How to Reverse Sear Steak

hi chef Martin in the thermo works demo kitchen and today we're talking about steak anytime of the year is a great time for steak and we're going to talk to you today about some basics for steaks as well as our favorite way of cooking steaks to get the best results every time no surprise it's going to involve a lot of temperature monitoring that's how you know when your steak is done first let's talk a little bit about what steak is steak is those pieces those cuts of beef that are tender enough to really just eat on their own without a lot of heavy cooking they're very low in connective tissue they're generally very very tender steaks come from the top loins of the cow along near the backbone of the cow and some down the rear the rump just a little bit because those are the most underused portions of the cow that means they're the most tender the legs on the cows support a lot of weight and so they used a lot they're more tough they're more chewy that's where some of your your tougher cuts come from with a lot of connective tissue in them but the ones up along the back are very tender because the cow doesn't use them very much at all you've got the strip loin in there you've got the rib loin you've got the sirloin all those things are up at the top of the back of the cow there's not very many of them on a cow and that's why steak is so expensive you know you want to buy like an eye of round or a piece of round or some ground round or chuck there's loads of chuck on accounts a whole bunch of it but there's not very much steak on a cow and that's part of the expense when it comes to steaks now of course because the expense of steaks you want to make sure that you're cooking them correctly you don't want to spend all that money on the steak and end up with a piece of dried-up yucky hard meat it's a hockey puck we want to talk about how to cook them right now just as an overview these are kind of the three major types of steaks you run into most the time or they're comprised of these first there's the the ribeye the ribeye right here this comes from the rib loin of the cow this can be served bone-in or boneless this is bone-in this is right along the ribcage of the cow right on the top of it so that's that's the ribeye and this is a great cut it's fatty it's rich it's got a lot of goodness to it and there's nothing like it when it comes to smell of the particular fat and muscles that cook in the ribeye it's a very unique unique thing there's a lot of fat not everybody likes the ribeye because of that we have some solutions for that on our blog look up our rib cap that's a really fun fun post and a really fun way to handle that that's the rib eye and that's that's a great steak one I don't have here's the sirloin the sirloin it's were a little further back the sirloin is kind of the classic big steak like your grandfather's favorite steak that's just a big piece of meat that's because the sirloin is a lot cheaper than all these other cuts so you can get a bigger piece for less money it's not quite as tender and generally there's a couple of thick mem like cartilage genes that run through the sirloin the you Han tactic cut around that it's kind of grisly but if you want a big cut of beef that you can sear and it's gonna have a nice strong beefy flavor the sirloin is great for that it's not great for everything if you want something a little bit more tender these are more like it next we have the New York Strip this is from the strip loin boneless this is the New York Strip you can get that bone-in and then it's called a Kansas City strip this is a great as these steaks go that's your lower-cost option it is slightly less tender this is what I'll often order when I'm at a steak restaurant if I go to a steak restaurant is I'll get I'll get a strip and then of course there's the fillet we'll talk more later about why I have this on some honest masseur Sh here the filet is from the tenderloin that's a very small muscle there's two on each cow that runs down the back there's only about 12 to maybe 20 of these on any given cow and that explains their expense this is the most tender steak it is often and rightfully described as buttery both in texture and in flavor it is not powerfully beefy but I love it it is it's my favorite steak I'm a I go for the texture on this one and it's what I really want so if you combine a New York and of filet with the bone in between them that's what a porterhouse is a porterhouse is a bone in New York with part of the Tenderloin attached to it they come from the same loin down the cow just on different sides of each other and and so that's what a porterhouse is a t-bone is the same cut but it's from further down the line where there's not very much filet so the filet muscle narrows as it goes to the tip and the part where it's narrower that's where you're going to cut your t-bones from so you get a little bite of filet but you don't get a whole filet a porterhouse has a whole New York Strip and basically a whole filet on it that's your basic steaks right there but the important thing to know about steaks is that because there's not very much connective tissue because they're so tender they tend to dry out very quickly and and to overcook easily the proteins that are in steaks in all meats but in steaks and it's more evident they start to contract at about a hundred and thirty five hundred and forty degrees and one hundred and fifty they really contract more and that contraction squeezes the water out of the muscle like a sponge like when you wring a sponge out we don't want that to happen because that makes for a dry steak we want juicy tender steaks and that means that steaks are generally best cooked to about a medium-rare temperature if you like it rare by all means do that but if you like rare that's great a lot of people don't like rare they wanted their meat a little bit warmer than that medium-rare is 130 to 135 degrees Fahrenheit finish temperature so depending on how you're cooking it you're gonna want to pull it from the heat before that so the hair that the carry over cooking can happen without overcooking your steak so rare is about 120 to 130 degrees 120 is really quite blue medium-rare is 130 to 135 medium is 135 to 140 well 144 really medium well 144 to 154 and then 155 Plus is your well-done steak so today I want to talk about one of the best ways to cook your steaks just right and that is with the reverse sear method one of the classic ways to cook a steak is is to sear it in a hot pan and then put it into an oven to finish and that is a great way to cook a steak I honestly I love that method but the reverse just a little bit better and for the reverse here what we do is we cook it in an oven a low oven a low heat source until we get about 15 or 20 degrees below where we want to finish the steak at depending on the size of steak and how we're going to be cooking it after and then we sear it right at the very end and that just puts that crust on the steak that you want beef is tasty beef tartare is actually very good though it's not very fashionable in America but beef is good on its own but it's so much better with this year right that crustiness from a grill or from a sear on in a pan that gives it that my are browning that happens starting about 300 ish degrees where those proteins are gonna break down and mix with oxygen and things like that create all sorts of flavors and that's where the sticky yummy goodness comes from for the reverse sear we're going to cook the steak most of the way through and then we're going to sear it at the very end to get that browning on there so I have my oven set to 250 degrees if you are reversed searing on the grill you want to set your grill up for to zone cooking one side of the grill with no heat or low heat the other side with with the heat source and you want to have a lid on there so the cool side is about 250 degrees and you'll cook your steaks in there first I'm gonna cook all these steaks in the oven to begin with because it's convenient but that's that's how we're going to do it so I'm gonna probe all of these so I can watch the temperatures this the filet and the ribeye I'm gonna cook to 110 degrees my New York strips are a little bit thinner so I'm going to cook those to 105 degrees because they're gonna get more heat into them more quickly towards the center when I do this earring before we cook these we want to season them I'm just gonna use some salt and pepper if you have good quality beef and you're cooking it the right way you don't need anything else there's nothing wrong with Montreal steak seasoning but if you've got a good steak and you're cooking right you don't need it so we're gonna liberally salt these I've got some kosher salt here we're gonna really kind of not skimp on the salt that's one of the keys to a really tasty steak on it so you need that salt on there the flavor of the beef to wake up so we're gonna salt these rather generously just kind of snow it on there and then we're going to end it while I'm at it I'm gonna pepper this side I like to be kind of generous with the pepper you don't have to be as generous with the pepper if you don't want to steak au poivre is a classic French dish with has which has so much pepper on it that you'd think it would be bad but it is good so we're going to salt and pepper those like so then I'm going to flip them over again you don't need skewers for the for the tenderloin that has to do with how we're going to reverse sear that one a little later on down the line so salt on both sides don't skimp and pepper both sides so when you probe your steaks you want to make sure that the thermometer probe is in the very center of the steak the thermal center that's where it's coldest and that's what you need to make sure your temperatures get up to so for the filet I'm going to measure here I can see where the center is I'm going to put my finger here to mark it I'm gonna go in the side until my finger hits the meat that's halfway down the steak so that is should be right in the center of the meat there for the New York you have to go in kind of at an angle I mean you could go in from the side I suppose but I find that a little riskier to find it put it in the angle mark where your fingers going to go maintain that same angle and go in like that and then same trick for the same trick for the prime rib or primary it's from the prime rib it's the ribeye we're gonna go in like that so that we're right in the center like so all right I've got my steaks in the oven I've attached the probes to the chef alarms set to the right temperatures I've got a hundred and ten degrees set for the filet and for the primer for the ribeye and I've got 105 degrees set for the New York and so we're gonna close this up and cook them I can know when each kind of steak is at the temperature that we will want it to be at which means I can take that steak out at that temperature and continue that's a great thing about actually measuring the temperatures I'm gonna get them all right so let's cook these all right here we are in the demo kitchen still our steaks are done cooking in the oven for the initial part I've cooked these New York strips to 205 degrees here I have a hot pan I'm over a high heat on gas here I can throw that done just a just a hair I'll turn that down and here's what we're gonna do we're gonna sear these I'm gonna put a tiny bit of high heat oil in the pan in this case grapeseed oil any high heat oil will do and then I'm going to put the stakes in sear one side for just a minute or two I'll probably do the top side since the drier side first from what how they came out of the oven and that's going to get a better sear and then I'm going to flip it over put some butter some and some garlic in the pan and baste it with that while I do the second side you may have seen people do this in cooking shows this is what they're doing they're basting for flavor and for a better crust so here goes we're gonna put this I got just a little bit of high heat up the steaks will give off some of their own fat so that'll be good too and we're gonna go straight into the pan like that do you make sure that you have good ventilation in your kitchen with this happening your kitchens going to get pretty smoky when you're cooking steaks at high G's just so you know so we're gonna cook this like I said for a minute or two per side got that over nice high heat thyme and garlic are really great for this rosemary is also good you can use rosemary instead of time you can use rosemary in addition to time any flavors you want to just have a hint of in the steak go ahead and throw in with the butter when you when you put this over the butters gonna melt it's gonna Brown and it's gonna absorb all those flavors from the time or from the garlic and it's gonna transfer those to the beef and that's gonna be delicious so you can see a little smoke coming out of the pan here that's appropriate that's gonna happen there's gonna be a lot more smoke when this when this goes down so the steak is pretty ugly looking it's just kind of gray on top there that's what it looks like without the sear and that's what it tastes like without this here so we're gonna take a look at the other side of this huh that's looking pretty nice we're gonna finish that sear with the base so in goes the butter into the pan some garlic that I've sliced in half you can also crush that and the time that's about two tablespoons of butter by the way we're gonna let that all mix together here listen to that sizzle and we're gonna start flipping that up on to the steaks like this use a big spoon put that up on there and we can go ahead and put the time on there that would be great the butter is melting the butter is browning the garlic's turning brown on the edges and we're searing the underside we can let some of the butter underneath there to get a little bit of a better Brown underneath it like so we're just gonna keep flipping this butter up on there for a minute or so and we're gonna take the temperature on this steak and see where at I want this to come off the heat at about a hundred and twenty-five degrees for me a little bit lower be fine 125 is not what I'm shooting for that's gonna give us a hundred and thirty or so when we when we gonna start carry over maybe 135 and that's gonna be a nice medium-rare which the towels like I said steaks generally are considered best and how I like my steaks best so we'll go like that I've got my thermo pen here and we'll go ahead and stick that in there all right yep do you you can see that there's there's temperature gradient it's hotter near the surface than it is inside we're gonna take that off right now before over cooks you can even wipe the pan out briefly with a paper towel leave some of the oil and the last cook in there some of that butter and stuff like that and you can keep going so I'm gonna reheat this put it back over the heat and now cook my second steak a little bit more oil just a little there we go my pans a little bit better he did this time that it was on the first one this first side might take a little bit less time so we'll just let the state cook the crust we got on that one is really nice there's nice lots of nice buttery flavor and things like that I might be able to get out just a little bit more crust on this because the pan is up a little bit higher we'll see how it goes but one way or another these are both gonna be delicious steaks so put that and we'll do the same thing this process by the way is the French term for it is suave it means to base that's a lot of smoke coming out of there which means I've probably got some good crust already that's nice so in goes the butter and goes the thyme and the garlic like that loosens that time popping if you could smell this it's amazing it's just amazing so get that time up on there start flipping by doing this so works bait where we're cooking the bottom side obviously most cuz it's got the most contact with the heat but we are completing the sear on the top side with the butter that was throwing up on that we're basically deep-frying the top of the steak which is manifestly delicious so there's that that's looking really nice going to check the temp on that all right that's actually looking really nice put that back I'm gonna pull that off this hot kill the heat on that there we go not over here I'm gonna go ahead and take this time out and just let it sit on top of there we can get anything we want out of that so that is how to pan sear your reverse sear steaks and although we're gonna show you two more ways to doing it this is generally my personal favorite the flavor that you get I think it's really fun to work with the butter it's just a really good way to go next we're going to grill sear the rib eyes so I'm gonna grab those and we'll continue on the rib eyes are great I mean they're great in the pan but if you're going to grill a steak ribeye is my favorite like I said before the flavor from a grilled ribeye is so special and so different and the smell from a grilled ribeye is just kind of indescribable so I've got a really hot grill here it's been preheating really well really kind of flaming hot if you're doing this on the grill outside that's what you want also you want a really hot a really high heat hot grill so I'm gonna just oil the grates a little bit just for rent whatever sticking we can and then I'm also going to put just a little bit of oil on the surface of the steak that just helps the my art browning happen helps the heat transfer so I'm gonna put a little on there and just kind of brush it in and then I'll get the other side when it's on the grill but this is going to go right on the grill right here let's go take a few minutes this is a thicker steak so it's gonna take a little bit longer to get that heat all the way through but we do have some really really high heat going on here so that one's gonna go on also like that we'll turn those in a couple minutes to get that nice grid pattern on the steaks that's more for presentation than anything but also wherever that those grill lines are has more of the flavor that you're looking for more of that seared charred flavor so if you just cook your steaks like this and don't rotate them you only get one line of flavor by rotating if you double the amount of charge surfaces you get or I mean as a mathematical approximation doubling so there you are obviously I'm in hiding behind the smoke here again if you're doing this inside ventilation is super super important you don't want this filling up your house setting up your smoke alarms making your clothes smell like smoke the method in the pan I love it is a little harder to keep track of the temperatures you have to really watch it and make sure that your temp it and get it out of there on the grill it's a lot easier honestly because you can be temping the steak as you're going so I don't even need to attempt these yet but I do want to keep a look take a tional look underneath to see how the lines are going and that actually you can see that's quite lovely so I'm gonna turn that sometimes you have to kind of press down on the steak to make sure that it has contact with the grill or the griddle don't do that too much just larious water in there that we don't want to squish out and you can actually swish it out that is looking that's looking pretty nice too honestly so we're going to turn that one sideways like that give those just a minute and then we'll flip and we'll start to temp once we flip these flare-ups we don't love like I'd rather have that go away I'm going to kind of move that off the heat for a second let that die down that's just gonna happen especially with rib eyes which are really fatty you're going to get that that happening so there we go now we've got a nice sear on that side we'll flip it over check this one thank you is just another minute well let that go on that side getting the second crosshatch pattern on the bottom side is not strictly speaking it's necessary again there's more flavor to be had there but there's less need for it from an aesthetic standpoint so this I got just a little bit crispy that's gonna be okay we'll put that this ends a little bit cooler than this ends I'm gonna move that up there and we're gonna start taking attempts on this oh that's actually that's that's kind of perfect right there that's a little warm in some places this one's gonna be a little bit more closer to medium the medium rare we got just a little sear on the back of that maybe we spent a little too much time on the front side that one will go ahead and start cooking there we can just monitor that we can check this yeah okay all right let's get that off too so we've let our steaks rest which I didn't talk about before after you cook the steaks it is important let them rest for five minutes or so that would give the those contracted muscle fibers a time to relax and reabsorb whatever juice they may have squished out to an extent I've had both these on the plate this looks like a delicious meal right here two steaks a little too much for me but I'd make a go of it if I needed to so I'm going to just cut one of these open and take a look at it we've got the time they're off to the side I'm going to cut that [Music] and that yeah that's beautiful that's lovely in there so look at that beautiful that's uh right on the edge of medium-rare there that might be just no that's perfect that's perfect medium-rare we've got some nice dark pink lots of juiciness it's got some nice red color to it but isn't raw so that's that's lovely here we have one of our rib eyes let's take a look at how this did everybody has a couple different muscles in it I'm gonna cut straight through the center so we can see what it's like right in there and it's quite lovely so you can see this side got a little bit more cooked than the other side there's a little bit of a gray band here I spent too much time searing on that side but in general the steak is in really great shape that's a nice medium-rare color I've got nice juiciness there alright finally we come to our fillets this is a really fun method our last one just like the others we've cooked these to 110 degrees internal temperature and we're ready to go outside where we have a a chimney full of charcoal that is flaming hot the reason we put these skewers in there so we could suspend the steak directly over the fire of that chimney so we're basically gonna be cooking this over what seems like a jet-engine it gives it an amazing sear it doesn't take very long and there's a it's it's a great flavor you get that char holy goodness so let's go let's go take a look so we've got the steaks here on the skewers like I said before I've brushed them with a little bit of oil to help with the my are browning we're gonna put this on here and we're just gonna let that go for a couple minutes shouldn't take terribly long there's lots of heat there I can already hear it sizzling if you want to cook steaks up to about 115 degrees and then kind of chill them you can cook them later on a little later or not you want to let them sit overnight or something like that just won't be as good they can be made just a little bit ahead of time then it all seared in quick secession succession that way so I'm gonna go ahead and check that that is beautiful not quite there yet the edges are great the Sentra needs a little bit more Brown make sure use long enough skewers to the heat transfer isn't gonna go out to the edges and and burn your hands gloves would not be a bad idea there you go look at that look at that that's lovely now that could be a little bit weird in the center I'm gonna I'm gonna do this other side for a minute and then maybe you go back yeah so we still have a little time we're at about 110 in parts of this and because it's cooled off some now the edges are getting a little bit hotter so I might pull this and have this one be a little on the rare side we'll see how it goes oh that's looking beautiful beautiful beautiful alright we've got nice we've got really nice sear on the bottom on the top of this and now also the bottom is getting some nice sear on it we're gonna give that just one more minute and we'll start temping this here and you know what that is that is looking really nice oh yeah that's actually that's ready to come off that's a 1:27 that's a degree or so north of where I'd like to be on that part but the rest of it is right where it should be and we'll go ahead and cook up the second one now you can see on the steak that we've finished this beautiful sear nice brown crust on there a little bits of char on the edges that's not burnt that's just some nice char that's lovely I look forward to tasting that that's gonna be really good so you this is this is cooking up it's just lovely look at that that's a beautiful sear on there we've got some nice sizzle nice brown pepper corns I'm gonna go ahead and flip that this particular one's been tied you can see to hold it together better it's from a little bit further down on the steak all right let's get that off really hot chimney full of charcoal skewers so you could suspend your stake above it and turn it several times so you don't kill one side while you're getting up to temp you want to pump the heat and equally from both sides let's go in cut this open and see what it looks like inside and we're back inside now a little wetter for wear but that's okay we got some great steak this is rested for a couple of minutes I'm gonna pull these skewers out cut it open and see what it's like inside so there you go you're gonna cut straight through that string on this one beautiful nice and pink that might be one degree I a couple degrees higher than the medium where I usually look for but I'm not gonna complain about that or send it back to the kitchen so the important thing when you're cooking steaks is to not overcook them obviously you don't want them to dry it out you put a lot of money into a good steak and you want to impress your own mouth if nobody else is testing steaks by poking your fingers it doesn't really work the only way to do it is to use thermometers to take the actual temperature of the steak if you do that with a reverse sear cooking in the oven to about 15 degrees below your target temperature and then sear it in a hot pan on a hot grill or just over some flaming hot coals you're gonna end up with the steak that is browned and lovely on the outside and juicy and tender on the inside and it'll be great so grab some steaks grab your thermometer and happy cooking you

Channel: ThermoWorks

Views: 33,493

Keywords: how to cook steak, reverse sear steak

Id: E6AVcW1I7S4

Length: 29min 23sec (1763 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 08 2020