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.
