How to Cook a Perfect Steak at home, according to science.

in this video we are doing a deep dive into the stak's hierarchy of needs it's packed with Graphics helpful information and interesting taste test so why does this video matter well steak is probably the most talked about and argued about food on the planet and the problem is most books videos or articles will tell you what to do instead of why and how it works for example the most common state question of all time is how would you like your cooked usually referring to the dness such as rare medium rare or well done but what if I told you the more important question that you should be asking yourself at home is how would you like your steak to smell and I can prove it here are the cross-sections of two stakes one is cooked in medium rare and the other is cooked well done which one do you think tastes better if you like medium rare most people would assume it's the steak on the left but it's actually the welldone steak that has has way more flavor specifically because it smells better now how can that be well I've been withholding some information if we take a look at this top down view you can see the wellone steak has a beautifully brown crust and this is where basically 90% of what we know as the flavor of steak comes from there has been an over focus on the internal temperature or color of Stak which yes is important but if it's lacking the context of the whole pyramid it would be comical if someone popped that 130° steak in front of you and said well you asked for medium rare So as you can guess the goal of this video is not to answer how do you make the perfect steak because one these needs can be achieved through hundreds of cooking methods you can cook a great steak in a cold pan a hot pan a water bath on the grill or with a blowtorch will there be some differences yes and we'll talk about those but a theoretically perfect stake is really up to you your your personal preference and lifestyle so instead the goal of this video is to answer what are the four fundamental components that all great Stakes have so as we watch digest the information and ask yourself what does my perfect steak look like and that steak will probably change for example I love charcoal grilled steaks but if I'm making a week night steak for myself there's no way I'm busting out the charcoal grill for one but if some family and friends are coming over it's game on maslo can show you how to become a self actual Iz person but after watching this video you'll learn how to make self-actualized Stakes so we begin our journey at the bottom of the pyramid with the mayor reaction this is also known as Browning and it's probably the most important food reaction in human history let me explain whoever that first ancestor was that accidentally or purposely dropped some prehistoric meat on the fire for the first time was not thinking about oh let me cook this to a perfect medium or or medium rare no they were probably losing their minds at the smells coming off that meat because they just experienced the May reaction for the first time and this reaction is responsible for almost all of our favorite foods today roasted coffee fried foods a brown loaf of Saro bread or the crust on any cut of meat and this is the reaction that really turns raw meat into what we identify as steak so naturally we have two questions to answer here first how does the May reaction make steak taste so good and secondly what's the best way to Brown a steak at home so at a high level these six properties make up the flavor of food taste Aroma texture the physical reaction sight and the human element and for the Mayon reaction it really kind of hits all six of these in some way however it's primarily responsible for creating new complex Aromas remember there are only five tastes sweet sour salt Sal y bitter and Umami and most of the complexity in food we eat steak included is actually due to its Aroma or smell and this is why the soused steak from earlier pales in comparison to the flavor of the welldone steak that has nice exterior Browning and as noted in on food and cooking roasted broiled and fried Meats develop a crust that is much more intensely flavored because the meat surface dries out and gets hot enough to trigger the Mayar or Browning reactions and these meat Aromas generated in the reaction are generally small rings of carbon atoms with additions of nitrogen oxygen and sulfur and in fact several hundred aromatic compounds have been found in roasted Meats so from an aroma perspective the mayor reaction creates hundreds of new Aroma compounds leading to those complex smells and specifically here is a list of an example of some of those Aroma compounds that are created in different foods where the May reaction occurs now it also has an impact on some of these other areas from a taste perspective the May reaction can change amino acid compositions in a way that also creates new taste such as concentrating Umami which is what many of us identify as Savory from a texture perspective because the mayor reaction usually happens at temperatures that evaporate water and dehydrate the surface of food it often also results in a crispy texture for Sight the Browning obviously changes the color of the surface of foods and as humans we've come to associate that brown color of the May reaction with especially tasty Foods it's kind of built in our DNA now we need to do a mega video in 2024 going through the May reaction and how it works in all types of different foods but for purposes of this video with stake here's what to keep in mind primarily it's all about the aroma and new smells that this may reaction creates but there are some secondary characteristics that it is impacting as well okay so now we know why it makes our food taste better but now let's cover what's the best way to Brown a steak at home and the best way to Brown a steak at home is really up to you it can be done in the oven it can be done in the pan over an open flame or any number of ways what's more important to understand is how the May reaction works from a food science perspective like what are the important temperatures what are the relevant molecules and does it change based on time so let's do just that as noted in on food and cooking the sequence begins with the reaction of a carbohydrate molecule and an amino acid and an unstable intermediate structure is formed and this then under goes further changes producing hundreds of different byproducts and these byproducts are those Aroma molecules we just talked about now for this reaction to happen it needs high temperatures remember the boiling point of water is 212° fhe or 100° C and for Browning to occur it actually needs to dry out the surface of the food completely so we can raise it Beyond on that boiling point temperature the May reaction starts to become noticeable at around 250° F and then happens rapidly at temperatures between the 325 to 375° F range this means it's going to occur most in hot and fast cooking techniques like searing broiling or grilling and this is the reason why we generally sear our short ribs before dropping them into the brazing liquid if we just put the raw meat into that liquid it would never raise beyond that 212 degrees and Browning would never happen we would have no intensely flavored Meats now what's important to keep in mind here is that the May reaction is a function of both temperature and time so the longer something Browns or the higher temperature the Aromas created can be different for example you could have a lightly brown steak all the way up to one that is almost burnt now if you want to see a video where we test what is the best way to Brown a steak let me know because as you could imagine we could test all sorts of things like is there a difference in Browning when starting in a cold pan versus a hot pan what about a wet brine versus a dry brine steak or how about a flame Torch versus a gas grill now with all those question there are other elements of the stake hierarchy in play there so it's time to move on but first here are the big picture items when it comes to the May reaction first why is it important as we discussed the May reaction is arguably what creates the tastiest food in the world like roasted coffee golden brown break bread and seared meats and foods that undergo the mayor reaction are more intensely flavored second how does the May reaction make steak taste better and actually the mayor reaction generates new Aromas so it makes our steak smell better meat Aromas generated by this reaction are going to have that roasted character now secondarily it can concentrate tastes such as Umami and those other things come into play like the texture of the crust the look of it from the sight and just the human element from getting that nice nice Brown food and lastly what's the procedure of cooking at home first minimize the surface moisture on the steak secondly utilize a cooking fat for efficient heat transfer and lastly heat the surface temperature of the steak to at least 325 to 370° fhe where again that mayor reaction is going to rapidly occur and I would highly recommend trying a slice of steak that has not been browned and you will instantly understand why the mayor reaction is so important that being said if our entire steak was just flavorful crust it would be good sure but what makes it special is when that flavorful crust is contrasted with a juicy interior and this brings us to need number two internal temperature now before we dive into the experiments let me tell you about today's sponsor Porter Road Who provided the beef for our tests Porter Road is an online butcher shop that delivers quality cuts of dry age beef chicken and pork directly to your door door and what I love most about Porter Road is the variety they hand cut each steak from the entire animal to produce Cuts you won't find at the grocery store so if you're feeling adventurous you can get a heart steak beef liver or even beef cheeks they have all the classics too though in this video you'll see me using the New York stps and the petite Denver steaks as well as an inside skirt steak and Porter Road works with local farmers who raise animals the right way on the pasture with no added hormones or antibiotics so to get 15% off your first order head to the link below pick out some cuts and the promotion will apply automatically and thank you again Port Road for providing the stakes for this video as I alluded to earlier the dness or color of your steak is probably the most argued about item when it comes to the world of cooking and it all has to do with the internal temperature and I'll say it we need to stop obsessing and arguing about the color of other people's Stakes on the the internet if you go to a real short or Tik Tok video about steak I guarantee someone will say it's undercooked perfectly cooked or overcooked and to prove this I decided to run a fun experiment on my Instagram so I posted a story with the same slice of steak and asked two questions one what is the dness of the steak and two what temperature was this steak cooked to over 10,000 people voted in each poll and guess what most people got it wrong 37% considered this rare 42% % considered it medium rare 27% of people thought it was cooked to 120° F and an overwhelming 56% of people thought it was cooked to 130° F just 15% of people guess correctly on the temperature because this steak was subed exactly to 140° F which most people would consider to be medium or at the very least on the far end of medium rare now I do have to come clean here I set my followers up for failure with this test I had a hypothesis that most people would select the Lower Side of both dness and temperature based on this photo and I was correct so what did I do well there's no funny business going on here it's a normal photo normal stake no color correction of anything and I did cook it to 140° what I did do was choose the most confusing temperature that you can cook a steak to for this test which may make you wonder why is 140° the most confusing temperature well it all has to do with the myoglobin pigment in the meat and you'll understand exactly why after we go this temperature chart that I put together from raw to Blue to rare medium rare medium medium well and Well Done these are generally the ranges of dness most people are familiar with and obviously the question is what's the best way to achieve this dness and regardless of the cooking method you use a good thermometer should be by your side or soused set to a specific temperature and you'll be good to go but have you ever wondered how and why do the texture and color change for each dness like from a food science perspective what's going on as noted in on food and cooking there are kind of four key processes happening to stake at various temperatures All In Parallel first you may wonder why does the texture of steak get firmer as it increases in temperature well the protein fibers that make up the meat start to unfold around 100 De F before that meios and denatures and then it begins to coagulate at 130 all the way up to 140 and Beyond and this is why a rare steak is still kind of mushy and soft compared to a little bit more structurally intact medium rare and medium well steaks second you may wonder why does the steak lose its juices well as those protein fibers tighten the protein bound water in the stake is then released into the cells and this water begins to accumulate as that temperature continues to go up the proteins start getting Tighter and Tighter that water will escape and is squeezed out however water is just half of the equation of the beef juices remember a steak is around 60% water it's also around 20% fat so our third process is that beef fat starts to melt for most steaks at around 104 to 120° F however as we learned in the wagu steak video it can be as low as 77° F also keep in mind here that different cuts of meat have different amounts of fat so a ribey cooked to medium medium well or maybe even well done will be more juicy compared to a leaner cut like a flake steak lastly why does our steak change color well it's the myoglobin pigment that primarily makes our steak look red when raw and this pigment remains normal from raw all the way up to 140° fhe at this temperature the myoglobin will begin to denat though so at 141 142 143 and Beyond the reddish pink that we like begins to go to kind of a lightish gray before completely gray at 1551 60 and above and as you can guess this is why 140 is probably the most confusing temperature I could have chosen for the Instagram photo at this temperature the myoglobin pigment is still working so the Stak looks very pinkish red from edge to edge which is the color most people associate with a rare medium rare steak and a temperature of 120 or 130° additionally it's still plenty juicy at this stage and actually doesn't look as different compared to a 130° steak even though it is 10° less now you can make your own observations as you please but here are two of my key takeaways for this section one blue and truly rare steak are much closer in texture to a fully raw steak at these temperatures the meat fibers are very soft instead of firm as it's barely above our body temperature of 98.6 so once cut up these slices will go cold very fast unless you eat them immediately and lastly very little if any of that fat will have actually have melted in the inside my second key takeaway is that medium rare to medium well done are much closer in texture and flavor to each other than you would think since those fibers start to coagulate at 130° this is really what gives the structure and nice chew to a stake additionally more fat will have melted and as we learned the color can be quite deceptive depending on exactly what temperature it was cooked to now I would definitely recommend cooking a steak to various temperatures and trying them side side because it really is quite fascinating now up to this point you've been seeing Stakes were basically edge to edge they were the same dness but have you ever seen an unevenly cooked steak like this so this is a steak I only cooked on one side the entire time with no flipping and because of that it kind of has this entire range of dness the surface is brown of course and then just inside it's completely gray meaning it must have gotten above that 140° number then then it's blending together in the pinkish red of the medium well to medium medium rare and then rare and obviously at the far Edge away from the heat it's still completely raw and this right here is why flipping a steak is very important and also why subv has an advantage in getting edge to edge the same dness since the water is the exact temperature of the entire steak it slowly heats the whole steak to that same temperature on a pan on the other hand you'll generally at least have a little gray banding due to the surface cooling that's happening on the other side of the steak while the pan side is down getting hammered by 400° now the whole point of this video is so you can understand the levers and pull on them as you please sometimes I sue steak maybe you could test a cold pan versus a hot pan flipping a steak once versus flipping multiple times or try torching your steak after it's done does the edgo edge pinkness look really pretty yes but is there going to be a massive difference here probably not as much as your eyes would would tell you as I alluded to in the intro I think there's an over focus on the color or dness of the steak so let's Zoom back out from internal temperature it's an important piece of the hierarchy but remember it's pointless if it doesn't have that flavorful crust via the May reaction and additionally we're still missing another big piece of the puzle so let's talk about how salt makes our Stakes taste mouthwatering delicious of course salt is in our steak hierarchy of needs and it should be top of Mind anytime we cook but specifically for steak there's a couple of key roles it plays so why is salt so important well first and most importantly salt amplifies the taste of the steak it basically acts as a boon to that delicious May Browning and the internal juiciness we have created additionally well seasoned food activates the saliva in our mouth so all else being equal a well salted piece of steak will be made juicier not only by the liquid in the steak itself but also by the saliva released in our mouth when we eat it so if you have a well done steak assuming it's been seasoned correctly you're able to get some juices from the saliva in your mouth and simply put a salted steak increases the pleasure we feel when eating steak now secondly salt can have a small effect on the texture depending on when it is applied and the natural question here is what's the best way to Salt your steak and it's easy to get confused with all the different ways that you can potentially add salt to your steak for example should you dry brine it or wet brine it should you salt it right before cooking 1 hour before cooking or what about a whole day ahead of time and I'm going to simplify it with a general rule in a second but first you may be wondering how much of a difference does the timing actually make it's a couple of years old now but in this video I tested this exact question with four different steaks I added salt 18 hours ahead 2 hours ahead right before cooking and added no salt until it was after done cooking now you can watch that clip to learn more but there were two interesting observations here first the steaks that were salted ahead of time did retain more moisture but only by a couple of grams on my spreadsheet when it came to actually tasting them they were all cooked to 130° F and were plenty juicy while the salt can help a bit the juiciness of your steak is determined much more by its internal temperature that we just talked about the second observation though the steaks salted ahead of time were evenly seasoned throughout the entire steak the bottom the middle and back to the top and it's kind of weird but I did this test where I cut off the crust of each steak and just tasted the internal meat and the one where I added salt before and after cooking wasn't season at all because the salt didn't have time to diffuse into the steaks and this is one of the benefits of salting ahead of time Salt will diffuse away from areas of high concentration on the exterior into the middle surrounding solution of our steak that being said does this mean you should always salt your steak ahead of time well no the bigger mistake here would not be adding salt at all some people salt Stakes ahead of time and then add some flaky salt after for a bit of hit and crunchy texture and really these are the three questions you should be asking yourself every time you cook a steak one what salt Source am I using two how much salt am I adding and three when am I adding the salt and here's my general rule when it comes to salting steaks the big picture is add salt at some point and secondarily if time permits dry brine 1 hour ahead of time why well the salt will diffuse into the center of the meat and additionally that dry Browning will dry out the surface of the steak which as we learned earlier with the May reaction minimizing the surface moisture will allow us to achieve those required temperatures for the Browning to happen okay so now we move to the top of the hierarchy with added Aromas and this is really where you can start to play with the smell of your steak amazing steaks can be made with just the May reaction internal temperature and some salt but added aromatics might be one of the most unexplored areas when it comes to steak remember most of what we actually experience as flavor when we taste food is really the smell or h hundreds of Aroma molecules that we are experiencing with our nose in the first need we learned how the May reaction creates those delicious Aroma molecules that we really identify as the flavor of cooked steak when it comes to this section though think about it this way what external Aromas do I want to add to my steak do I want the Aromas of black pepper my favorite spice rub fresh garlic and rosemary or that signature grilled flavor and all of these can completely change how you experience the smell of of a steak and I think I want to do a follow-up video here just testing questions I have related to this category but here are a couple of questions we'll explore in this section first can you actually taste the butter in a butter based steak secondly is there an easier way to add garlic and rosemary Aromas instead of messing around with that whole basing thing and then three from a food science perspective why does grilled steak taste so different from panser ones and I did a sideb side test in the last one and it's seriously so cool how you can instantly pick up that distinctive grilled flavor that's got to be a charcoal grilled steak immediately you pop it in your mouth you just get hit with all this Aroma of like charcoal grilled vaporized meat juices but first we need to talk about the four categories that can influence the aroma of steak first off is the type of steak for example think wagu versus American beef secondly is the cooking fat for example butter versus a neutral or olive oil third are the added aromatic ingredients these are your fresh garlic rosemary or your favorite spice rub and lastly we have the heat Source such as grilling versus a pan and what I'm curious about here is what category makes the biggest difference in the aroma of our final product because the more that I've learned about it in making this video I'm not sure that the cooking fat may play all that important of a role have you ever wondered why a ribeye from two different cows can taste so different or conversely why does a F Manan tastes so different from the ribeye if they are cut from the same cow like what inside the steak is making the flavor different so in general the steak is made up of three molecules water protein and fat for example ribey is about 55% water 23% protein 22% fat and a filet monan might be 56% water 27% protein and just 177% fat so the water really doesn't smell or taste all that strong and as we learned earlier the proteins on the surface are used for the May reaction to create hundreds of new aromaa molecules and that leaves us with the fat and as noted in on food and cooking it's largely the contents of the fat tissue that give beef lamb pork and chicken their distinctive flavor which are Composites of many different kinds of Aroma molecules in those fats and as we learned earlier the Browning on the stakes is mostly what creates those Aromas we identify as meaty or beefy but even if you had a soused steak with no Browning the riye would still taste a little different than that scur steak due to the breakdown of its unique makeup of fats and proteins now that explains why different cuts of a steak from the same cow taste different but it can also be used to explain why the same cut from different cows can taste so different for example as we saw in the wagu ground beef breakdown an A5 wagu ribey could be in the range of 45 to 60% fat so it is both the amount of fat in the cut and also the type of fat in the cut and here's an example of factors that can influence the fat content and fat flavor of beef this includes the breed of the cow the age of the cow and how it's raised such as what it's fed on grass versus grain fed where it's raised and how it's treated and obviously we could do tons of video experiments with these I'd love to do it at some point looking at A3 versus A5 wagu or grass versus grain bed to see how different they are but I really want to spend the rest of this video focusing on the next three categories because I don't think these have been talked about enough and they could potentially have a massive difference in how your steak smells at home okay so we just learned how different types of steak fats can taste different and something I've always wanted to know is can you taste the difference between a butter based and a neutral oilbased steak now Chris Young released a video testing if basting speeds cooking Cooks steaks more evenly keeps me juicy and adds flavor and ultimately he found the answer was no for all four questions now those first three questions really have to do with the internal temperature or need number two in our hierarchy but the flavor is really where those additional Aromas are created and the question I want to explore is this is the aroma added by one the brown butter itself two increased May Browning on the steak or three a combination of both now I had already planned on doing this test for my video so let's see if I reach the same conclusion as Chris for this test I salted and brine a ribeye in the fridge for 2 hours then I slice it in half before Browning each side and butter basting one of them so the first question here is visual did the butter basted steak Brown better on the exterior and to that I would say no I mean we have great coverage on both sides and you can definitely base the steak with any type of cooking fat or not at all so now the question is does the brown butter basted steak smell better and am I able to pick that up side by side so I poured over the fat from the pan on each steak before slicing them in and again I have no added aromatics here the only difference is that one was basted in butter and the other was just neutral peanut oil let's taste test okay so test number one I've got two that were butter basted and then two that were not butter basted just using plain peanut oil as far as Browning goes I was able to Brown them up really really well they all look really really good now is where we need to ask the questions can you actually really taste a difference in that butter flavor so let's blindfold up take one away and see what we find out okay we'll take this one away okay let's hop into number one number one really good steak no comments yet just a really good steak number two I think that one may have been a little bit more beefy let's go to number three though I don't know going to come back to number one wow is that hard man this is tough cuz the only thing like the fat itself is not going inside the steak so really it's only the crust that's different and it's hard to isolate that in this test like you almost need to bite straight down so the crust is the first thing that hits your tongue there's a great crust on all of them they all taste really good I don't really have a good guess at all I I don't have an inclination so like it's not even worth trying to guess here I'm just kind of curious to see which one these are okay so I ended up with two Butters and one non butter just the peanut oil and yeah it was like it's so hard to tell I guess if this is I needed to almost take two end pieces yeah even after tasting those side by side and knowing what they were I I would not be able to tell you that like one was cooked with butter and one was not I think what we would have had to do is really cut them after and then put the butter on because in this case I'm really struggling to tell a difference here now to me this really proves just how powerful the May reaction is is in creating most of what we experience as the aroma flavor of steak however what if you did want that Aroma of the fat itself would you be able to tell a difference if you pour the fat directly over the steak after it has been sliced well we're going to give that a try in the next experiment for Category 3 the aromatic ingredients adding aromatic ingredients are one of the best ways that you can play with your steak one of the most common things we all do is add some freshly cracked black pepper but this also includes your SP spices herbs or aromatics like garlic shallot or onion and the more I do this I realize the timing of aromatics is super important here and the question that you should ask yourself is when am I adding the aromatics so why is this timing so important well it's because the aroma molecules are volatile we've touched on this before but in general Aromas have top middle and base notes and the top and middle notes are usually volatile and react with air light and heat meaning they are the first to appear and be smelled by nose but they also disappear fast too so if you want the top notes of black pepper it's better to Fresh crack them right after the steak has been cooked rather than cooking it on the steak beforehand one is not good or bad they're just different now another common way we Implement Aromas into Stak is with a fat Source such as butter basting so why do we use a fat well most of the aroma molecules in spices herbs or aromatic vegetables are fat soluble meaning they will dissolve and help transport those flavors to our steak via the fat rather than being lost into the air and this is where our testing comes into play I want to know this can you tell the difference in timing the aromatics so for this I prepared three staks I butter basted one with garlic and rosemary in the beginning kind of like the classic status quo way secondly after cooking the steak I melted butter and Infused it with garlic and rosemary in the pan then learning what we learned in the prior experiment I actually poured it directly over after slicing lastly I rub some fresh garlic and rosemary on my steak as it went resting and as you can guess we have some pretty different timings here for aromatics the first steak has been cooked with the aromatics the longest the second one was cooked a little bit and then the third was not cooked at all so how different will these be well let's taste test so we've got the classically basted steak here the rosemary oil drizzled over it and then this one was just kind of hit with the garlic and rosemary right at the end basically no cooking at all I'm very very excited to see if there are actually differences here in this test now you totally could triangle test these but since the fat is added after it's been sliced texturally I'm just going to know what that one is so really I just want to mix these up and spin them up and just see how much of a difference there actually is here steak number one that one's really good I mean you can tell it's got some aromatics added into it in addition to just searing up um let's go to number two oh yeah it's pretty crazy how big of a difference there is between one and two here immediately you get hit with that that Rosemary just right up in my nose I love that oh man all right number three also very aromatic Rosemary come true also it's really on the crust that you get it okay coming back to number one one is solid there's an aromatic qualities but it's not as distinctive and rosemary forward as two and three so I'm going to make my guess here that number one is the classically butter based one number two is with the oil added straight to the beef and number three is going to be the one that was kind of thrashed on the outside with that Rosemary and I'm I'm going to blindfold up and if I am right I'll tell you how I came to that conclusion because I think it's pretty obvious okay so we have the purple is the classically based one the middle had nothing that means it was oil added and the third one is the Rosemary the pink um yeah this was actually really really cool because it really shows you how Aromas work in your steak so I was able to cheat here a little bit which is pretty cool to figure out which one was Wich these two were definitely very aromatic but this one was mostly I was getting it on the exterior which that's where we actually hit the Rosemary so what I did to easily figure this out which one was which I took a bite of the piece which doesn't have much of the brownie on the outside this one still tasted like that Rosemary right away and that is because we added the oil directly to the internal piece of our steak and then when I went to take a bite of this piece of steak I bit in avoided the CR CR completely and I didn't really get any of that Rosemary extract up in my nose and that is just really really cool when you think about it so for me this test really proves why butter basting does not really do anything at all if you actually want to add aromatics to your steak I would recommend putting the oil directly over the slice because this is how I was able to tell the difference between two and three so if you want to get the most out of your aromatics and actually be able to perceive them at their most optimal level try Browning them in a little bit of butter right at the end mincing them up and pouring it over this was a really really cool test and that for me just shows the power of Aromas and also why traditional Bas them I just don't think it's really necessary at all you still want to do it go ahead but it's not for me lastly I want to talk about how the heat Source can affect the aroma of your steak now the most obvious one here is grilled food like what makes grilled food tastes so good and when it comes to the heat Source there are kind of three ways it can affect the aroma firstly is the rate of the May reaction for example if you cook a steak in a water bath the May reaction will never happen and this is why we need to sear our sube bead steaks or conversely remember from earlier the May reaction can create hundreds of Aroma molecules so at different temperature ranges and times different kinds and different concentrations of Aromas may be created and based B on the steaks earlier you can guess which one of these is going to have the most Aroma additionally a pan seared steak is going to have an even brown crust but a grilled steak will have deeply Brown grilled marks again these are going to smell a little bit different number two is smoke a Woodfired smoker or grill is basically like adding another spice to your steak so instead of adding black pepper the smoked particles from the wood attached to the exterior of what is being cooked in this case our steak however you may may be interested to know that this is not why a gas or even a charcoal grilled piece of meat tastes so interesting this is primarily due to number three vaporization and vaporization is the key to why grilled food tastes so unique so how does it work well the protein in a gas grill is actually colorless and odorless which I had no idea the reason you can smell propane is that they actually add an odorant that our nose can detect so that we know when a gas leak is happening now charcoal will smoke in the beginning but after it's fully lit it actually is odorless as well and this is where the vaporization comes into play basically as we start to cook the food through radiation just like we learned in that temperature chart from earlier the water and fat will begin to squeeze out and melt and when that water drips down into the grill or charcoal it's instantly vaporized and it creates this really unique perfume of beefy proteiny mix and for charcoal specifically that water when it drops down onto it is going to bring up some of that soot and Ash upwards and around the meat basically it's just like beef perfume and I did a little test just because I've always wanted to taste these side by side this is something I've always been pretty curious about like how different is a charcoal grilled steak when you are eating it in direct comparison to one that is pan seared so let's blindfold up and just see what the differences are this one goes [Music] away okay so triangle test I've got two similar one different my goal is to see if I can actually guess and figure out which one is different so let's start with steak number one I think that's a panier sake it it tastes exactly like what I'm used to in a panier steak yep that's got to be a charcoal grilled steak you you can like it's immediate that's so cool how different that is like immediately you pop it in your mouth you just get hit with all this Aroma of like charcoal grilled vaporized meat juices um yeah pan seared charcoal let's see what our last one is one in three pan seared inside one charcoal um let's see I'm almost I mean that's got to be it so as I kind of assumed this was going to be pretty easy we have the two panser ones with the charcoal one in the middle but I would highly recommend maybe recreating this at home next time you're getting the charcoal grill out it's just really cool to actually experience and right away you take one bite of this charcoal grilled steak and you're like that's charcoal grill it's it's it's so different in just like those Aromas that are able to be created through the vaporization ation of those meat juices dripping down and also a difference in the May reaction that's happening compared to what you get in the pan so very very fascinating like looking at this category and you could imagine doing other tests with different types of woods versus charcoal doing a gas gril things like that but this this is a good primer to get you started with how you can think about how kind of your heat Source matters a lot in how the aroma of your steak is perceived so in conclusion think about the Aromas you can be adding to your steak to make them more interesting is it a spice rub the grill or some fresh thyme or Rosemary and there are loads more test I can think of that we could try in all four of these categories but in conclusion I hope you realize that a great steak can be made with these four components of the stake hierarchy in so many different ways anytime from now on that you watch a video that says this is the best or this is the perfect stake you can immediately use this as a mental model to figure out what what they are optimizing for if someone says Pat the steak dry you can go oh that's going to help with the mayor reaction if someone says add flaky salt to the slices that's going to help me salivate if someone says start it in a cold pan that can probably help you control the internal temperature as you dial in the May reaction on the external side or if someone adds a special spice rub or aromatic mix that's going to influence the added Aromas well this was a long video everybody and thank you for making it to the end and if you want me to do more of these videos let me know because I think it's a very interesting way to look at Food once you peel and strip back to the fundamental elements or components you're kind of not talking specifically about techniques which is what kind of a lot of recipes and videos Focus about rather than what are the underlying kind of food science elements that every great steak or every great pizza burger you can imagine we could do lots of these types of videos but anyway hopefully you have enjoyed that will wrap it up for me in this one I will catch you all in the next one peace y'all

Channel: Ethan Chlebowski

Views: 596,079

Keywords: Ethan Chlebowski, how to cook a steak, how to cook a medium rare steak, well done steak, cooking a well done steak, how to cook steak, Steak science, food science, how to cook, medium rare steak, Steak 101, perfect steak, whats the best way to cook a steak?, steak, medium rare steak cast iron skillet, medium rare steak temperature, medium rare vs well done, rare vs medium rare

Id: AaHbfrryeYA

Length: 42min 59sec (2579 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 30 2023