Steak 101: How to choose a steak and cook it in a pan (no thermometer)

here's everything I wish I had known when I first started trying to cook steak this is a basic primer on how to choose and cook a steak in a pan to medium rare or there abouts by using your senses not a thermometer don't be expecting anything unusual this is the 100 level course there are three cuts that I would consider the best entry level steaks the ribeye the strip and the tenderloin yes these are American butchery terms that's where I am that's what I know that's what I can get at the store but other countries do cut their meat differently all three of these cuts come from the back of the cow which on a Quadra pet is the area of the body that does the least work therefore these are the most tender cuts here's my favorite of the tender cuts the ribeye that comes from the section of the cow we call the rib in the US and it actually has at least two muscles in it the lung system is dorsi that's the main body of the meat they're also called the eye and around the edge is the spinalis dorsi also called the cap that is my favorite of my favorite some people are put off by that big line of fat that runs between the two muscles but I'll show you a way of dealing with that beginners are often drawn to this one the strip steak New York Strip it's sometimes called Brits call it a sirloin it's also the longest amidst muscle but it comes from farther down in what American butchers called the short loin it's appealing because it's mostly all one muscle it doesn't seem to have any big bands of fat or connective tissue running through it and it's an even size and shape cook it if you want to but it is not my favorite it's a little boring and often has some connective tissue hiding inside underneath the strip steak on the cow is a t-shaped bone and underneath that is this muscle the Tenderloin also called the filet it's the psoas major muscle there you can see it running right underneath the strip steaks and the thing that we call sirloin in the u.s brits called out the rump that's a good steak - not as tender but nothing is as tender as the tenderloin this muscle does almost nothing on a quadruped ed so it's insanely soft it's also therefore generally the most expensive cut on the cow these are all pretty pricey cuts but they're expensive for a reason they're from the middle of the animals back which means they're very tender which means they're very easy to cook successfully that's as opposed to say this flank steak which comes from the belly of the cow arguably it's not even a steak at all look back at the ribeye see those lines running up and down the side that is the grain of the meat the actual muscle fibers running parallel to each other the narrow definition of steak is a relatively thin piece of meat cut across the grains that you have very short muscle fibers running up and down instead of long ones running across cutting the fibers short is one way to tenderize meat that's what makes a salmon steak different from a salmon filet see on the ladder there the muscle fibers are running across instead of up and down so they're longer not a big deal with salmon because salmon is so tender but on beef it matters the flank is so thin that you can only cut it into a steak with the grain so you have these very long muscle fibers running side-to-side not up and down its inedibly chewy unless you slice it very thinly against the grain after it's cooked that's just one example of how things get more complicated once you graduate beyond the expensive tender cuts that we're talking about today now say you choose ribeye good choice what kind of ribeye there's a million options here's three this is choice beef probably the most common grade of beef sold as steaks in u.s. grocery stores it's fine but much more rare and much more expensive is prime beef this is beef that has a lot more marbling marbling is fat not these big blubbery chunks of fat sitting between the muscles it's these little flecks of fat inside the muscles themselves this is the stuff that's gonna melt when cooked and fill the meat with moisture and flavor here's a grass-fed ribeye this cow grazed on grass instead of being fed corn grass is a much slower calorie food so the beef usually won't have as much marbling this is probably healthier for you and arguably better for the environment that's a surprisingly complicated issue though and it's not quite clear but anyway those are probably the three most common beef types here in the US dry aged grass finished grain finish I'd consider those all distinctions to be discussed another day like I said we're gonna cook this one in the house on the stove in a pan what pan a lot of people consider a cast-iron pan to be the ideal choice and they might be right it's naturally somewhat nonstick and it's very heavy so it's good at holding and evenly conducting the very high heat that we generally use to cook steak a thinner pan would be more likely to swing up and down in temperature and have hot spots I would not advise a Teflon non-stick pan for steak at the temperatures at which people see your steak it is possible for the nonstick coating to break down and release harmful gas this is a mid-priced stainless steel pan it's not as heavy as the iron pan but it's got a solid base on it I think it'll do fine time to get it heating fun story when I was first learning to cook from chefs on TV they told me to crank my burner to maximum and let the pan heat for like 20 minutes I did that then I put in a little oil and it immediately burst into flames fact is professional chefs generally work on gas stoves but the electric stoves like a lot of Americans have at home can often put out more heat than a gas stove I think that's an example of how chefs aren't necessarily the best people to teach home cooking with my pan and my stove I found that the high side of medium-high is best but you'll simply have to experiment I let that heat for a few minutes here's one of the strip steaks right out of the fridge blotting it dry can help a little with getting a better crust on it some of the world's greatest chefs say you got to take it out 20 or 30 minutes in advance and let it come up to room temperature before cooking there's a lot of reason to doubt to the efficacy of that but I'm gonna sidestep that whole debate and simply say that you absolutely can cook a great steak straight out of the fridge and it's the easier thing to do so we're doing it I'm seasoning conventionally right before cooking dry brining is a topic for another day salt and pepper on both sides if you don't know how much you like be conservative you can add more at the table and it works either way but I actually like to oil the steak rather than the pan just a little and smoosh everything around I think this results in less oil burning and smoking on the uncovered surface of the pan yes I'm using extra virgin olive oil contrary to popular belief you absolutely can use it at very high heat I have a whole video explaining why linked in the description but use whatever oil you want avvocato isle is good for steak hey why do you have to cook steaks at a very high heat what would happen if you just did it on like medium well let me show you layer in here and wait until the first side is browned decent crust on that crust formation is absolutely a function of both temperature and time and get nice browning on a lower heat for a longer time but now I can tell this is already almost done inside and the bottom crust is ike's pallid take that out look inside and yeah that's actually overcooked for my taste that's medium and when you taste it it tastes like beef but it doesn't taste like steak you have to blast steak with very intense heat to get those crusty Brown flavors on the outside before the inside gets overcook that's in contrast to say a chicken breast you got lots of time to brown the outside because you want chicken cooked all the way through if you want your steak still pink on the inside you got to brown the crust fast so in this goes on the high side of medium-high it's good to Pat it down to make sure the whole surface is making contact now pretty soon this is gonna make some smoke does that mean you can't cook a good steak in a pan if you live in an apartment building with poor ventilation and a sensitive smoke detector yeah maybe not honestly though if you just see a ton of smoke you really might be burning it so you can simply take it off the heat for a sec the conventional route now would be to wait until the first side has a good crust on it and if it does it should pretty easily release from the surface of the pan when you flip you can see I actually did burn it just a little bit there on the edge not a big deal but better avoid it now we wait until we get a crust on the other side and we test for internal doneness by poking it people swear by this nonsense where if you want medium-rare it should feel like poking your hand here and if you wanted medium it should feel like here or something I'm sorry that's all crazy talk because everybody's hand is different and every steak is different the more tender cuts will feel softer the fattier cuts will feel softer dry aged beef would feel firmer every steak is different so I think the better thing is to compare the steak to itself poke it when you know it's still raw on the inside that's your baseline reading for that particular steak then you wait until you can feel the inside going a little firmer when it's raw inside it'll feel squishy when it's going on medium rare it'll start to feel bouncier a good visual clue is to look for pink juice pushing up to the surface of the steak on the top or on the sides that's not blood it's just protein rich water from inside the steak and it generally doesn't start pushing out like that until you're at least at a rare this feels bouncier to me over here but over here it's still a little squishy steaks aren't evenly shaped and it's not always possible to cook them evenly throughout using conventional techniques I'd much rather have a slightly underdone spot than an overdone spot so for me this is done that took 6 minutes we'll let this rest on the cutting board for a few minutes because it is still cooking if we cut into it immediately it might still be raw in the center but carryover cooking is when heat from the still very hot surface continues to conduct into the center it'll also spill less juice if it's a bit now I'll cut right into this at the thickest part and you can see it's actually more like Rare in there but if I cut elsewhere on the steak its medium-rare that's the situation I'd much rather have oh hey notice my new chef's knife it's courtesy of the sponsor of this video me zijn whom I'll now briefly think a good 8 inch chef's knife is the only kitchen knife you really need and meetin offers an amazingly high quality knife for the price this cost two to three times less than comparable brands on the market because they sell direct to you know retail middleman you can see the beautiful handle design there looks kind of western-style with its full tang don't laugh that's what it's called look it up full tang the blade itself is more Asian style which I love it has a pretty narrow cutting edge it's made of Japanese steel and it's crazy sharp right out of the box look at that paper-thin slice of tomato and nice clean slices on the steak your whole life in the kitchen becomes way easier once you get a good chef's knife and you can have this one for 20% off it's already crazy low price go to mizenko slash Ragusa for 20% off your first order mis en ce o-- slash Ragusa for 20% off your first order that link is in the description Thank You Mesa now let me season one of these a rib eyes by the way I like to season the first side of the steak and then season the area of the plate next to the steak put on a little oil rub it in then lift the steak on to the seasoned plate to season the other side this way I only have to wash my hands once in the process instead of twice hot pan and this time I'm gonna do the more newfangled thing of flipping the steak every 30 seconds or so if you have the time to mother your steak I really believe in this method it might not look like it now but it does result in a great crust you'll see it build I think flipping frequently is better for beginners because you can see exactly what's going on you're not gonna be surprised by any burned spots you'll see them coming got a poke now while I know the inside is still raw to get my baseline reading feels squishy flipping every 30 seconds generally cooks the interior a bit more evenly and it cooks the whole thing faster this one took less than five minutes I see pink juice starting to push out when I poke it it feels noticeably bouncier than before it's in the vicinity of medium-rare why don't I just use a thermometer in general I prefer cooking with my senses it's like playing music from memory instead off the page I think it's also hard to take the temperature of something as thin as a steak especially if you have a cheap thermometer you can get some crazy inconsistent readings depending on exactly where you position the thermometer I really think going by eye and feel is easier and more enjoyable even if it's not perfect that's a hair more rare than what I was shooting for but I honestly think a secret to home cooking is to relax your expectations a bit you don't have a paying customer to please you don't have to nail it steak is good at many levels of doneness you might have this idea in your head that you need to cut this against the grain but here's the thing it was already cut against the grain because this is a steak in the narrow definition of the term the only way to get the meat fiber is any shorter would be to slice on an extreme bias or at an angle doing this we could at most cut the muscle fibers in half which isn't gonna do much for tenderness that's not a thing I worry about when I'm cooking one of these tender cuts they're already cut against the grain if you don't like those big fat globs between the eye and the cap what I often do is cut the cap off and then shave off the fat I love fat but marbled fat not blobs of unrendered blubber plus there's connective tissue in there too white hard bands of tissue that do not soften when cooking man there's bytes of the cap are so good okay now let's talk about the filet notice how it's cut twice as thick as the other steaks that's traditional for tenderloin probably because they're so narrow you could simply cut it into two thinner steaks and I do that sometimes because here's a counterintuitive truth of cooking steak the thicker the steak is the lower the temperature you have to use these approximately one inch or two centimeter steaks are the perfect thickness I think because you can easily Brown the outside without over or undercooking the inside if you had a much thinner steak you'd have to hit it with the highest heat you've got in order to have a prayer of browning the outside before the inside got overcooked with a very thick steak like this the opposite is true you have to go slowly or else the outside will be toast before the inside is done and for that reason thick steaks might be more viable in a poorly ventilated apartment I'm just putting this on medium heat and I'm gonna flip it every 30 seconds or so until I like the crust take my baseline poke that is so soft after a good four minutes of flipping my crust is almost done but the inside is still clearly raw some people would finish the steak in the oven at this point I think that's a great option if your oven is already hot but I'm gonna turn the heat down a little more put a big knob of butter in there and use it to baste the steak this tastes amazing and it'll help me keep all sides cooking as if it was in the oven about eight minutes after I put in the butter I can feel its bouncier than it started still very soft though because it's tenderloin that's why we're comparing its feel to itself from before as opposed to something fixed like my hand my wife is gonna eat this one and she likes it closer to medium so I'll let it cook for a minute or two longer after I feel the inside starting to firm let it rest and that doesn't have a ton of beef flavor but it is super soft very appealing texture for our last example I will say that I think steak cooked in a pan is best when you use the following flavorings a few garlic cloves crushed with the side of the knife to open up their structure if the skin doesn't have any mold or anything on it you don't even have to bother taking it off a woody herb like thyme or rosemary and some butter ideally cultured butter slightly fermented butter that tastes great on steak I've got my prime ribeye here and I'm deliberately under-seasoning it a little bit so that I can put some finishing salt on at the end put that in the pan flip every 30 seconds or so and when I feel like I'm about a minute away from being done I'll put in my garlic herbs and butter the garlic and thyme flavor the butter which then flavors the steak rather than basting with a spoon you can just keep flipping the steak that'll coat it nicely you do this at the end because the butter would burn if you put it in earlier and if things seem like they're gonna burn nonetheless turn off the heat and let the steak coast for the last mile it feels bouncy instead of squishy I see juice pushing to the surface I'll pull that out and pour some of that flavored butter on top so good why is medium rare often considered the best doneness well at that temperature the marbling inside has melted but it has not yet all left of the steak it's still in there in liquid form rare steak can feel a little slimy on the inside and part because the fat hasn't rendered done steak tends to be dry and cooking meat beyond pink really changes its flavor but it's your steak and you should cook it however you like it I like to put some super crunchy finishing salt on at the end this is volcanic sea salt I just think it looks awesome and yes unless company is over I like to eat right off the cutting board the pieces just sit there soaking up all that delicious juice and butter and it'll stay warm there longer you transfer it to a cold plate it'll go cold immediately though you can warm plates I have a whole about that in the description but anyway good luck if you want to do this I suggest looking out for a sale on some steaks by a bunch and just cook them one after the other for yourself and no one else as soon as you've had a bit of tactile experience cooking steak it simply becomes one of the easiest and quickest meals to make oh and if you're wondering why didn't he cover reverse searing or all kinds of other things remember this is just the 101 class I'll see you in the 201

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 1,670,283

Rating: 4.9034672 out of 5

Keywords: how to cook steak, cooking steak, cast iron, how to, ribeye steak, steak cooking, how to cook, rib eye, medium rare, strip steak, rib eye steak, rib eye steak recipe, rib eye steak cast iron skillet, cast iron steak, ribeye cap, tenderloin steak, tenderloin recipe, tenderloin steak recipe, filet mignon, filet mignon recipe, filet mignon cast iron skillet, filet mignon steak

Id: hEa6WC_7eqE

Length: 15min 59sec (959 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 09 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/G00bre]

What are People Mad at now?

[u/thabonch]

Why I season my steak, not my...wait...

[u/Chriscftb97]

One thing Adam doesn't do in this video that you should is sear the sides of the steak as well.

Especially with ribeyes that have a fatcap that needs to be rendered.

[u/ewokskick]

Really neat video. Definitely a 101, but a darn good one.

Personally, I think every home cook should invest in a decent meat thermometer. It's a tool you'll find yourself using constantly. Steaks for me are an expensive special treat, so I don't want to waste any learning to judge doneness by touch. Especially when a $40 tool means I get a perfect steak (or roast or chicken, etc) everytime.

This is the one I own. One of my favorite kitchen tools.

https://www.thermoworks.com/DOT

[u/Hayden9001]

Is seasoning the cutting board no more?