How To Cook A Cheap Steak Vs. An Expensive Steak

cooking steak can be a little bit daunting with all the different options and price points so whether you're buying a cheap or an expensive cut of steak it's more about how you treat it and how you're cooking with it that's going to make the biggest difference even if it's a cheap steak you can still get great results so we're going to go over some cheap and expensive cuts of steak and ways to cook them both so steak is just a term for a cut of meat that doesn't have a lot of connective tissue which makes it suitable for quick cooking there's a number of options when you're looking at inexpensive steaks a good list to work off of are hanger steaks tri-tip flap chuck eye steak or chuck tenders hanger is also known as kind of the butcher steak chuck means it's just coming from the shoulder it's a little bit more muscular because the shoulder does a lot of work and it's life but it also has a good amount of marbling and great flavor as well so because it is coming from the shoulder it will be a little bit tougher texture than some of the other more expensive cuts and could be used for a lot of different things even outside of steak which we're not going to get into another great flavor as well as textured steak is a tri-tip this one you'll definitely be able to recognize right away because of its unique shape it actually does have three separate kind of points to it this one can be a little bit more difficult to work with the size varies a bit so by the time you get the middle cooked the outside or the edges could be a little bit overdone what you could do is cut this up into smaller pieces and treat them more like individual fillets flab meat all right flat meat not the sexiest name this is similar to skirt steak or flank but as those have become more popular they're a little bit more expensive in the grocery stores now so flap is a great option it's a little bit different as you can see the texture is quite loose that can be really great because it soaks up marinades really really well it's got a great color though it looks like a prehistoric fossil in some way while this piece can be quite large you can cut it into different pieces freeze part of it and cook some for dinner tonight this one would work great for a marinade since it's going to take on so much flavor and all those little crevices you don't have to do anything crazy but adding just a little bit of low sodium soy sauce some fresh ground black pepper and a few crushed cloves of garlic would be a great simple marinade you can throw together really easily all you need to do is put a clove underneath your palm push down and just kind of bruise it a bit it's going to crack it open a little bit and just help the flavor release without having to do a lot of chopping or mincing and you can let this sit in the marinade for anywhere from 30 minutes to overnight getting out all the air and then just kind of move the meat around in the bag and make sure that everything's touching the marinade and then before you cook you want to make sure that you dry off the marinade and get as much of it off as you can you want to have a nice dry steak so you can get a good crust on it if there's too much moisture left the meat is going to steam when you put it on the hot skillet instead of getting a nice crispy crust using paper towels is great for this because it still is raw meat and you can throw them away right after cast iron skillet is a great option no matter what type of steak you're cooking cast iron holds heat really well but as you'll find in the other cast iron video that we did it doesn't heat up very evenly so if you wanted to preheat your cast iron skillet in a hot oven for about 20 minutes that would be a good option once it's preheated you can go ahead and pour in a good amount of oil you can use any type of cooking oil ideally something with the high smoke one once you're sure that your skillet and your oil are preheated you can go ahead and carefully layer your steak in it should immediately sizzle there's kind of two rules of thought on cooking steaks whether you should flip it often or flip it once or we like to flip ours quite frequently throughout the cooking process to ensure that we're keeping an eye on the entire piece of meat and getting a good crust throughout also by consistently flipping and moving the steak you're ensuring that you're putting the steak on the hottest parts of the pan which are going to give you the best crust especially if you're new to cooking steak and you're not as comfortable just feeling the meat to see if it's done it's always a good idea to have a kitchen thermometer on hand the most foolproof way is to use a thermometer poking right into the center of the steak which is going to be the coolest part for a medium rare steak you want to serve at 135 degrees fahrenheit you can take it off a few degrees earlier because it's going to carry over cooking slightly no matter what steak you're cooking you always want to let it sit for a good five to ten minutes after it comes off this gives me time to let the carry-over cooking take place the steak will be more even temperature throughout and it also helps the meat relax a little bit the high heat is going to make all those fibers kind of tense up and resting will then relax a little bit and be a nicer texture in your mouth this is one that you definitely want to cut against the grain because those fibers are so loose you can really see where they are just going to make sure that it's a little bit easier to chew it's going to be a nicer texture in your mouth sometimes people are freaked out by the red juice that comes out of a resting steak that's actually not blood it's myoglobin it's just a protein in the muscle fibers mixed with the water and residual moisture that's left in the meat some of the cheaper cuts of steak have a little bit of a stronger flavor so they're great to use with marinades because that beef flavor can stand up to the flavors in a marinade if you are looking to indulge a little bit more there's a lot of great options on the higher end as well starting with the new york strip steak this is kind of your starter steak if you will it has a good amount of fat a good bit of marbling it's going to be more tender than something like a chuck and have a beard flavor some key indicators are the fat cap along the outside as well as pretty good marbling throughout it's also called a kansas city chip steak or a sirloin steak the tenderloin or the filet is going to be the most expensive of all the options because it's coming from a very small part that is right under the spine does almost no movement throughout its life therefore it's very very tender it almost melts in your mouth a nice tenderloin you still have a good amount of marbling throughout should be a nice bright color some say that doesn't have as much flavor we were paying for here is the really soft texture and the rarity in the sense that it's a very small part that comes out of the cow ribeye is also known to be one of the most preferred and most expensive steaks has a good balance of marbling texture and flavor there should be good large chunks of fat throughout it you can get a rib eye bone in or out some people will say that the bone imparts a lot more flavor but like i don't necessarily feel like it makes a big difference but it's you know a nice show stopper if you're looking for a medium rare center going about one and a half to two inches is preferred so that you can get a nice crust on the outside while still preserving that medium rare center which highlights the flavor and the texture that you're paying for with the ribeye if you want something that's a little bit more well done i actually wouldn't recommend going with a thicker cut stick so the steak like this it really doesn't need much seasoning the purest way is just with salt and you can do this at least an hour before you're about to cook it you can even salt it overnight what that's going to do is give the salt more time to penetrate it's going to help flavor as well as tenderize if you're going to be salting it overnight we recommend covering with cling film it's only going to be for an hour or so you can actually just put it in the fridge uncovered so what we're going to do is actually do the opposite of the traditional sear then bake method we're going to bake ahead of time and sear later what this is going to do is we're going to slowly raise the temperature of the steak in a low oven and we're going to put that in for about 30 minutes until the internal temperature is around 90 or 95 degrees at that point we're going to take it out get a really really high heat on our cast iron skillet again it should sizzle right away it should be a really really hot pan the great thing about the reverse sear method is that you're cooking the meat itself in the oven and then you're just finishing it off in the skillet to get a really great crust on the outside there's a little bit wide over margin of error here because the temperature in the oven is going to be much lower than on a hot skillet so you have more time and wiggle room to get the temperature right before you're searing it on the outside if you're going to cut into slices it's a great idea to cut the bone out first it's going to make it a lot easier because we gradually rose the temperature of the meat in the oven before it's not as much of a shock to the meat when you're throwing it on a hot skillet it doesn't need to rest as long as a pan-seared steak would the texture is quite fine and it doesn't make as big of a difference the way that you cut it of course it's great to cut it across the grain but it's not going to be as striking of a difference really all you need to cook a great steak is a thermometer good cast iron skillet a lot of salt and some oil bye

Channel: Tasty

Views: 20,767,658

Rating: 4.8004508 out of 5

Keywords: K_fe, ONEX, Tasty, buzzfeed, buzzfeed tasty, cast iron, cheap, cook, cook at home, cooking, expensive, flap, hanger, how to, marinade, medium-rare, perfect, recipe, reverse-sear, rib eye, ribeye, sear, steak, tenderloin, tri-tip, vs

Id: ir5U88d_3iI

Length: 7min 19sec (439 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 27 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/jolopicus]

"Move the meat around in the bag." Fucking millennials