Which method of preparation would produce a more tender and juicier steak, grilling or broiling? [closed]

Question

I do not have an outdoor grill but would like to make steak. I just bought a grill pan, and I have an electric oven with a broiler setting. Between these two methods which would produce the more tender and juicier steak if I have an already tender steak like Filet Mignon?

Asked by Alvi_1987

Answer

If by 'grill pan' you mean something heavy (cast iron) like:

OR

then it would be your choice as to whether you want to heat them on top of your stove or under your broiler. If your 'grill pan' is less heavy duty (say aluminum) then it is unlikely to be capable of with standing the heat required to 'best' cook a steak. When the weather here does not favor outdoor grilling I get great results out of placing my cast iron griddle/grill (similar to the second picture) inside of a half-sheet pan and under the broiler to preheat. Once the iron reaches 500F I will add the steak for about 3 minutes per side (for a med-rare) I would also suggest wiping the iron with a little oil first.

Answered by Cos Callis

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What would be the way to achieve better taste, cooking a steak in a grill or broiling it? [closed]

Question

I do not have an outdoor grill but would like to make steak. I just bought a grill pan, and I have an electric oven with a broiler setting. If I get an already tender type of steak, which would be the best way to cook it?

Asked by Alvi_1987

Answer

If by 'grill pan' you mean something heavy (cast iron) like:

OR

then it would be your choice as to whether you want to heat them on top of your stove or under your broiler. If your 'grill pan' is less heavy duty (say aluminum) then it is unlikely to be capable of with standing the heat required to 'best' cook a steak. When the weather here does not favor outdoor grilling I get great results out of placing my cast iron griddle/grill (similar to the second picture) inside of a half-sheet pan and under the broiler to preheat. Once the iron reaches 500F I will add the steak for about 3 minutes per side (for a med-rare) I would also suggest wiping the iron with a little oil first.

Answered by Cos Callis

Check more discussion of this question.

What would be the best way, cooking a steak in a grill or broiling it?

Question

I do not have an outdoor grill but would like to make steak. I just bought a grill pan, and I have an electric oven with a broiler setting. If I get an already tender type of steak, which would be the best way to cook it?

Asked by Alvi_1987

Answer

If by 'grill pan' you mean something heavy (cast iron) like:

OR

then it would be your choice as to whether you want to heat them on top of your stove or under your broiler. If your 'grill pan' is less heavy duty (say aluminum) then it is unlikely to be capable of with standing the heat required to 'best' cook a steak. When the weather here does not favor outdoor grilling I get great results out of placing my cast iron griddle/grill (similar to the second picture) inside a have sheet pan and under the broiler to preheat. Once the iron reaches 500F I will add the steak for about 3 minutes per side (for a med-rare) I would also suggest wiping the iron with a little oil first.

Answered by Cos Callis

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Cooking Cheap Cuts of Beef

Question

I've been trying to find a relatively quick way to prepare eye of round "steaks" (really just slices of a roast), so that they are tender and juicy, but not falling apart. The goal is to avoid having to cook an entire roast, which takes a lot of time and results in a lot of leftovers.

At first, I sautéed them in a pan, and they came out tough and leathery. I then tried to marinate them in a simple mix of olive oil and lemon juice for 30-45 minutes beforehand, and to tenderize them with a hammer. This, too, resulted in a tough, dry piece of meat. My greatest success with this cut has been to braise it in red wine for 60-90 minutes, though it was still unpleasant to eat.

Has anyone else been experimenting with cooking slices from an eye of round roast? If so, what have been your failures and successes?

Answer

Eye of round can be difficult to cook. A roast tends to produce the best results, but it can be cooked in steak form as well. There are a couple of directions you can go.

First is to cook it as a steak, but do not take it past Medium Rare. Marinate before cooking. Slice it thinly after cooking, across the grain. Serve with sauce. Think London Broil.

If you like your steak more done, then I wouldn't recommend cooking it as a steak. Instead, make Swiss steak out of it. Or better yet, country fried steak (yeah, forget I said Swiss steak). If you pound/macerate the meat, it will be pretty well tenderized, and you will get a good meal out of it.

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What is the proper way to store steak at home?

Question

When you buy steak from the market it is usually wrapped up under shrink wrap and the meat usually sits on top of a moisture absorbing pad. When you get it from the butcher, it is wrapped up in waxed paper and/or brown paper.

Once you get it home, if you're not going to eat it for a few days, what is the proper way to store it?

The reason I ask is that if I let it sit in the waxed paper for a few days, when I open it up, it looks slightly discolored on the surface, with a slightly slimy texture. I'm assuming that this is okay because I've cooked may steaks that looked like this and have not gotten sick.

Should I take it out of the packaging and have it just sit on a plate? Does this emulate dry-aging? Taking it out will definitely prevent meat from getting the slimy texture.

Answer

The discolored surface is a product of oxidation, the same thing that happens when you leave apple slices in the open air. Oxigen is a highly reactive molecule and it binds to anything it can find, in this case your steak.

It is not rotten or unsafe to eat in any way, it just has an unpleasant color/texture when raw. Meat packaging is often filled with carbon dioxide, and since the oxygen is already binded to carbon it no longer reacts with the steak. The side effect of this is that your steak could have gone bad, but it still looks good. The pad just collects any fluid that might drip off the steak, again for aesthetic purposes.

I'd suggest to remove the wax paper and shrinkwrap it, this will prevent it from oxidizing.

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What type of sauce is appropriate for a dry-aged prime steak?

Question

Yesterday I purchased some dry aged prime strip steaks from my beloved Wegmans. This will be the first time I will have the opportunity to eat (as far as I know) and cook prime beef. With that in mind how should I sauce my beautiful meat?

Typically I cook my steaks sous vide to 130 degrees and then salt and pepper with a cast iron sear. If I'm going to make a pan sauce I finish in my enamelled cast iron, deglaze with a dry red, some shallots, add some heavily reduced beef stock, and then finish with a pad of butter and demi glace.

This results in a very rich sauce which is delightful in its own right. I'm concerned that I might be make a sauce that covers up this glorious beef.

Does anyone have any recommendations for my first time?

Things I'm particularly concerned with are:

• What wine to use in the sauce - is high-end/vintage wine important, and what varieties might be best?
• Should I seek out something a little more upscale than reduced Swanson beef broth?
• Is this cut generally served sauced or unsauced?

Answer

This sounds yummy!

I'd recommend cooking sous vide (SV) as you suggest (130 F for 1-3 hrs). I tend not to season in the SV bag at all because salt & spices often turn out oddly; for example, raw herbs/onion/garlic are far stronger and taste "uncooked". Figuring out how to spice SV takes a fair amount of experimentation and is best done with dried & powdered herbs/spices instead of fresh ones.

VERY IMPORTANT:

• Before cooking SV trim excess fat from the steak
• After cooking take the meat from the SV bag and DRY it thoroughly before searing!
• If you're planning to use bag juices, first bring them to a full boil in another pot and skim off the scum (myoglobin "blood"), then use whatever is left as your meat juice.

To sear, pre-heat the cast iron sear to a very high temperature (~500) and use a high-temperature oil like peanut.

The sear should be at VERY high heat for only 30 seconds or so per side - if you leave it on much longer you'll lose the beautiful 130 degree edge-to-edge miracle that should be your reward.

Using butter for the sear is not a good idea as either the butter will be destroyed by the properly high heat OR the steak will be destroyed by keeping the cast iron's heat low enough for the butter. Rather, use compound butter as a topper for presentation.

As for using a torch, I've used a brulee torch a few times and the heat & coverage is insufficient to sear a steak well with my limited experience. You can sign your name on the steak with it, but getting a good, even edge-to-edge Maillard crust is very tough. Using a MAPP torch is quite a bit better; MAPP gas is flavorless, it's hotter than propane or butane, and MAPP torches tend to fan out broader flames, but I still don't think they create as dense or flavorful a crust as a pan-sear. Moreover ANY torch runs a likelihood of flat-out burning areas of the meat, and that's especially true for a first-timer!

Let's talk about salt before going any further. I've always salted meat before grilling. But SV is a completely different ballgame. Salting before SV doesn't add much flavor for you on short cooks and hurts badly on longer ones (cures the meat). There are online arguments about this, but I prefer salting only after SV and preferably after searing. Taste tests support this post-SV salting approach - check out http://www.cookingissues.com/2011/10/12/to-salt-or-not-to-salt-%E2%80%93that%E2%80%99s-the-searing-question/ for a great take on the subject.

If you keep the searing time appropriately short you won't have to rest the meat before serving. The meat is still incredibly juicy and doesn't need time to reabsorb fluids.

As for what to do with a sauce, I'd go for the butter instead and incorporate a steak-friendly sauce into a side dish.

A quality hunk of well-marbled dry-aged beef should sing with this preparation and I'd put it center-stage to sing solo, with the side dish's sauce grooving nearby ready to join in on the chorus.

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What oil to use when cooking steak, and what difference does it make?

Question

When cooking steak, I have always been told groundnut oil is the best to use. But what difference does it make? Is it the best? And if it is the best, what's the next best?

Answer

For steaks I really prefer cooking butter instead of oils, I find that the flavor fits the meat better.

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Parmesan Crusted Steak - Replace olive oil with honey

Question

I've recently been making a parmesan crust for my steaks, the recipe I'm using calls for olive oil on the steak itself, before cooking. It works well for the crust, but its hard on the grill, cause the oil starts an oil fire, which chars the steak quicker than I'd like, giving us tougher meat.

I'm thinking of substituting the olive oil with honey, still allowing the parmesan crust to stick, and add a little flavor, but avoiding that oil-based flame from charring my steaks.

Any suggestions to any other ingredients, or cautions against using honey?

Answer

If you're trying to avoid char, then switching to honey or any sugar is probably in the wrong direction. Sugar burns...quick.

I'd recommend three things overall specific to this crust:

1. Use less oil. If your oil is dripping off in buckets and causing significant fires - you've got too much. Just try a light brushing on the meat.

2. Use a different oil. EVOO isn't recommended for grilling mostly because of it burning at lower temps. It turns black, kinda nasty, and loses all its good flavor if it goes too long, too high. You can try extra light olive oil or really just a more standard canola or peanut oil.

3. Use the lid on your grill. A real fire in your grill consumes oxygen fast. If you leave the lid off, it can burn for much longer. With the lid on, fires are much much shorter. I'm an avid fan of grilling with the lid on and I never knew why people complained of flair ups till I did something with the lid off, its a lot worse for flair ups.

A general steak tip, especially for something like this with a crust - make sure your steaks are at room temperature before they go on the grill. If you're starting with a cold steak, you're going to have to grill it longer and there's a much greater risk to burn the crust.

Also, consider a quick sear on each side over direct heat till your crust gets the color you want, and then move it off to indirect heat to finish.

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What does it mean to 'salt' a steak prior to frying?

Question

I see some references on this site to 'salting' a steak before frying it. What does this mean? Should I coat the steak in salt? I can imagine that would result in a very salty steak!

Answer

Yes that's exactly what it means, apply salt to the steak. You shouldn't coat it, but you should apply salt very liberally. It's actually hard to over-salt a steak; many inexperienced cooks actually underseason the steak.

I suggest about 1 tsp per side for a good ribeye. Salt it about 10-15 minutes prior.

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How do you properly cook a steak?

Question

I love steaks so much, that I would like to get a green card and live in the States just to enjoy good steaks whenever I want.

When I try to cook a steak at home (I live in Italy), I almost ever get it burned outside and almost totally raw inside. Actually only a thin layer is cooked (or I should say carbonized).

If I try to lower the temperature of the grill pan, I get an extremely dried meat that resembles cork.

So, which are the basics for properly cooking a steak (say, to a medium-well grade)?

Answer

You should be able to get a reasonable steak stovetop using a cast iron grill pan, if you have a strong enough exhaust. Oil the cast iron pan (with canola or such), then heat it very hot, until it starts to smoke. Make sure the meat is completely dry on the outside (wipe with a paper towel, water will prevent browning) and gently place in the pan. Leave it there for a minute or two (it'll smoke quite a bit!), rotate 90° to get the nice grill marks. Leave for another minute or two. Flip, and repeat for the other side.

It may splatter, have a splatter screen handy. It will smoke, quite a bit, make sure the exhaust is on high.

You will probably have a medium-rare steak now. Using a thinner cut will make it more well done (you can cut a thick steak in half with your chef's knife, making two thin steaks); so will plopping it in the oven (not sure if you want the oven before or after searing, I like 'em medium rare...).

Remember to let the meat rest for 5 minutes or so before serving.

Also, if your steaks are coming out ridiculously tough, you're probably using the wrong cut of meat, or some terrible grade. What cut are you using?

[edit: I should note that, in case it wasn't obvious, the burner should be up pretty high]

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How do I deal with silverskin in a steak without trimming away all the fat?

Question

Below is an image of a steak I cooked the other night. It is a grass-fed New York Strip steak, I used medium-high heat in a cast-iron pan, seasoned with only salt and pepper and cooked for 3 minutes per side. The steak was roughly 1.5" thick, and it is cooked to roughly medium. (The image looks redder in the center than it was in actuality, but it's close.)

The fat was soft and delicious, as was the steak. But that streak of silverskin that attaches the two was impossible to chew. I have heard that when your butchering other animals or large cuts of meat, the silverskin is always removed, but if I had done that there would be no fat left on my steak.

How do I deal with this silverskin without losing all the fat?

Answer

A good Sirloin (New York Strip steak) has a reasonable marble of fat, so you should not have to worry about edge fat

If you like your fat, pull/trim the silverskin and fat off and render the fat in a medium hot pan BEFORE putting the steak in. When enough fat has melted for your taste, cook the steak in the fat at the temperature and time you like

Add fresh herbs or garlic to the rendering fat for extra zing!

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How safe is steak tartare?

Question

How safe is steak tartare?

What can I do when preparing it make sure it is safe to eat?

Answer

Butchered meat is generally sterile except on its exterior. (That doesn't mean parasite- or botulism-free, but it's a start.)

Get the best quality you can from a source you trust. Keep it at as low a temperature as possible, and don't expose it to warm air for more than the few minutes it takes to prepare.

Cut with a clean knife on a clean surface. Put it right back into the fridge at a very low temp.

Salt and acid, if you use them in your sauce, will provide some anti-bacterial benefits, but this is not foolproof.

People all over the world eat raw meat, but it's best to start with small amounts and see how your system handles it. If you're a child/pregnant/old/sick, it's much less of a good idea.

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What sauce / spices can make a tofu steak taste like a beef steak

Question

I had an unbelievably good tofu steak in a restaurant in Tokyo many years ago. I have never been able to reproduce it.

It tasted uncannily like a beef steak.

What sauce / spices could I use to mimic the steak flavour?

Answer

I don't know anything about cooking tofu, so this is purely addressing the beef flavor part. If you want to make something bland taste more like beef, one the largest issues is going to be adding umami flavor. It is present to some degrees in meats, cheeses, mushrooms, soy sauce, and tomatoes. I'd start with a sauce containing several of these items, and then add some complementary flavors (peppers, citrus, sugar, etc).

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Is lots of red juice normal when making sous-vide steak?

Question

So I made a 1lb hanger steak via sous-vide the other day and cooked it for 45 minutes at 130F.

After I seared in a cast iron pan, I took the meat off of the pan and let it sit for a few minutes and then sliced it up(against the grain) into smaller portions.

I noticed a lot of red juice in the plate as I was slicing it up but after I put it on a plate and it was sitting at the table, the meat almost ended up swimming in red juice.

When I order medium rare steak at a restaurant and it comes out pre-sliced, I don't usually notice this much red juice.

Is this normal?

Answer

Pretty much...yes, but you can fix it!.

When you properly sous vide or very slow cook anything, you'll retain more of the myoglobin color because of the even cooking that often doesn't go above 140 at all. So a properly cooked steak like this will retain much more of its red colored myoglobin. Simply put, the meat will have more red juices to release! (Its a great, great thing about sous vide.)

As @Ronald mentions, the other thing is the resting of the meat. It's an important step as the muscle fibers relax after the heat is off and hold juices better then. An often misstep for the home cook is they allow a hot piece of meat to rest on a flat, solid surface. This causes the bottom of the meat to steam against the board, open the fibers in the meat more, and release the juices on to the board. Rest your meat on a raised baking rack so that it has air circulation all around it.

After a short rest - for most steak 10 minutes is fine, then you can cut into the steak. Use a very sharp knife to slice. The meat here is essentially a sponge and you don't want to compress it and squeeze out the juices. A dull knife will do this and you'll lose more juice on the cutting board again. Use a sharp knife and apply steady, even, but light pressure while slicing - let the edge do the work (if it won't, sharpen the knife more).

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Rinse the salt off a steak before cooking?

Question

I've been trying to perfect my technique for cooking a steak indoors.

It was recommended to salt the steak about 30 minutes before cooking. I used kosher salt, and cooked the steak on cast iron. Everything came out spectacularly, in fact it was the best steak I've ever made myself. However, the outer layer of the steak was significantly saltier than I think is normal. It didn't ruin the steak, but it was more than I would have liked. I would simply assume that I over-salted, but given the language people use when they recommend the technique, and the amount I actually applied, I am unsure. I fear that if I use less salt next time I will lose the perfect sear/crust and the incredible flavor of the interior meat that I achieved.

So, given the similarity to brining poultry (in which case the meat is rinsed before cooking), I wonder if the salt should be rinsed off before cooking? I didn't get this impression from any of the recommendations, but now I am not so sure.

Answer

Definitely don't rinse the salt off. One of the nice things the salt does is pull juices to the surface of the meat--not enough to dry things out, but enough so that when the steak hits the hot pan you have a nice protein-laden coating (it's called a pellicle when talking about smoked fish--not sure about steaks) on the outside to caramelize. If you rinse it, you're rinsing that right off.

If your steak was too salty, then just salt more lightly. You don't need a ton, as what you get on there will melt some and mix with the juices and spread out. I think I probably use 1/4 tsp or less per side, and some of that bounces off/misses. And you won't lose the crust with less salt--you won't even lose it with NO salt. It's just easier to get if you use the salt to pull some juices to the surface.

If you have trouble getting good salt distribution, use your fingers and sprinkle it from a little farther up--like 8 inches from the steak. That'll make it easier to get an even sprinkle without dousing it.

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Is it possible to overmarinade a steak?

Question

I know it won't spoil; the spoil by date is next week. I'm cooking it in 48 hours (Friday Evening).

It'll rest in the lowest part of my fridge as well.

My marinade consists of vinegar and salt.

Thus the questions:

• Is it possible to over marinade (New York Strip) steaks?
• Is it possible for vinegar to chemically break down the steak too long?
• What is the optimal amount of time for vinegar to breakdown the steak?

Answer

Yes, the problem will be the vinegar.
Vinegar is acidic and you'll end up with mushy meat. 48 hours is almost certainly too long. For a vinegar base, I try not to push it over 8 hours and that's only if really necessary. A few hours is typically fine.

Right now, you've got to consider how to save the meat. I'd freeze the meat right now. Freeze the meat with the marinade (which seems like such a waste for 40'ish hours, but better that than mushy steak). When ready to cook, take it out and let the marinade do its business as it thaws. I'd thaw it in ziplock under running water (quicker than the fridge) and let it marinade a short time and go on the grill. If you let it sit in any unfrozen stage too long, you'll get mushy steak with a vinegar marinade.

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Would a cream based sauce go well with steaks?

Question

I've reached a point where I am very comfortable with a nice red wine/shallot reduction as a pan sauce for my strip roasts/steaks. I think I remember have a meal once where they served sliced tenderloin with a white sauce. I imagine it was cream based but I don't often see this combination.

I was wondering if there was hope for throwing together a cream based sauce and if so if anyone had an idea of what base (mother or otherwise) sauce would be a good jumping off point for experimentation?

Answer

You may have been served Bearnaise, which is a common red meat sauce. Bearnaise is based on Hollandaise (a mother sauce), a butter based sauce. Hollandaise is somewhat advanced to make because it is important to keep the temperature right and the ratios correct while making it, but the result is worth the effort.

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Cooking steak on the grill

Question

First and foremost, I am a member of a few other Stack Exchange sites, and I haven't been this excited about one for a while. I'm basically a nerd that's trying to get into cooking, and I couldn't be more happy they made this :)

Onto the question,

Growing up, I've always grilled on gas grills. Recently, I've moved into an apartment with my girlfriend and we are only allowed to have a charcoal grill. It's a tiny one (I think), probably about 1.5 - 2 feet in diameter. I use the charcoal that are already covered in flammable material (the black ones), and they work pretty well. I basically follow the directions every single time I go to light the grill. I put about 30-40 bricks in the middle of the grill in a pyramid shape, light them in several places, and then watch it burn. I do this until the flame pretty much dies down and the bricks are about 80-85% covered in grey ash. After that, I put the cage back on the grill, let it heat up so I can clean it off with the brush, and then shake the bricks until they are even across the bottom.

Right after this I put the steak on (right in the middle where there's the most heat from all the bricks burning in the pyramid towards the top before I spread them out). Now at this point, I NEVER have any idea how long it should stay there, when I should flip it, if I should flip it more than once, what I should look for before I flip it, how fast it's cooking - I basically don't know anything. I'm a guy, I hate how I can't grill great! :(

I usually end up either over cooking it so it's tough, or under cooking it and it's still bleeding in the middle. I like my steaks right around medium, and I can never seem to get them perfect. I had a perfect one once, and it was 100% luck. I don't have a thermometer or anything to test the meat with (maybe I need to invest in one?), nor do I have anything that I can test how hot the grill is inside. The grill has a basic black cover with a little vent so I can control the air getting inside, but no thermometer or anything.

Can I get some tips? I'm cooking a steak on the grill for my girlfriend tonight that has been marinating for over 24 hours, and I don't want to mess it up!

P.S. And I almost forgot! The steak I am cooking tonight is a London Broil.

Thanks!

Answer

Here's a couple of hints:

1. Learn to judge doneness by feel. See this answer for a good guide to temp by feel.

2. Learn to judge grill temp by hand. Hold your hand palm down about 3-4 inches above the grill. If you can hold it there for a second or two, it's hot; 3-4 seconds is medium; 5-6 seconds is low.

3. Sear first. Start with a very hot grill. You want about two minutes per side. Do not move the steak while it is searing. Make sure you've given the grill grate at least 5 mins to heat up.

4. Use a two level fire. Once you've seared your steak, you want to finish cooking over a lower heat. Build a two level fire by putting the coals on one side of the grill rather than the whole thing. Then sear over the coals. Then move it to the other side to finish. If the grill isn't wide enough for a two level fire, you could try quenching the fire by cutting off air flow. That will cool it quickly.

5. Finish with the lid on. This helps cook by heating the air rather than just using direct heat.

6. Change your fuel. Stop using lighter fluid. Use a chimney instead. Hard lump charcoal is better than briquettes. It's easier to light, creates less left over, and burns hotter.

7. Rest your meat for a few minutes before eating. Be aware that it will continue to cook during this time, so you want to pull it off a little early.

8. Read up on cooking steak. There are a bunch of good questions on this site!

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How do you cook a steak like those found in fine steakhouses?

Question

I went to a 5* restaurant once, the steak was unbelievable. You could cut it with a butter knife, it was fat and juicy, pink in the middle, great stuff.

When I cook it at home, I seem to just slice the beef thick, shallow fry it in olive oil with some garlic and that is all. It tastes pretty good, but is so far off what I had in that restaurant.

Anyone know how to cook the best steak? Better cuts of meat? Fry in butter?

Also any tips in general on how to cook good steak. All appreciated!

Answer

The most important thing you can do is buy quality beef. You can throw a USDA Select steak on a 700 degree charcoal grill, cook it perfectly, and it'll still be tough and not at all what you'd get at a fine steakhouse.

In the USA there are three grades of beef available to a consumer: Select, Choice, and Prime. There are lesser grades but they go to fast food joints, prisons, military personnel, and miscellaneous other weird uses.

In most american supermarkets you will find only select, period. This is an "average" steak. It's typically devoid of marbling, and results in a rather flavorless tough steak.

To find choice steaks you have to go to a higher end supermarket, e.g. Whole Foods You will pay significantly more for a choice steak, but the difference is marked. The marbling will result in a tenderer steak due to the internal fat melting and tenderizing the steak.

Finally, prime cuts. These are very hard to come by in any supermarket unless you live in a bigger city. You typically have to go to a specialty shop or butcher for these. Less than 2% of all beef is classified as prime. On top of this, restaurants get first pick. So even if you do buy a great prime steak, you are likely getting the lower end of the prime spectrum. However, the difference is amazing. The marbling is more intense, more evenly distributed and when cooked properly results in a steak that melts under your knife.

Another one-up a fine steakhouse has on you is they age their beef. Any steak you buy in the grocery store is minimally wet aged. The finest steakhouses dry age their beef. The difference? Wet aging consists of simply vacuum packing the meat (as in a whole side of cow) and refrigerating it for about a week. After that, it's cut smaller and sold to stores. Dry aging is a more complicated and expensive process. Dry aged beef is hung for at least two weeks in a refrigerator. Moisture in the meat is allowed to escape and evaporate, which concentrates the beef flavor of the beef. The beef also grows a moldy rind which is cut off and thrown away. After the aging is complete you're left with 75-80% of the meat you started with. This commands a premium price.

Unfortunately, you can't dry age a steak in your home. There are some refrigerator aging processes that you'll find on this site and others, but they aren't a true comparison.

Another variation that has become more popular is grass-fed beef. This has become a recent fad, at least in the USA. Cattle are traditionally fed corn which makes them fatter and "juicier", but it also leaves the meat tasting very bland. Likely, if you live in the USA, every steak you've ever had was corn-fed. Grass-fed beef on the other hand is fed predominantly grass, they're allowed to graze as cows should. This is good for the cows, because they don't actually eat corn. A cow is made to eat grass. Corn is rather harsh on their digestive system, but they are given no other choice. In the wild a cow would never eat corn. The end result is a very different flavored steak. Grass-fed beef has a much richer, meatier flavor. However, it's also tougher than corn-fed beef. For this reason a steak you will be served in a fine steakhouse is likely not to be grass-fed unless it is specifically designated as such.

With all that out of the way I suggest doing what I do. When I feel like an amazing home cooked steak, I'll splurge on a nice choice ribeye, dip it in a mixture of melted clarified butter and oil, season liberally with salt and pepper, and pan fry it.

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Pre-Cooking Steak in a bag, Any suggestions?

Question

I tried something on the weekend, and it seemed to work well, so I thought I'd ask for comments.

We'd planned to make steak for dinner, and it happened to come in a vacuum-packet plastic. So before opening the bag I dropped it into some hot water (about 170F) for a couple hours. The temp obviously fluctuated a bit, but I topped it off with hot water from time to time.

I like my steak "lightly seared", so pretty much "blue". So out the bag, into a bit of oil, then into the (very hot) pan. Maybe 60 seconds each side (probably not even that much). Out. Rested. Eat.

It was very soft - and perhaps predictably "warm through" - which was different as "blue" can end up being quite cold. Was very tender though.

So to my question - any suggested improvements on the technique? Would it benefit to keep the steak in the water longer? (I'm thinking of trying a 24 hour period next).

One down side is that marinading of the meat (in the bag) isn't possible - so good quality meat with good flavor is a must.

Answer

You've basically re-invented sous-vide cookery for steak. Steak is about the easiest food to cook sous-vide. You can find a lot of resources describing it on the web, but here's a few notes

1) 170F for 2 hours undoubtedly left your steak very well-done. Not a problem if that's how you like it, but also not necessary. You can get medium rare by cooking in the 130-135F range for two hours. Cooking sous-vide below 130F (necessary to get steak rare) is not recommended for safety reasons, as temperatures that low can encourage the growth of dangerous bacteria.

2) With sous-vide, there's no need to rest a steak after searing it. Resting grilled steaks is necessary to give heat time to move from the outside of the steak to the center, and actually get it cooked to the desired temperature. With sous-vide, you already did that in the water.

3) With an impromptu sous-vide setup like yours, you probably don't want to cook for more than a few hours. You risk your temperature getting too low overnight, and then you're down in the bacteriologically dangerous ranges. You can get some great effects cooking longer (I had 24 hour marinated skirt steak last night that was amazing), but you should probably do so with powered equipment. There are home sous-vide machines available (a bit pricy) or you can build your own. There are dozens of different rigs described on the web. I built mine for about $100.

4)Longer cooking times are better for tougher cuts anyway. If you're just looking to do ribeyes and strips, then two or three hours is fine.

5)You can marinade, but obviously not in supermarket bags (unless the supermarket marinades, e.g. pork tenderloin). To do so, you either need to purchase a vacuum sealer (not too expensive), or be clever with drawing air out of ziploc bag and sealing it very tightly.

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