Cooking steak

[marineboy]

We don’t eat a great deal of steak but have it now and again as a treat. We like it medium rare, and up till now I’ve pan fried it. I’ve always found it a bit of a lottery to get the right degree of doneness despite using a Thermapen, so when I bought four nice thick (3 cm) pieces of sirloin I thought I’d try the reverse sear method.

So, dry uncovered in the fridge overnight, take out an hour before cooking, in the oven at 125C for about 30 minutes, take out when internal temperature reaches 48C, rest in foil for 10 minutes, then sear in a very hot pan for about 30 seconds each side. Result - epic. Pink virtually all the way through but no blood, superbly tender. My son and his partner who were visiting (steak aficionados) said it was the best they’d had in a long time.

So, I thought I’d try ribeye. Same timings, temperature readings and so on. But what a disappointment. Meat was medium rare alright but quite bloody (to the extent I had to mop my wife’s plate with a paper towel else she would’nt have eaten it) and also rather tough. I’ve since read online than because of its higher fat content it’s best to fry ribeye so would the gourmets among us agree that this would produce a better result?

 

[Mike]

I don't eat a lot of steak either, but when I do, a thick dry-aged ribeye is my steak of choice. My second choice is dry-aged Porterhouse, but this tends to be hit or miss here since German butchers don't distinguish between Porterhouse and T-bone when cutting from a short loin and don't always cut from the end I request. There are several places nearby that keep a separate section for dry-aged beef.

I always buy the ribeye (Entrecôte in Germany) in the healthy-heart 5cm thickness so I can cook it on the charcoal grill. I leave the steak covered on the kitchen counter for at least an hour to allow it to come to room temperature. I trim the manky bits from edge that are a result of the dry aging process. These can be left on, but they don't taste very good, so I trim them off. I then coat both sides with olive oil and then liberally sprinkle a mixture of garlic, pepper, cayenne pepper flakes, and salt on both sides. The steak will rest covered on the counter for another hour while I prepare the coals and the potatoes that will go on first.

I like a large sweet potato and my wife likes a large regular potato. After about 20 minutes, the coals are ready and I put the foil-wrapped potatoes on the grill. Twenty-five minutes later, I turn the potatoes and let them cook for another 20 to 25 minutes before pushing them to the side of the grill to keep warm.

By now the center cast iron section of the Weber grill is as hot as it will get. The steak goes on in one movement and is not touched. The grill lid goes on and I set the timer for six minutes. The olive oil coating on the steak prevents the meat from sticking to the grill. After six minutes, I flip the steak and set the timer for another six minutes. I've been doing this for so long, that I no longer measure the internal temperature of the meat while cooking and the steak is perfect for me. The outside is slightly charred and the middle is rare to medium rare.

When the steak comes off, it is covered on the kitchen counter to rest while I put thick pork cutlets on the grill for my wife. I oil and season these as I did for the steak and it takes four to five minutes on each side, depending on the thickness, for the cutlets to cook.

Not that it matters much to most, but the red liquid on the plate is not blood, despite the pink color. It is water from the muscle tissue with the protein myoglobin. The iron in the myoglobin turns red as it oxidizes and is often confused with blood.

 

[spb]

As you've found out, fattier cuts need different cooking compared to a leaner sirloin or (especially) fillet, as they can be tough if the fat hasn't had a chance to melt and soften properly. For my preference, that just means cooking them a shade more than a leaner one - I'll do a sirloin rare and a fillet almost blue, but a particularly fatty ribeye goes just to the medium side of medium-rare. It won't dry out because of all that interior fat keeping it moist. I don't think you particularly need to change the cooking method; it can definitely be made to work.

 

[marineboy]

I never realised than the pink/red fluid isn’t blood, but that won’t convince my wife.