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You can make a great steak at home, promise
• by Anne Cori - ©iStockphoto.com/Jon Ari Helgason
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What makes a steak satisfying? When cooked properly, the taste is beefy and succulent, the outside is crusty and caramelized, and the inside is rare, moist and juicy. When a steak is really good, a sauce is superfluous – but I love having a sauce anyway. But you don’t have to go to a steakhouse to get a great steak; with a few tips, it’s entirely possible to cook a steakhouse meal at home.
Choosing the right cut of meat is the first step to a great steak. Cuts from the rib, short loin or sirloin – including rib eye, tenderloin, strip, T-bone and porterhouse – are the most tender. These do not need to be marinated – they’re tender enough already – although they can be marinated to improve flavor.
Which cut to choose is a matter of opinion, because the flavor varies in each cut. The steaks with the big beefy flavor are the ones oozing with fat. More fat means more flavor, which is why higher-fat beef (such as prime or Kobe) is sold at a premium. A bone also adds some flavor, but the difference between bone-in and boneless steaks is more a matter of presentation rather than taste. Aging also plays a role, as it tenderizes the meat and intensifies the flavor; all beef is aged, but more expensive steaks are dry-aged for a longer period of time, usually two to three weeks.
Tenderloin (also known as filet mignon or tournedos) steaks have hardly any fat, and many people find the taste bland (which can be an advantage, depending on your palate). Rib-eyes, which are cut from the standing rib roast, are very succulent, but some people find these steaks too greasy. Saratoga steaks are rib-eyes that have some of the extra fat trimmed. Porterhouse, sometimes called the king of steaks, and T-bone are cut from different ends of the same part of the cow. The porterhouse cut has more tenderloin meat on it than the T-bone, but both steaks are marvelous in flavor and juicy in texture. New York strip steak, which is cut from the short loin, is the easiest of steaks: no bone and a compact size make it simple to cook.
Once you’ve chosen a cut, proper cooking is the next step to a steakhouse-worthy meal, and searing the steak is key. Searing does not seal in the juices; in fact, after a steak is seared, some juice will flow out. I like my meat seared because the meat is caramelized, and the high, direct, dry heat on the meat produces a crust that is irresistibly delicious.
Begin by patting dry and then salting the meat; drying will ensure that the steak will brown properly and salting adds flavor. Heat a skillet on high (sorry, fry pans with a nonstick finish are not an option). Place the steak on the hot pan and – this is crucial – resist the urge to play with the meat or to move it around the pan. Let the meat sear. After about two minutes, use tongs to peek under the meat to see if it is well-browned. If the meat looks crusty, turn it over and brown the other side.
But how long should a steak cook? Everyone has a different opinion on what their perfect “medium-rare” steak is. Pink but not raw is the most popular. For high-end steaks, the rarer the meat, the more tender the taste; when meat is fully cooked – even expensive prime beef – it is chewier.
Obviously, the higher the heat, the faster the steak will cook. Also, the higher the heat, the faster the steak will continue to cook after the meat is taken off of the stove or grill. The internal temperature may rise a whopping 10 degrees, quickly turning the perfect medium-rare steak into a gray, medium-well piece of shoe leather. If the cook cuts into the steak while cooking, the meat usually appears rarer than it is, because the juices run out. Resting the meat – without cutting! – allows the juices to retract back into the meat.
How do you know if the steak is cooked on the inside? A thermometer is the only reliable way to tell. I think a steak is perfectly cooked at an internal temperature of 125 degrees; I suggest never cooking the meat higher than 130 degrees. Some cooks tell by the pressing the steak to see how firm it is; the firmer the meat then the more it has cooked. If pink meat is a turn-off for you, then place the steak in a 400-degree oven for a couple of minutes.
Grilling steaks is a popular cooking method, but the juices and flavor nuggets are lost down the grill. A grilled steak cannot be served with a pan sauce, which requires scraping up the browned bits on the pan to create a flavor base for a superior sauce. Nor can a pan sauce be made from a steak that has no fat, such as tenderloin, because after the meat has seared, there is nothing in the pan to deglaze.
The traditional sauce on steak is a butter sauce – fat on fat. Steak butter is softened butter mixed with anchovies (or Worcestershire sauce, which is made out of anchovies) and parsley. The other great butter sauce for steak is béarnaise, which is egg yolks and butter flavored with shallots and tarragon.
A simple pan sauce is a most satisfying accompaniment to a good steak.
Anne Cori, a certified culinary professional, has taught cooking classes for more than 15 years at Kitchen Conservatory.
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