Cooking Tips – The Perfect Steak
The thought of having to cook the perfect steak scares some people silly, and for no real reason.
There really are only 4 rules you need to follow, and I guarantee if you follow them you will always be able to perfectly cook your steaks.
Rule 1 – Quality Counts
Buy good meat.
Not expensive meat, GOOD meat.
Good meat is cut across the grain and is uniform in colour. Older steaks are darker than freshly cut meat and will normally give a more tender result.
Ideal steaks have very fine streaks of fat running through the meat, referred to as the marbling. These will ensure the meat is moist, juicy and super tasty.
My favorite cuts for steaks are eye fillet, scotch fillet, porterhouse and rump.
All 4 cuts treated properly will give you delicious, tender and juicy steaks.
If you have the option of using a butcher, buy your meat from them. Their lifeblood is selling quality meat, unlike the supermarkets who will happily sell you any old rubbish as premium quality meat.
When buying meat, ask your butcher to cut your steaks between 3/4 and 1 inch thick.
Rule 2 – Handle With Care
Meat needs to rest BEFORE you cook it. Remove your steaks from the fridge at least an hour before you intend to cook it. Doing this allows the centre of the steak to adjust to room temp, and this is the difference between having a rare steak with a nice firm centre, and one with a jelly like centre.
Many chefs will argue this point, but I prefer to season my steaks BEFORE they hit the grill. Salt and pepper, generous with the pepper and any old salt works well.
You turn meat ONCE when cooking it. No more, certainly no less.
After your meat has finished it’s grill time, it again needs to rest. Use a clean plate, remove the steaks and cover lightly in foil. Rest steaks for 3 minutes minimum before serving, and make them the last ingredient to hit the plates before you serve. Well done steaks benefit from even longer resting, up to 5 minutes if possible.
Rule 3 – Heat
We use Le Crueset ridge grills or our gas BBQ for cooking steaks. I like to heat the ridge pan for 5 minutes on a full burner, the BBQ for at least 10 minutes covered before I show the steak the grill.
I do not turn the heat down until the steaks are off the grill. If you have a smoke alarm near the kitchen, find it’s dust cover…….
Rule 4 – Timing
Lets talk 1″ steaks:
Rare – Rare is a strange description for meat. Season both sides, then spray lightly with olive oil. Slap your steak on the grill, cook for 1 minute for “just sealed rare”, 2 minutes for “bloody rare”, 3 minutes for “juicy rare”, 4 minutes for “uncooked centre rare”. Turn, and as soon as you see the juices bleeding back through the cooked side remove and rest.
Medium Rare – Season and oil as above. Cook for 5 minutes, turn and finish as for a rare steak, plus 1 minute.
Medium Well – Season and oil as above. Cook for 6 minutes, turn and finish as for a rare steak, plus 2 minutes.
Well – Season and oil as above. Cook for 8 minutes, turn and finish as for a rare steak, plus 4 minutes.
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