How To Cook
Steaks
Every person likes
their steak cooked a different way, so throughout this article I will
make sure that I cover each possible different way so that you will
always get the best result for yourself or whoever you cook for.
Learning
How To Cook Steaks Starts With The Right Cut Of Meat
There are several
different cuts of beef that will make a great steak, and there are also
many grades of beef to consider, depending on what the cow was fed on
the farm, so your first step is to choose which one you would
prefer. The choices include rump, scotch fillet, porterhouse,
steak sirloin, eye fillet and T-bone as the main premium cuts generally
eaten.
The
beef’s grading will come down largely to marbling and
maturity of the meat. There is a debate as to which is better
out of grain-fed and grass-fed cattle, and really the answer is
grass-fed beef is healthier for you as it is the most natural form of
the cattle, while grain-fed beef will have a lot more marbling and
flavour, so I will leave that choice up to you which way you want to
go.
As for maturity, I
recommend finding a butcher that will hang your meat for quite a long
time in their meat locker before carving it, I have found that 27 days
is ideal. This will help tenderize the meat by having it
stretched out and relaxing the muscles, to give you the best possible
final result.
The rump, steak
sirloin and porterhouse are firmer cuts, and the rump in particular can
be a bit tougher and chewier than the rest, and you will find a strip
of fat at the top of each of these steaks, which will help flavour and
tenderize the steak during the cooking process. Both these
cuts I would recommend eating rare to medium-rare (I will discuss steak
doneness a little later).
Meanwhile the
scotch fillet will come very nicely marbled with fat throughout, and
can usually be distinguished by a C-shaped piece of fat close to one
side. Due to the marbling it will be very tender and full of
flavour (however if you’re on a diet it may be one to avoid
for now), and I recommend eating it medium-rare to medium.
The eye fillet is
the most tender cut of beef, and will normally be free of fat, although
this also means you may need to do something extra to add some flavour
to it, the most popular way being to wrap bacon around it during
cooking, so the fatty flavours of the bacon are absorbed by the
steak. This is my personal favourite steak, and is best eaten
medium-rare to medium.
Lastly we come to
the T-bone, which has both the eye fillet and porterhouse on either
side of the bone, and will get its flavour from the strip of fat on the
outside of the steak sirloin. I recommend eating the T-bone
rare to medium-rare, though it can be tricky to cook evenly due to the
bone in the middle.
How Much Steak Can
You Handle?
Once
you’ve decided which cut of steak you will be eating, you
need to work out how big a piece of meat you want. A
normal-sized steak is generally around 300g for a good-sized meal,
however it could range anywhere from 150g up to 1kg and even
more!
The size of your
steak will become important later when you want to cook it to a
particular doneness. For example, two different steak
sirloins could quite easily weigh the same amount, yet be completely
different shapes, sometimes they can be wide and flat, and sometimes
short and thick, depending on what part of the rump the steak was cut
from.
Choosing the size
of your steak and the shape go hand-in-hand, it’s best to
have a thicker steak for a rare or medium-rare steak, and when you want
a medium-well or above thinner is better. This is so it
doesn’t take a long time for you to cook, and you can still
have a juicy steak without burning the outside.
How
To Cook Steaks - The Equipment You'll Need!
Now let’s
just get away from the steak for a minute and think about what
you’re actually going to cook it on. Ideally you
should have a chargrill, one that sits on an angle, and has enough
space underneath the flame to have a tray that you can put a small
piece of wood on.
What I personally
prefer is mesquite wood, which comes from the USA, and the best thing
to do is to soak it in water for a couple of hours before
cooking. This will help the wood give off its smoky flavour
rather than just burn away, and it will also last longer, usually for
at least a couple of hours.
I mentioned earlier
that if possible your grill should be built on an angle, sloping up
towards the back. As you know, heat rises, so naturally you
should find the hottest part of your grill at the back, and get
slightly cooler closer to the front. Most grills and
hotplates in general will have certain “hotspots”
that you will need to find for each one to work out the bests places to
position your food when cooking. Once you’ve used a
particular grill a couple of times you should find it quite easy to
figure out your favourite spots to cook on.
The combination of
knowing where your “hotspots” are and using an
angled grill will make it easier to find the best position to cook your
steak. If you don’t have a chargrill to use and you
have a flatgrill or a hotplate instead, I would recommend not cooking
your steak entirely through on the hotplate, particularly for medium or
above, seal it on both sides then place your steak on a tray and finish
it off in an oven. Otherwise all you will do is burn the
outside and lose all the moisture and juiciness from your meat.
How
Do You Like Your Steak Cooked?
The other element
to consider is how you would like your steak cooked. In
general, a well-done steak should be placed at the back, a medium steak
in the middle of the grill, and a rare steak at the front.
Obviously, this leaves medium-rare between the front and middle, and
the medium-well between the middle and the back.
In some situations
you will need to adjust this slightly depending on the size and shape
of your steak, a big, thick rump may need to be pushed a bit further up
the grill to cook properly, while a thin and flat porterhouse might be
best kept a little closer to the front to avoid overcooking.
Your steak positioning will come down largely to personal preference
and a bit of practice and experience with your grill.
Now that you should
have worked out where on the grill you will place your steak,
you’re almost ready to start cooking! What you need
to consider now is how you will season your steak. You may
not want any seasoning, that’s fine, go
right ahead and start cooking.
If you wish to use salt and pepper, I would suggest waiting until one
side of your steak has been sealed before sprinkling any on, as salt
has the tendency to leech out some of the moisture from your meat.
My
preferred method of seasoning is to get a really good steak seasoning
spice and generously cover both sides before placing your steak on the
grill. When you do place your steak on the grill, if you are
going to have a rump, steak sirloin or a porterhouse, make sure you
place the strip of fat at the top, so as it cooks the fat will melt and
drip through the steak, adding extra flavour to your meat.
