How to Cook a Steak (or Chop)
“How Follows Why”
Cooking inside? Read the black font.
Grilling? Read all font, with special attention to red. When cooking on the grill, the exact same principles apply to the “cooking inside” method; only a few key moves will change. Read this “inside” section below, then continue to the “grill” section, and all will become clear.
In a hurry? Skip to the “abridged version” at the very bottom, but for deeper understanding and skill, come back and read the whole shebang when you have a few minutes.
Season & Temper
WHY: Your target will cook faster and more evenly if it is room temperature throughout. As the mass of your protein increases, so should the tempering time. The heat of the oven or grill doesn’t have to fight the colder core of the steak, overcooking the exterior as it brings the interior up to medium-rare temperature. Salt brings out flavor and aids in the tenderization process. Seasoning with salt ahead of time encourages osmosis to evenly disperse salinity as water “grabs” salt from the surface of the protein and distributes it among the steak’s interior, so that seasoning is “built-in” evenly throughout the muscle.
HOW: At least 30 minutes before cooking, remove the steak or chop from the refrigerator. Place on a clean plate and season confidently with salt, black pepper, and Stock Steak Rub on both sides, flipping at the rough midway point of total tempering time.
2. Preheat & Set up
WHY: Heat is pressure. Most meat is 65% - 75% water by weight. The higher the heat, the more intense the pressure exerted on the muscle fibers will be. These fibers are encased by collagen, which offers resistance when we chew. Finishing at low temperatures breaks down this collagen, where high heat exerts high pressure on these collagen encasements, forcing them to contract and squeeze the protein fibers within, which in turn purges water, or as we see it, juices and flavor. When finishing at high heat, we are therefore left with a drier, less flavorful, and tougher bite, as the collagen just “cooks” rather than breaking down into gelatin, therefore maintaining that extra chew.
When ambient finishing temperature is lower, the collagen structures that encase the muscle fibers break down completely into gelatin, offering us better mouthfeel and increased sensation of juiciness. The fibers are therefore able to maintain their water content to a superior degree, further heightening the textural experience, and color is enhanced due to maintenance of proteins that are water soluble. Finally, lower temperature cooks the muscle all the way through at the same rate, from outside to inside, allowing the entirety of the steak or chop to reach the same temperature at the same time. This gives us perfect medium-rare all throughout the muscle, protecting us from the “bullseye effect,” where we are medium-rare only in the very center, and the color gradient expands from the inside out, resulting in a majority of dry, chewy, flavorless gray.
HOW: As soon as you season your protein, preheat the oven to a lower finishing temperature, between 275 - 325 F.
Grilling with charcoal? Remove the top grate and set aside. Light your chimney until the top coals threaten to turn gray, carefully dump all coals, banked only on one side of the grill. Grill baskets are an immense help to contain your coals, keep them from falling through the bottom grate, and hold their efficient heat in one happy bundle. After dumping coals, replace the top grate, cover the grill, and allow to preheat and burn off any detritus left on the grate. Every 2-3 minutes, rotate the grill grate so all surfaces get some coal-contact time, ensuring that the entirety of your grate is clean. Scrape as you twist your top grate; 2 half-turns to 4 quarter-turns should do the trick. When the whole grate is clean, fold a paper towel 3-4 times, grab it with tongs, soak in grapeseed oil, and rub it all over the grill grate to season.
Grilling with propane? Preheat your grill to hot as blazes by turning all burners to full tilt for about five minutes with the lid closed to burn off the previous session’s bits and pieces, and scrape well. Fold a paper towel 3-4 times, grab it with tongs, soak in grapeseed oil, and rub it all over the grill grate to season. Scrape again, then turn half of the grill burners OFF COMPLETELY and leave the others on full blast.
3. Sear & oven dress
WHY: To sear is to apply conductive heat to the surface of your target, thereby caramelizing the surface, which involves a complex series of chemical reactions which result in a dark brown appearance and heightened and deepened olfactory and taste experience. When searing in a pan, this also gives us “fond,” the French word for “foundation,” which is, in essence, browned flecks of caramelized protein that adhere to the pan itself. This “fond” is the first key necessity to producing a proper pan sauce, which you should always make in order to boost the experience to the next level (more on this later).
Cast iron is king–it distributes heat more evenly and more effectively than most other pan compositions, and its heavy-duty nature allows it to hold its heat when food is added. For this reason, we recommend it wholeheartedly.
Grapeseed oil is the perfect companion–it has an extremely high smoke point, so it can get hotter and sear more effectively without burning and therefore imparting a scorched or burny flavor. Stay away from olive oil, which is rife with particulate matter, giving it a low smoke point and enabling it to burn easily, handing over bitterness and carbonized aroma.
HOW:
-set a cast iron pan over highest heat and coat with about ⅛” grapeseed oil (don’t skimp on oil; your sear will suffer and you might burn your foundation. Don’t worry, you’ll end up draining most of this post-sear anyway). Heat oil just until the first wisp of smoke rises.
-dab dry the “presentation” side (a wet surface will steam, not sear) and gently lay the protein down in the pan, being careful not to drop or “slap” it in the pan, as this could slosh volcanic oil over the side of the pan and cause fire or injury. Gently press on the top of the protein to encourage good adhesion to the pan for most even sear.
-don’t touch or move the protein for 2-4 minutes, depending on the degree to which your sear develops. Factors include oil that isn’t hot enough or improper dabbing dry of the surface. If you go to flip your target and it seems stuck to the pan, DON’T pry it off–your sear will stick to the pan and you’ll burn it in an attempt to re-caramelize the surface. Your steak or chop will de-stickify itself from the pan when it is good and ready. (The best sears come from seasoning well in advance and leaving your protein in the refrigerator uncovered for most of the day or overnight. The surface will become extra dry and tacky, encouraging even and intense browning.)
-when you’ve developed a proper sear, flip the steak, kill the heat, and carefully drain all oil but about a teaspoon into a safe receptacle (empty can or jar, or even better, the plate that the raw steak was resting on; this way, when the oil cools, you can wipe the oil off with a paper towel). Drop in a knob of butter (1-3 tablespoons, depending on the amount of protein in your pan, your diet, your vigor, and/or your palate for deliciousness, return the pan to medium heat. Add a couple of sliced shallots around the protein in the pan, season them lightly with sea salt, and nestle a nice handful of thyme in the part of the pan closest to you. Tilt the pan towards you, allowing the butter to collect and pool around the thyme (it may pop, which is one of the best parts of this entire process). Pick up the thyme and place it atop your steak or chop, and baste with butter several times. Kill the heat, stir the shallots once, and move the whole pan to the oven. Don’t be silly–use a pan that is oven-safe (again, cast iron or copper-core stainless steel can’t be beat).
Grilling? Charcoal or gas–doesn’t matter–follow these steps, assuming that the HOT SIDE of the grill grate is the “pan,” omitting, of course any tilting or further oiling, placing the protein directly on the grill grate. When grill marks have established and the steak is easily moved, 2-4 minutes, feel free to twist it 90 degrees to mark with that sexy “cross-hatch” branding. Flip, and repeat the same steps.
DISCLAIMER: FIRST AND FOREMOST, fill a spray-bottle with water and adjust the nozzle to the jet setting, to allow a single stream of water to come zooming out. Misting will not help. Use this to spray down flames as they THREATEN to begin to lick up on your steak or chop as fat is flammable, and as it gets hot, it will render and drip, encouraging an inferno to rise. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR GRILL UNATTENDED. To be extra safe, have a box of salt and/or fire extinguisher handy to pour over or blast flames if things get out of control. Spraying water on an actual grease fire will only make things worse. Watch it like a hawk and don’t let it catch fire. If things go off the rails, move your protein to the heatless side of the grill and let things calm down, then carry on as needed. Fire is sketchy. Fire in the presence of fat is crazy sketchy. Don’t be a dingus and burn your house down.
4. Finish
WHY: after searing, your steak might look enticing and ready to eat, but it is still quite raw inside. Searing (conductive heat) is remarkably effective for cooking and caramelizing the exterior, but holds no talent at cooking a thicker steak through. To increase the entirety and interior of your steak to mid-rare, we need to use convection heat (ambient hot air) by placing it in a covered environment. This step can pose difficulty and anxiety as judging perfect medium-rare doneness can take practice and repetition. There is no foolproof metric or timing metric to nail it every time. Use the chart below to help guide you to juicy perfection, but ultimately your senses are your best tool. Contributing factors that may obfuscate consistency are:
your oven, as the built-in thermometer is usually inaccurate;
The animal from which your meat was cut;
The cut itself and molecular makeup;
Water content of the muscle/the degree to which your meat was dry-aged; (dry-aged cuts tend to cook faster as there is less water to bring up to the desire temperature);
Difference in tempering technique (see step 1).
We recommend checking your steak at the 3-minute mark, depending on its thickness. If
cooking a thinner muscle such as flat iron, skirt, bavette, or flank, 3 minutes is advisable to swiftly pull it out to check. If cooking a thicker cut such as shoulder strip, merlot, soft side, or ribeye, you might want to wait until the 5 minute mark for assessment. When you decide to investigate, quickly remove the pan from the oven using a pot holder or folded towel and place it on the burner (ensure it’s off) or a trivet on the countertop. Use your index finger to gently press on the steak to judge its firmness. If it squishes passively under your touch, it ain’t done. If it gives slightly but rebounds elastically, it’s close. If it’s bouncy and playful, it’s spot-on. Should you ever see delicious red juices beginning to pool on top of your steak, remove it from heat at once, as that is a sign of it’s initiation of moving on from the mid-rare point, as water is beginning to purge, as mentioned above. It’s true, digital instant-read thermometers can help you nail it, but be careful–poking holes in a steak or chop creates an exit point for juices under pressure. Consider a slow leak in a tire; the best way to use an instant-read thermometer is to drop the extra ducats on a string-style unit whose probe is attached to the “brain” or unit itself via a metal string or line. The probe sticks in the thickest, coldest part of the steak, and the signal is sent through the cable to the digital read-out, which are often magnetic and stick to the outside of your oven. This way, you can see in real time the interior temperature of your steak as it cooks, set an alarm on the unit to beep at you when it hits your sweet spot, you can prod, poke, and touch your steak when it hits your desired temperature to be able to judge it better in the future without a thermometer, and best of all, you can remove your steak from the pan to rest on a clean, room-temperature plate WHILE THE PROBE REMAINS EMBEDDED IN THE STEAK so that you don’t create an open exit through which your juices can readily pour. Once the pressure has subsided and your internal temperature has peaked and begins to subside, you can comfortably remove the probe without the potential for your juices and therefore flavor and tenderness to escape. When using a probe thermometer, It’s important to insert the probe AFTER flipping the steak once it’s been in the oven on side “A” as you won’t be able to flip it with a probe sticking out of the top. We LOVE the Thermoworks BlueDot, as it is affordable, tried-and-true, wildly accurate and durable, and pairs with your phone so you can mow the lawn while your chicken roasts, your pork loin smokes, or your leg of lamb finishes on the grill. Other models are available with multiple probes and read-outs if you have multiple items cooking, and are especially useful for the holidays when you aim to have your turkey breast and leg finish at the same time while requiring different temperatures.
HOW: You’ve tempered. You’ve seasoned. You’ve dabbed, seared, basted…now your steak is in the oven. Your work is almost done. The last thing you will aim for is to flip your protein once during cooking, as the side touching the bottom of the pan will rise in temperature more quickly than the exposed side, as it is experiencing more rapid heat transfer due to the conduction of heat from the pan itself. This said, you’ll want to flip halfway through the finishing process. What is the halfway point? This takes time and intuition and repetition to master. See the chart below to guide you, and have confidence and resolve as you make decisions. When flipping, swiftly remove the pan from the oven with a pot holder or folded towel, set atop the oven, and touch the top side to judge or gauge. If using a thermometer, insert the probe into the thickest part of the steak to achieve the lowest reading, and quickly return the pan to the oven. Set the temperature and alarm settings and finish the preparation for your pan sauce.
Grilling? After searing, move your steak or shop over to the “cold” side of the grill with no heat underneath. Close the grill lid and–if using propane, turn the dials on the hot side down to achieve ~325F ambient temperature–if using charcoal, adjust the vents to dial in the same environment. When it comes time to flip, ensure that you flip left to right, so that both sides of your steak get some time in the radiant heat zone from the hot side of the grill. Inching your protein closer to the hot side or moving it further away from that radiant heat will have an affect on the cook time of your protein. For example, we like to finish a pork chop with the fat cap nudging cozily (not touching or over top, of course) against the hot side, getting all nice and roasty-toasty and melty and browned.
5. Rest
WHY: As we’ve mentioned, heat is pressure, and this pressure builds inertia even when the steak is removed from the cooking environment. Liken this to driving a car–when you take your foot off the gas, the car doesn’t screech to an immediate halt; rather it continues to move forward–thank you Isaac Newton, the “motion” of the steak’s upward trend in temperature carries on. If you were to remove your steak from the oven or grill and slice into it immediately, this pressure would push your juices from your protein much like the wave of shoppers burst through the freshly unlocked doors of a store on Black Friday…chaos. Rather, we want the pressure to peak and then subside before serving or slicing. This way, the juices settle back into the protein and are quite happy to stay there until you slice off a wedge and pop it in your mouth.
HOW: When you’ve reached your desired temperature, whether on the grill or inside, carefully remove your protein from the pan or the grate and place it gently on a clean plate or tray, ideally one with sloping sides to catch juices as the begin to calmly saunter out as the temperature peaks. Cover loosely with a piece of foil, better yet parchment paper, or best, a cleanable cover such as a second plate (Mother Nature thanks you for this latter choice). Let stand at room temperature in the serving area, away from the dogs, for 10 - 30 minutes, depending on the size of the protein. Lamb chop? 10 minutes is all you need. 5-bone standing rib roast? Better make it 25-30 minutes. Won’t my roast get cold during that eternity, you ask? You’d be surprised. The larger the roast, the more tightly you might want to cover, but this is hair-splitting, and rest assured that the temperature maintains. The aforementioned thermometer will help you gauge, but trust that 10-15 minutes for your average steak or chop is all that’s needed. Be sure to leave your shallots and/or garlic in the pan while your protein rests.
Grilling? Nothing changes here. Rest in the same manner.
6. Pan sauce/jus
WHY:…because it’s delicious, and you’ve left delicious fond, juices, and fat in the pan. Make the most out of it.
HOW: With your steak resting, remove any herbs or inedible aromatics from the pan, leaving the alliums. Remove fat in excess of about a tablespoon, increase the heat to medium, add a knob of butter if the pan looks dry, and gently saute (trending towards caramelize) these wilted shallots. When they darken and clump, after a couple minutes, and certainly before they take too much color or begin to crisp, deglaze the pan with a glug of red wine, brandy, cognac, armagnac, bourbon, port, porter, or stout, and reduce over higher heat until the contents of the pan look syrupy. Taste, kill the heat, pour in any juices that have accumulated on your resting plate, add another knob of cold butter if you like, taste again, and stir in chopped herbs or finishing aromatics of your choice. Plate your meal, spoon over your pan sauce, and serve proudly. The possibilities here are endless; utilizing Stock Demi-Glace or straight beef stock or any flavorful liquid or reduction of your choice can only customize your meal, heighten your creativity, and challenge your palate.
Grilling? Sorry…you don’t get this luxury. A pan sauce is the sacrifice we make to yield that special grilliness while you enjoy a tangy glass of rose, crispy mojito, or frigid brew of choice (or hot buttered rum or hot toddy in the winter…who says you can’t grill in snow?) with your family and/or homies...or even alone with a good book. You’ll still accumulate jus to pour over top of your protein, and you can always make a sauce in advance.
TIMETABLE FOR SUGGESTED FINISHING TIMES
PLEASE bear in mind that these are mere guiding estimations–following the instructions above is crucial to the effectiveness of these recommendations. This assumes that the temperature of the oven or finishing environment is 325F.
1”: 1-3 minutes
1.25”: 4-6 minutes
1.5”: 6-8 minutes
2”: 7-9 minutes
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How to Cook a Steak or Chop, abridged version
2-step process (sear & finish)
If you’re in a hurry or don’t want to truly understand the ins and outs of cooking a steak or chop, you can cheat with these “quick start” instructions. Next opportunity, read through the long version above; it can only help you to gain confidence in your protein preparation in the future through logic and understanding, the true spice of life.
1. pull protein from fridge ~30 minutes before cooking & season confidently on both sides with salt, black pepper, and Stock Steak Rub
2. if cooking inside, cover a cast-iron pan bottom with 1/8" grapeseed oil and place over highest heat until the first smoke wisp rises. If grilling, bank all coals to one side or turn on one half of the grill, then clean and oil the grate. (Make sure you have two zones–a “very hot” and a “no heat.”)
3. dab “presentation side” dry and sear: if inside, the sear happens in the pan; if grilling, this happens directly over the coals or hot side of the grill. Sear over direct heat 2-4 minutes (no touchie until handsomely browned), then twist 90 degrees to make cross-hatch pattern. Flip when you’ve got that good good color happening.
4. dab to dry other side and flip to sear the second face for about 2 minutes
5. transfer to oven or move to indirect side of grill (adjust vents or flame) at LOW HEAT (275-325 ambient) (sooo important / the lower the better)
6. remove when desired doneness is achieved, flipping one more time during finishing if one side feels squishier than the other (usually another 2-8 minutes depending on thickness and ambient temperature; see table for guidance)
7. let rest 8-15 minutes on a clean plate/carving board, tented with foil or parchment
8. pour jus over top or incorporate into pan sauce
9. slice across the grain & finish with high quality sea salt such as Maldon
