Can you go straight from the fridge to the pan
and what's really in a bone?
Here are tips that professional chefs know when it comes
to making the perfect steak.
If you've ever had an issue with your steak cooking
unevenly, the culprit might have been the temperature.
Steak removed from the fridge and placed directly on the
heat is harder to warm up than steak that sits
at room temperature for up to an hour before cooking
start.
The wait is worth it.
Once you get a good burn going on the steak,
the results come closer to the steak you get at
a steakhouse, juicy and evenly done all the way through.
If you're concerned about leaving raw meat out for that
long before cooking, this should make you feel more at
ease tricking out exists A raw meat related foodborne illness
brought on by a microscopic parasite is extremely rare in
these instances.
In the cases where this does happen, the parasite comes
most often from pork or wild game.
The only exception that some restaurant chefs make to the
don't cook straight out of the fridge rule is if
they've dry brined the meat ahead of time.
Dry brining makes me cook more quickly, taking away one
of the issues caused by cooking cold steak.
However, if all of this talk of brining takes you
out of cooking steak one O 1 and into the
realm of the complicated, it's perfectly OK to just start
with room temperature steak and see how much fatter the
meat cooks.
While it certainly doesn't hurt to start your steak with
a quality cut of meat, the only way to take
it to the professional level is with plenty of butter.
Many home cooks avoid cooking with large amounts of butter
because of its high fat content.
But as the late great chef Anthony Bourdain explains in
his article Don't Eat Before Reading This, there's no avoiding
butter if you want to make restaurant level dishes.
Writing.
In almost every restaurant worth patronizing, meat and fish are
seared with a mixture of butter and oil.
Kicking steaks in a bath of butter, along with a
bit of garlic, Rosemary and thyme is what makes restaurant
steaks so succulent.
It is usually the the first thing and the last
thing in in just about every pan.
Really.
Yeah, That's why restaurant food tastes better than home food
a lot of the times.
Butter Another important ingredient is salt.
Seasoning thoroughly is a crucial step when cooking any meat,
and a good coating of salt is perfect for enhancing
steaks savory, rich flavors.
Most chefs recommend applying a generous coating of salt to
the meat 45 minutes before you start cooking.
It might go without saying, but juicy steak requires plenty
of juices.
If you turn your meat over by stabbing it with
a fork or knife when you're cooking at home, you're
just letting those juices escape.
Restaurant cooks use tongs, not allowing those juices to escape
to freedom at the bottom of the pan.
So what's the trick for flipping your steak the restaurant
way?
Most steak aficionados recommend just one flip.
Allow the steak to cook for a few minutes on
one side, depending on thickness, then flip it once to
cook on the other side.
Using tongs, of course.
The rationale behind this is that if you cook it
for long enough on each side, the steak will eventually
be cooked evenly throughout.
The myard reaction is the chemical reaction that gives steak
a nice brown crust.
It requires high heat and moisture in order to caramelize
the proteins and sugars of a food.
Salting your steak in advance allows the salt to pull
out the steak's juices, which then mix with the salt
to form a brine.
Tossing a well salted steak into a very hot pan
induces the Myard reaction and can create the perfect sear.
Because this requires a temperature over 300°F, it's best to
use a cast iron pan that can handle the heat.
Restaurant kitchens are stocked with equipment intended to deal with
extreme heat.
This chain reaction creates flavors and scents that didn't exist
before the chemistry experiment got started.
It's not something that an uncooked steak produces on its
own.
It's not just steak that benefits from the Myard reaction.
If you've ever taken a healthy bite of the hot
crust of freshly baked bread, or a chewy and crunchy
chocolate chip cookie, or enjoy an exceptionally fine roast of
coffee, you've experienced this reaction first hand.
It's even one reason why your roasted veggies taste so
good.
The foods that best produce this reaction include dairy, eggs,
seeds, and nuts.
It's also worth noting that the Myard reaction tastes different
for every food because of the unique blend of sugars
and proteins each contains.
Elements like salt and butter set off the Myard reaction,
but a deficit of moisture also happens to be among
the things required to start it off too.
Too much moisture in the steak causes steam to rise
from within, curbing the reaction.
Restaurant chefs deal with this in a simple way.
They pat the extra moisture off the meat before applying
the seasonings.
You can easily do this at home with paper towels.
That rib eye or T-bone that you love so much
comes with some Filton insulation.
The bone Because of the bone in the middle of
the cooking time on your steak can be extended, which
is something that your average chef understands.
The meat surrounding the bone cooks at a slower pace
than the meat on the outer edges.
To accommodate this difference, your favorite steak restaurant cooks the
bone in steak on the grill.
This allows for more even cooking while still leaving behind
the fat next to the bone.
What are the most flavorful parts of the steak?
Some people erroneously believe that the bone itself creates a
steak with more flavor than its boneless counterpart, but this
isn't the case.
The flavor that people associate with the bone, like you'd
find in a bone broth, comes from the connective tissues
and the bones being cracked open to release the flavor.
This doesn't happen with bone and steak, where the bones
remain uncracked.
Oven cooking also works, particularly if you combine a good
searing from the grill with a finishing touch in the
oven.
The result is a steak that has a crisp and
savory outer coating that encases the steaks tender interior.
Anthony Bourdain also insisted that a steak needs to just
hang out for a little while before being served.
No slicing into it, no poking, and no prodding.
This advice might seem counter intuitive, but a lot goes
on under the surface while the steak just hangs out.
What you can't see when the steak is cooling is
that it's still cooking inside.
Don't over cookie.
Over cookie is no good.
The features on papers that red center goes from red
to pleasantly pink.
The juices disperse themselves throughout the steak, ensuring that once
you finally do cut into the steak, you'll taste them
in every bite.
If you're trying to replicate Chef Bourdain's techniques at home,
here's a good rule of thumb.
Let the steak sit for five to 10 minutes on
the cutting board before slicing it up or serving it.