My 10 Step Method to Perfect Steak @Home

all right so there are so many other steak tutorials on the internet so why are you here why are you watching this video why are you gonna keep on watching this video well the truth is a lot of these other videos they focus on singular cooking techniques and when it comes to steak when it comes to feeling confident when you get into the kitchen to prepare that steak there's just so much more going on from the second you pick out that steak to the final product this video is going to be covering all of those essential elements along the stake making process that you need to understand to really tune in and make the perfect steak at home all right let's talk about picking the right steak which is step one of course but it can be a bit overwhelming because there's a lot of different cuts out there and that term steak it can be used of course for other animals even fish you can get fish steaks but for whatever reason beef just sort of dominated that term so when we think of the word steak we think of a beef steak now generally steaks are coming from mussels on the animal that are doing less work which means by nature they are more tender there's less connective tissue so all you have to focus on is searing them up getting a nice crust and then cooking them to your desired doneness now i've got three of the most common steaks right here and they all come from the back of the cow which makes sense the back is not doing as much work as say the shoulders or the neck or the leg first off you have the ribeye right here which is cut from the center of the ribs and you can see that there's a ton of intermuscular fat you've got the little strands running throughout but then you also just have caps these little chunks of fat in a few spots and with all that fat you have one of the more flavorful and definitely beefiest tasting steaks but you've got a little more texture a little more chew to this steak but people love ribeye i'm a big fan of ribeye and then moving over here i have the new york strip steak which comes from the short loin of the cow you can see there's a fat cap that runs on one side of it which should mostly be trimmed down and you've got a good bit of inner muscular fat not as much as the rib eye this steak still has a lot of flavor but it's super tender and it's just a really good all-around steak pretty easy to cook so great for beginners and then finally over here i've got the filet this little nugget right here which also comes from the short loin and this is considered the most tender cut of beef because it's one of the most protected mussels it's really not doing much work so it's going to be nice and soft and just buttery smooth there's not too much fat running through this tenderloin it's super lean so you've got to be careful when you cook this because it's easy to dry out you don't have the protection from the fat now if you take this new york strip and you take this fillet well you've actually got a t-bone steak right there these are actually connected by a bone right in the middle a t-bone is a popular steakhouse cut if you're really trying to ball out but for me it's completely unnecessary it's a home cook i've never gone to the butcher and asked for a t-bone steak to cook at home because i would much rather cook these two steaks individually and really concentrate on the proper technique to get them perfect so i've given you some steak knowledge hopefully you're feeling a little bit more confident about picking out the right steak that fits your preferences but ultimately you can't go wrong just try them all at some point and see what you like best for me i'm going with the new york strip for this tutorial but i'll probably end up cooking all of these at some point and the next step depends on where you're sourcing your steak for me i went with one of my favorite sources which is the sponsor of this video butcher box which delivers 100 grass-fed beef to your doorstep but you can also get free-range organic chicken from butcher box you can get heritage breed pork you can get wild-caught seafood and i'm a big fan of butcher box because i'm a big fan of hunting down quality ingredients and when i'm eating meat i want to make sure that meat is high quality and butcher box sources from farmers and fishermen who meet the highest standard for quality and all you have to do is choose your box type and delivery frequency but you can push shipments or cancel at any time and if you don't want a curated box you can totally just customize it which is what i like to do and the meat and seafood is frozen at its peak freshness and it's packed in dry ice so when you get it you know it's going to be super fresh and i'm just a huge fan of grass-fed beef because that's the natural diet of the cow but check out the link below in the description for butcher box if you're looking for some really high quality steaks but when these steaks shipped to me they came in frozen so what i like to do is take one of the steaks out toss it in the refrigerator overnight to defrost but still we have to nail down this next step which is drying off the steak even if you're getting your steak fresh from the butcher there still might be some juice released from that steak and that is one of the easiest ways to completely screw up your crust so you can use a paper towel i was actually out of paper towels so i just used a clean kitchen towel to completely dry off your steaks before moving to the next step which is seasoning your steak and this is pretty simple for me there's really no need to dry brine a steak this thin but if your steak is thick feel free to salt it and give it a few hours in the fridge i'm just gonna make sure i get a nice coating of salt that will carry through the entire steak with every bite so don't skimp on the salt here and when it comes to pepper it's ideal to get a coarser ground on there so you can protect your pepper from burning at those really high searing temps and make sure you don't waste any of that cutting board seasoning give the side of your steak a little bit of love until it is fully seasoned on every side and then we're ready to move on to the next step which is choosing the proper pan and you can see we have options here but the main thing you really need to consider when you're choosing the proper steak pan is you want something that's nice and thick that's hefty because we need to retain a consistent heat if we want a really nice crust when it comes to steak making it's all about the crust this is a stainless steel skillet right here i would say this is the medium heftiness but you can still get a nice even heat in this great for cooking steak of course you've got your cast iron this is the heftiest pan right here i mean this thing is heavy wonderful for cooking steaks or any type of meat and over here i've got a non-stick pan and although this non-stick is pretty hefty for a non-stick pan it's best to avoid non-stick coatings when you're cooking steak because you are cooking at such a high temperature that you don't want to ruin the actual coating on this nonstick so for today what am i going to go with let's do the stainless steel pan and you just want to make sure that of course you can fit your steak in this pan for instance it's a waste of energy if i'm using a pan this big unless i'm going to be cooking say three steaks at once so all i need is this i believe it's an 8 inch stainless steel weapon of choice stainless steel pan since this is a bit thicker i want to get this preheating just to juice it up a little bit give it a head start and check this out i left for five minutes you can already see that osmosis process starting from the salt so even though i patted off the liquid from the packaging well i've got to pat this down again because i cannot have that liquid boiling this steak we want to sear see all that juice on the bottom there no good so let's talk about the next essential element to cooking the steak which is picking the proper oil so we have this pan preheating and it's going to be ripping hot if we want a nice crust close to 400 degrees fahrenheit and all oils and fats have different smoke points so if we have this thing ripping hot and we throw in a knob of butter well we're not getting any crust on this steak without burning the hell out of that butter so you need an oil that can withstand the high temperatures that we need for the crust and one of the best ways to get that fatter oil is right here my friends see these big chunks of fat right here well you'll never render those down completely the internal fat that will render but these chunks you're just going to be biting into a bunch of fat and i know some steak purists they really like that and i'll leave some of it but there's no problem at least in my book with removing just a little bit of that fat you keep some for flavor and some for protection but a lot of times these steaks are just loaded with extra fat like you might have a corner if you look at this rib eye i'm going to actually steal from this ribeye since i'm cooking a few steaks this ribeye right here no one needs to bite into a piece of fat that big come on you don't need that so what we're going to do is we're going to chop those into really small pieces to help the rendering process and when i say rendering all that means is we are liquefying this fat right here right now it's in solid form and we're going to liquefy it so what i'm going to do is just cook that over low to medium heat and that fat will slowly liquefy and we're going to get a nice treat on the other side as well and then once you have a good bit of fat after about two three minutes you can just tilt the pan just like that and you're just deep frying those pieces which will speed up the process just a bit pop those chunkies out so we've got fat in there and then on top of that well you've got yourself a little steak appetizer while your steak cooks oh these little crispy renderings steak bacon right there so we patted our steak dry but the next essential element to getting that nice crust is making sure your steaks are at room temperature and i know people get a little weirded out about letting their meat sit at room temperature but just take your steak out at least a half hour before an hour would be best we've preheated our pan we have this hot oil in there if we lay in a really cold steak we're bringing the temperature down of that pan then we need to bring the temperature back up and all of a sudden our crust is constantly fluctuating and we don't want that so i'm going to lay this steak in and this is a pretty thin steak i mean we're talking three quarters of an inch to an inch so i want to really hit it with that high flame and that's the next element you really need to get down to mastering steak is flame control no amount of time that a recipe tells you will really do you any good so if you're looking for an exact timing for each side just get that out of your head right now what you need to do is understand flame control because there's so many variables when it comes to steak your meat might be fattier it might cook a little differently than other steaks your appliances might give off a different heat if your steak is thicker like an inch and a half you can lower that flame and develop your crust over time without a concern of actually overcooking your steak it's about getting in there and really just paying attention to what's happening in this steak process so let's check out this crust so i'm gonna flip this and i'm just constantly swirling this steak right now since you're cooking at such a high heat there's gonna be a little burning it's just part of the game if you want that insane crust but swirling this around in the pan and just keeping it moving is one step to avoid extra burning if we look at this side of the crust that's crusty to me and i think that's all it needs so i'm going to take it off i'm going to turn this flame off give it a feel it's feeling pretty good and to be honest this side right here the first side is much crustier than this i mean that's still that's going to be plenty of flavor but this is like a thick crust and that's alright for me because this is a thin steak right here and i cannot risk overcooking it and drying it out i want that nice medium rare texture so i'll sacrifice just a little bit of crust on the other side all right let's swing it right over here and talk about this thing right here which is your convection heat your oven so we've been cooking this steak completely on a direct heat and most likely this is cooked through because it's a thin steak you see some pretty massive steaks sometimes in the butcher and it can be tempting to buy those steaks which is not a problem those are delicious but we might need to take advantage of convection heat which is an indirect heat so we started off on the direct heat get that crust but you don't want to finish that steak on that direct heat because it will end up drying out if it's just constant direct heat to cook it through so there's no problem with taking a thicker steak getting that crust throwing it in a low and slow oven at like 250 degrees fahrenheit cooking that through to that perfect medium rare and ensuring that juiciness but since this is so thin all i'm gonna do is create a little personal oven here and just let that raise a few degrees as it sits here in this tinfoil and that should be the perfect doneness you didn't really think i would leave all this flavor behind right that's some amateur cooking right there now i could totally make a pan sauce or you know you could butter baste your steak whatever you want to do is fine but what i'm gonna do is take it a step further i'm gonna take advantage of this flavor which is such a key element to making steak i'm gonna just slice this up really quickly and i'm gonna get it into this pan right here because what i'm doing is making a little noodle stir-fry i know curveball you didn't think a noodle stir-fry was coming from a steak video right well i didn't either but that's cooking for you so i'm gonna get that in there there's plenty of fat in there plenty of flavor and just let those onions absorb it there's also a lot of salt in there as well so you really don't need to salt your aromatics that are going into the pan at this point i also have some broccolini right here this is a family member of broccoli but what i like about this is it's super thin and delicate so it cooks up really quickly and stir fries so the onions have absorbed most of that oil and they're looking just a little bit dry especially because this broccolini is going in there so i'm just going to add a little bit more oil to the pan and while those are cooking let me work on this sauce when it comes to making a stir-fry sauce it couldn't be simpler i mean number one you gotta build up your asian pantry a bit which you can do over time you might already have a bunch of these ingredients but it's all about balance i'm gonna start with some gochujang which is a korean fermented chili paste this is gonna be the base of my sauce a good amount of heat a good amount of funk and a whole lot of flavor that's for damn sure then let's go in with another umami salty kick of course you got your soy sauce i'm just gonna do two spoons of that i've got some rice vinegar this is actually brown rice vinegar two hits of that that's your acidic element to really make your stir fries pop which is so essential you want it to pop another acidic element a little bit of cooking wine i'll go in with two hits of that and then my final element is just a little bit of mirin which is gonna add some really nice sweetness and i'll stir that up use whatever you have in your pantry i don't care just make sure it's balanced and tasty oh damn that's good oh did my flame run out son of a all right we're moving over here because my flame on my portable stove ran out luckily i have an actual stove back in action so i am going to take broccolini get that in the mix i'll just hit it with a little bit of water that's going to help cook down that broccolini so what i have here are some fresh rice noodles you can use dried rice noodles and just soak them and throw them in here but if you can find fresh rice noodles in chinatown or in your local market definitely go for that and i'll just toss those and let's see if my pan can handle all of them yeah i think it can and you can see these rice noodles right now are a bit dry so what do they need they need some hydration that's where this beautiful stir-fry sauce comes into action and we'll just let those rice noodles hydrate and then we can stir-fry and of course the last step you might be asking why am i making this stir fry right now in a steak video well we're turning this into a steak noodle stir-fry so we've got our beautiful steak right there all those juices coming off that's a bonus right there never waste juices that's flavor all right so let's slice into this steak and see what we have [Music] so you can see right there i would say in between medium and medium rare so i'm going to slice these right in half pop that in there just stir fry that up for about a minute you don't want to overcook this steak you just want to let that sauce really coat those chunks of steak [Music] i know we took a bit of a left turn there but for me i grew up eating just hunks of steak you grill it up yeah serve it up with a few sides and that was that and for me it was just boring it was bland i didn't like it and then i got a little older and i realized okay at least a little sauce on my steak gives it a little extra something but really the last thing i'll leave you with is that steak doesn't just have to be steak it can have a life outside of steak you can extend it pretty easily into a bigger dish and that's generally how i eat meat these days i start with a cut of meat and i figure out how to expand it into something that can feed a few people like this dish right here and thank you of course the butcher box for supplying some really high quality beef and i'll see you in the next video you

Channel: Pro Home Cooks

Views: 194,349

Rating: 4.8914232 out of 5

Keywords: how to cook steak, perfect steak, how to sear steak, steak crust, better steak, searing steak, steak at home, simple steak recipe, steak recipe, dry brine steak, pro home cooks, new, mike g, mike greenfield, where to buy steak, grass-fed steak, steak stir fry, noodle stir fry, steak pad see ew, what pan for steak, perfect steak pan, best oil for steak, steak fat, render steak

Id: 8VSezJ8MrgA

Length: 18min 16sec (1096 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2021