Five Rules For a Perfect Steak

Hello and welcome back to NoRecipeRequired.com. I'm Dave, and tonight I'm going to show you how to cook a

steak

. I always get comments from friends and family, and from people who post on the website: "Tell me more about how to cook a

steak

to the right doneness." I'm going to really go over

five

basic

rules

that I follow to get a good, well-cooked, great-flavored steak every time. Ah, let's go ahead and do it. Okay, so let's talk about how to cook the

perfect

steak and my

five

rules

for cooking the

perfect

steak. The first rule is Know your steak. what do I want to say with that?

Obviously, you need to know what you're cooking. You need to know, this is a ribeye, are you cooking a ribeye, or are you cooking a New York Strip, a filet mignon, or a London broil? What are you cooking? Because that will help determine the degree of doneness, what can be done and what is the right meat and the best temperature to cook it. You know, something like a skirt steak, I think it can be a little more done than, for example, a filet mignon. You'll also want to know the thickness of the steak. The thickness will determine the time required to cook.

The thicker the steak, the longer it will take to reach the proper temperature in the middle of the steak. You also have to look for things like bone. This particular steak is a bone-in ribeye. The bone will generally slow down the cooking process, make it a little longer. So the meat right here along the bone will tend to stay a little less cooked or rarer than the rest of the steak. Once you notice, pay attention to "well, this size of steak took so long to cook," you'll get used to gauging the right temperature. And you know that the thickness will also determine how much seasoning you will need on the steak.

Rule number 2 about steak is to season it well. When I talk about seasonings I mean salt and pepper. If you wanted to make some other type of spice, you know, chili powder, cumin, whatever you want, you absolutely can, but salt and pepper are key. And again it's influenced by knowing your flesh. If you have a thicker piece, like this one, you need more seasoning to spread it all over the piece, if you have a thinner piece, you can get away with less. I like to use kosher salt, because it has a coarser grain and adheres better to the meat, and then I also use freshly ground pepper.

I also give that seasoning a good press into the meat, and you'll want to season both sides. It's important to season both sides, again because you've got a big piece of meat here, and who knows, you can cut it in half while you're eating it, and you'll only get a seasoned flavor on one side of your mouth and you don't want that. You can be quite generous, especially with a steak this size, because a lot of the seasoning will fall off, whether in the pan or on the grill, no matter how you cook it. Once you season it, we are ready to sear it.

Ok, let's talk about... what we're on to, fourth, fifth, sixth... the third rule of cooking a great steak, and that is getting a great sear. This might be the scariest part for many people, because you have to use a pan that is very hot. If you're outside at the grill, the same principles apply. You want the grill to be as hot as possible. Do you know a nice little test? I have a container of water here, and it's a dry plane, and I just put a little bit of water in there and watch it dance around the container.

That's what you're looking for. The pan is super hot, it should probably be smoking a little and it will certainly start to smoke once you put this oil in it. I want to make sure there is no water in the pan before I add the oil. Oil and water do not mix well. I'm going to go ahead and put a good couple of sprinkles in there, make sure I have the bottom covered, you can see the smoke coming out of the pan. That's what we're looking for. And you should hear a lot of noise once we drop the steak.

So that noise is exactly what we're looking for. Brown the steak and you'll get that nice, flavorful crust on the outside and it will obviously cook the piece of meat. So the key factor here, besides a hot pan, is not to turn the meat. Note that I'm not going to go in there and move things or even shake the pan. It won't stick, don't worry. After 4 minutes, I'm going to say that for this piece of steak, I'm going to go ahead and flip it. We are going to do the same on the other side. Everything at full fire, as far as it can go.

And then we're going to finish it in the oven. Ok, my fourth rule for cooking a great steak is to keep it cooked. You should know, personally, how well you like your steak. Are you a raw person, are you a well-made person? I'm probably in the middle, medium rare, I like to lean towards rare rather than well done. But frankly, it's up to you. Now there are two good ways I know of to tell if it's ready. One is to use a meat thermometer. I like to use this kind, you know, that has a nice long string tied to it and the reading here, so you can stick this into the meat and have it out of the oven.

Once it reaches the desired temperature, you can take it out. I don't particularly like the ones that, well, I guess, are more of a utility than some kind of thermometer. I don't like the technique of tasting it, taking out the thermometer, waiting a few minutes, tasting it again, poking new holes in the meat. That's actually just piercing the meat and getting the juice out of the steak. If you are going to use one, put it in and leave it there until you reach the correct doneness. Like I said, for me I'll probably put it at 125, maybe 125 to 130, so it's medium rare.

There are many temperature charts on the Internet and you can find one fairly easily. The other way to check doneness is to use the meat firmness technique. Let me show you my hand. Therefore, the firmer a piece of meat feels when hit, the better done it will be. The more it gives, the less well made it is and the rarer it is. So a simple test to get used to it is to use a finger technique here by rotating the finger, touching the index finger and this puts the least amount of stress on this little part of the hand here.

And that usually equates to a rare piece of meat. If you go to the middle finger, you'll notice it gets a little firmer, and we start to get into a medium sized piece of meat. Now you move on to the ring finger, which is even firmer. All the way up to your pinky, if you feel that, it's pretty tight here, and this is essentially the feeling of a well-done piece of meat. I think it's a little difficult to measure this, then taste the meat, and then do that. The goal is rather to familiarize yourself with how the tenderness and feel of meat varies with temperature.

And then the first few times you cook a steak, or maybe use one of these thermometers, feel it as you go and remember what those different sensations are like so you can replicate them over time. You definitely want to make sure the steak is cooked to the right temperature, that's a key factor. Well, my steak has been browning for about 4 minutes and that's why I say it can be scary, you can see all the smoke coming out of the pan. If you have an oven with a hood or a vent hood, you should probably turn it on.

The pan is starting to look a little crunchy on the outside, but we flip it over and it turns out absolutely fine. You've got that nice char on the outside, all the fat is removed and burned off, which is absolutely what we're looking for. And yet, that center will still be nice and pink when we cut it out. So I went ahead and turned it over, and the other side is going to burn. And while you're doing that, to finish cooking, it would take a long time, and we'd have to do some turning, and I don't really like to turn meat or steaks a lot.

I usually do one side, then turn it over, do the other side and that's it. I'm going to go ahead and take this, I'm going to put it in a 400 degree oven, and it's probably going to take about 8 more minutes for this side to get to the doneness that I want. Like I said, you can use the meat thermometer or start using the old touch test. Ok, I just took the steak out of the oven and the final rule of the five rule plan is to let the steak rest. I've got some aluminum foil here, I'm going to drop the steak in there and then I'm going to wrap it up.

Letting the steak rest allows all the juices in it to relax and cool slightly. In fact, the aluminum foil will keep the steak a little warm. But if you cut it now, everything just drips onto the plate, and you actually end up with a dry steak, even if it's just right, rare, medium-rare...uh, doneness. So go ahead, wrap it, fillet this size for at least 5 minutes, you know, up to 10 is totally fine. You can store it in a warm place in the kitchen, perhaps on top of the stove. You don't want it on direct heat because it will continue to cook.

Ok, I just removed the steak from the aluminum foil and let it rest. By the way, the juice that builds up here, if you have sauce I would definitely add it, it's absolutely amazing. And then you can go ahead and serve the steak however you like. You can serve it whole, give it whole to someone, or go ahead and cut it like I'm doing, and serve just a few pieces at a time. Let me have a small plate here. And here we have a perfectly cooked piece of ribeye. Make a little tower eh, why not? Cheer up with our side dishes around the steak.

See you next time at www.noreciperequired.com.