To cook a really tasty and juicy steak, you need to read this article to the end.
STEP ONE
The ingredients we will have are as follows: 1 beef ribeye steak, a little olive oil with low acidity (any other vegetable oil recommended for frying will do), salt and pepper (to taste). Steaks no thicker than 3 cm are usually fried in a pan. Thicker cuts (there are some) are better suited for grilling and oven or combined cooking, i.e. firstly in a pan and finish cooking in the oven. The most important thing to remember before you start cooking any steak is that the meat must always be at room temperature. The problem here is not only that otherwise the minute data will not add up. Initially cold meat will result in overcooked outer edges and bloody middle. So put the steak meat at room temperature atleast 1 hour before cooking.
STEP TWO
First of all, let's talk about the pan. In no case should the pieces of steak lie on the pan tightly, being pressed against each other. In this case it turns out that they are not fried, but almost boiled in their own juice, this is absolutely unacceptable for steak. So check your options beforehand: find out how many steaks you can fit into the pan you have. Mine, for example, is optimal for 2 steaks. For the amount of oil, there are different strategies for frying steaks, and it can be either a lot or very little, so that the pan is only lightly greased. This does not depend on the fat content of the piece of meat, it is purely a matter of taste and the desired end result. In this case, I use a small amount of oil. The pan should be heated over high heat. Steak can be placed on it only when the meat begins to sizzle immediately. To avoid experimenting with the steak in such a way, you can either cut off a tiny piece of it beforehand, or drop drops of blood from the container with the steak on it into the frying pan. If the drop sizzles and turns white, it's time!
STEP THREE
When the pan with the oil is already on the heat, the steak is salted and peppered on at least one side. This is the side on which it is placed at the beginning of frying. The second side can be salted and peppered later, in the process of frying. And it can be before, there is no difference, scientists have checked. In short, the myth that the second side should be seasoned only when the steak is already on the pan has been dispelled by chemical analysis. The main thing is not to try to marinate the steak in advance, in which case it will lose juice.
STEP FOUR
First, the steak is fried at the highest heat - 1-2 minutes per side. This phase does not depend on the final desired result in terms of grilling, the duration of intensive frying is adjusted only by how much intense crust you like. By the way, for flipping the steak, I recommend not a two-toothed trench fork, but these tongs. They let you do without punctures (and therefore loss of precious juice), well, and in general, are very handy. For thick steaks, for combined cooking on high heat, the edges are also fried. The edges are not fried in the usual pan frying method, but are a very useful indicator of how done the steak is. But more about them in the next step. Throughout the entire pan frying of the steak, taking place in a small amount of oil, remember to jiggle the pan so that the oil from the edges gets under the steak.
STEP FIVE
There are five degrees of beef steak readiness. The first is those bloody pieces that are shown in movies about vampires and werewolves when they order at a human restaurant. Based on the comments on our website, I was beginning to suspect that, apparently, beef with blood is only available to eat undead, because they are already dead and not afraid of worms. But a medical consultation finally made it clear to me why mere mortals are normally allowed to eat steak and roast beef with blood, too. It turns out that worms and their eggs are not found in all parts of the carcass. And the uncooked ones are the ones that have no such risk when the carcass is professionally cut. Well, with unskilled - it's like with fugu fish, it can't be helped. So, a steak is fried up to a brown crust and bloody middle in 6 minutes in total - first intensive frying for 1 minute per side, on high heat, then 2 more turns for 2 minutes on medium heat. The side should be distinctly pink. Lightly seared steak (like mine) - 2 minutes on high, 2 minutes on medium heat per side. The meat still looks raw when cut, but it doesn't look like a single mass, it's already separating into fibers. Only a barely noticeable pinkish streak remains on the side. For medium-rare, 2 on strong, 2 on medium, 2 on weak per side. Meat is pink inside, no raw. There should be no pink on the edge at all. Medium rare steak - 1-2 minutes on high, 5 minutes on low per side. Pink only in the very center, most of the piece is grayish. The edges look evenly cooked. Fully cooked steak - 1-2 minutes each on strong and up to 14 minutes total on weak. The general sense is clear? The shorter the cooking time of the steak, the more intense the fire in all but the first stage. And the first one depends on how cooked crust you want. The number of flips in the last 2 long cooking methods of pan frying is not regulated, just more than 2. In general, unlike cooking steaks on the grill, you can not fear that the juice will lose - it will remain in the pan and will benefit your own steak. The internal temperature of lightly roasted beef is 60°C, medium roasted 70°C, and fully roasted 75°C. Checking the readiness of steak is usually carried out 2 minutes before the moment of its calculated readiness (according to the above standards), because you can finish cooking it, but to return the bloodiness of overcooked steak - no more. How can you tell if a steak is cooked to perfection not by the cooking time or the edge, and if you don't have a thermometer with a dipstick? There are 2 simple tests: cutting and pressing. A small incision is made with a very sharp knife on the top surface of the steak, assessing the degree of transparency of the juices flowing out: bloody, pinkish, transparent. Pressing (or pinching) comes down to the fact that the more elastic the meat is when pressed (or pinched), the less cooked it is. That is, the most cooked steak will be the least firm when the meat is squeezed (we're not talking about charred and stiff as a sole, we're talking about methodically correct cooking).
STEP SIX
Steaks are not served immediately after cooking, their taste improves if you let the meat "rest". Resting time is usually equal to cooking time, but should not exceed 10 minutes. In my opinion, the ideal place to rest, especially before formal serving, is a foil envelope. The fact is that steaks often release juice while resting, with which they stain the plate. So it is more convenient to collect this juice from the foil, and there you can safely decide how best to use it.
STEP SEVEN
It's up to the chef to slice the steak before serving or not, there are no strict regulations on this matter. However, if you do not give guests special steak knives, it is better to cut steaks in the kitchen: ordinary knives are not very convenient for cutting the bloody stage of cooking, for example - they may be blunt for this.
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