone on the Internet trying to make a PhD thesis out of it. Same concept for pan frying, except hot oil instead of coals. You don't need to use a frozen sous vide crock pot magic genie technique with a pan made from unicorn horn and adamantium. It's the same technique with all dense meats: very hot, season, sear both sides, rest, eat.

 

[Aharami]

damnit! now I want steak. btw, i use alton brown's method of season steak with oil, salt, and pepper. Oven on 500F, stick cast iron pan in there for 15 mins. Take hot pan out, put on stove at high heat. place steak in pan, 30 - 40 secs each side. put pan and steak back in high oven at 2 -2.5 mins for each side. comes out perfect, for me.

 

[Howard]

Fourier only tells you how heat is conducted within the meat. However, the cooking (browning and searing) itself involves chemical reactions. If you really want a seared layer and the rest a uniform 135°, all you would need to do is sear the thing, then set it in an oven at about 150° for a short while. I'm not sure this will turn out the way you would like it but it will give you what you asked for.

Exactly.

You could do the sear post-cooking or pre-cooking and there are proponents for both, but as long as the cooking method provides for external heat that is the same temperature as your target internal temperature, you won't overcook the steak. If the cooking method exposes the steak to open air then evaporative cooling (wet-bulb temp) requires that the air temperature be slightly higher. However, the point of this discussion is that DrPizza felt that you could speed up cooking by increasing the temperature of the heat source - not necessarily so in my opinion.

 

[Murloc]

If you have a grill and it's just a slice of meat like a steak, you can use just the that like spidey and Fritzo said, but it requires some practice as you don't have an OCD cooking protocol you can follow.
A real fire always tastes better too.

But for thick cuts of meat (idk how the english names are for those cuts, they're approximately spherical pieces of meat from the leg) using a oven really makes it better.
Using the oven first is better because to form a crust or even just sear it, the water has to evaporate.
If you cook in the oven first, the outer parts get dried out a bit already, so when you sear it browns faster and you lose less water to complete the process. All-in-all, more juice stays in.
Plus this process is easier to control: checking the doneness on the grill is easy, checking it when it's in the oven is not, and this is bad when you're not sure how long it will take.

 

[Howard]

But for thick cuts of meat (idk how the english names are for those cuts, they're approximately spherical pieces of meat from the leg) using a oven really makes it better.

Shank?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossobuco

 

[QueBert]

home made steaks suck, I just drop the money and go to Donnovans or Mastros. There is no way to duplicate what they do on a home oven.

 

[herm0016]

my method, which works very well for me, is to sear each side in a cast iron pan that has been left in a 450 degree oven for about a 1 m each side, then slide the pan in the oven for around 5 m. poke with your tongs to find doneness. a nice sear, midrare in the middle, med to the crust. has not failed me yet for a ~ 1 in thick cut of new york or rib eye.