How To Prep Steak For Grilling

For A Thick Steak Use The Reverse Sear Method

Prepping Steak for the Grill

For steak that’s 1 1/2 inches thick or more, the best strategy to ensure meat that’s perfectly charred on the outside and cooked to desired doneness in the middle is the reverse sear. You’ll cook the steak until it’s almost at the desired doneness over indirect heat, then move it over the hotter direct-heat section of the grill for a final quick sear.

First, make sure the indirect-heat section of the grill is around 225°F , add the steak to that cooler part of the grill, and then cover the grill. When the lid is down, hot air circulates around it, and you can gently warm the meat so that from top to bottom, its the same temperature and color, Goldwyn said. You’re basically creating an oven for your meat.

Start checking the temperature of the steak after about 15 minutes , and continue checking every 5 minutes, until the internal temperature of the steak is 10-15 degrees below your target temperature . Once the food hits that temperature, its ready to move to the direct-heat side for a quick sear.

Next, you want to crank up the heat. Remove the steak to a plate and set aside. For a gas grill, close the lid and turn all the burners to high heat for a few minutes. For a charcoal grill, gather the lit coals into a pile or add half a chimney’s worth of fresh lit coals to concentrate the heat.

How To Cook Pellet Grill Steaks

The best way to get a great steak sear is to start with the right meat, and I typically use steaks that are about 1 inch thick. This allows the steak to cook through without getting overcooked on the outside. Get yourself some quality beef and season them up before cookingespecially if its your first time! Its also key to keep the meat cold until it goes onto the grill so they dont lose valuable juices when searing.

Before you start grilling your steaks, preheat your pellet grill for at least 10 minutes with all burners set to high. After preheating, turn the outside burners back to medium and leave just one burner on high in the middle. This will be used for searing. Once your grill is ready light a single flame and let it run for about 3 minutes. After three minutes you can add your steak to the grill and close the lid for 4 minutesfor rare steaks, crease down for medium-well 6 minutes with the lid closed or 8 minutes if well done..after four turns the meat 90 degrees to get those nice diamond sears! Then open up and flip and cook another 5-9 minutes depending on how you like your steak cooked.

When To Salt It How To Check If It’s Done And Everything Else You Should Know About Cooking Steak

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This week we’re getting back to the basics, exploring a few of the simplest, yet most persistent points of contention amongst steak-fryers and grillers.

If you’ve been a longtime reader of the Food Lab, you’ve already got your head around a few of the basics, like why you should cut against the grain , or why you need to rest your steak after cooking it . If you’re really clever, you’ll figure out how to apply some of the principles outlined in our Perfect Prime Rib recipe and tests on how often you should flip a burger to ensuring that your steak is cooked perfectly evenly from edge to center . Want the ultimate in even cooking and tenderness? Try cooking it in a beer cooler, using this sous-vide steak primer for temperature guidelines.

Yeah, I like beef, I guess.

But, if being married has taught me anything, no matter how much of an expert you are in a given subject, there’s always more to learn. Take memorizing dates, for example. Apparently just anniversaries aren’t good enoughI’ve also got to find room in my head for birthdays. Luckily, hers falls two days before Dumpling’s . This makes it both an easy date to remember, and a very hard date to remember on time. D’oh! Happy belated birthday, dear.

Anyhow, today, we move on to discuss a few more of my favorite steak related things: salting, poking, and searing, in that order.

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Taking Off The Chill Of Your Steak Speeds Up Cooking

Grilling steak until it’s a brown with a light char on the surface, while also making sure the interior is cooked to a perfect juicy doneness is the goal, right? However, if the steak is too cold it can require so much cooking time for the interior to reach that perfect doneness that the steak may overcook and turn gray and dry. To remedy this, allow steaks to stand at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes before you grill them. They will cook faster through to the center and stay juicer.

Great Recipes You Can Do With Halibut

Steak

A grilled halibut isn’t the only recipe you should follow. A lot of free recipes also include other cooking methods such as pan-frying or baking.

You can also include halibut in a fantastic recipe of salads, tacos, sandwiches, or just with itself.

If you want to grill halibut, the best way to go is to top it off with recipes that have zingy salsa top off with some delicious greens and herbs.

It’s a LIGHTER meal and a FRESHER one to eat that can lighten up your Sunday family dinner.

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Tips For Cooking Usda Prime Beef

Whether you’re grilling your steak or pan-searing it, here are a few tips to ensure a great entrée every time.

Season less. Coarse salt, freshly cracked black pepper and maybe a pat of butter for finishingthats it. Let the steak speak for itself. Flank steak is an exception, and it takes beautifully to marinating. Just be sure to pat the steak dry with paper towels before cooking to aid browning.

Let it sit. After seasoning your steak, let it stand at room temperature for 15 to 30 minutes before cooking. This helps it cook more evenly.

Keep it hot. For the best browning, use a very hot skillet or grill. Avoid continuously turning the steak so a crust can form. This will also allow the steak to be flipped without sticking, as the crust will create a barrier between the meat and the cooking surface.

Time it right. Allow 3 to 4 minutes per side for a 1-inch-thick steak. Make adjustments for steaks that are thicker or thinner.

Feel it out. Steaks are often too thin for an instant-read thermometer to suffice, so youll have to rely on your sense of touch. As the steak cooks, it releases moisture, and the meat firms up. Press the steak with your forefinger to get a reading. Rare steak feels slightly soft, medium is somewhat resilient and well done is firm to the touch.

Take a break. Always allow steak to rest for a few minutes before serving so the juices can redistribute themselves throughout the meat.

The Finishing Touch

Dont Forget The Thermometereven If Youre A Pro

Chef Christian Ragano thinks this is one of the most important things to remember. Temping a steak by hand can be tricky, he says. It takes a ton of practice and a ton of experience. Thomas Keller once said, You have to cook a steak a thousand times just to suck at it.’

Dont have a meat thermometer on hand? Ted Hopson, chef and co-owner of L.A.s The Bellwether, recommends using metal cake testers. People always are looking for secrets on how to get the perfect steak doneness, he says. We use metal cake testers. the best tool you can use for this. Insert the metal tester into the steak, leave it for five seconds, then pull it out and touch it to your lips or inner wrist. The internal temp of the steak will tell you how done it is. If it is cold, your steak is rare, if it is just warm, medium rare, slightly hot, medium, etc… No more pushing on it to test itwhat happens when you hit a muscle knot? now it is even easier. Plus, cake testers are less than a dollar and you can get them in baking sections or on Amazon.

Chef Prentiss offered these numbers to aim for:

Rare: 120-130°F

Well: 160-165°F

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How To Cook Steak

Get steakhouse-quality steaks at home.

Cooking steak can be intimidating, especially because there’s no one “right way” to do it. Learn these methods for cooking steak, and decide which option is best for you. Here are four ways to cook the perfect steaks: on the grill, in the oven, on the stove, or cooked sous vide.

The Six Inexpensive Steaks You Should Know

How to Prepare a Steak for the Grill | Easy Grilling Tips

These are the steaks that butchers and chefs love to use because not only are they more inexpensive, but they’ve got character. Many of them are whole muscles that must be trimmed by the butcher just-so if you want them to be tender and large enough to cook as steaks. There are also not many of them on a steer. For every 20 pounds of ribeyes and T-bones you can get off a steer, you get two hanger steaks. That ain’t much.

These butcher’s cuts tend to be more packed with flavor because of the work they do, yet because they’re not as marketable to the general public and require a bit more skill to cook and serve correctly, they remain much cheaper than their mainstream counterparts. This is good news for you if you want to maximize your flavor and your dollar.

The Hanger

Also Sold As: Butcher’s steak, hangar , arrachera , fajitas arracheras , bistro steak, onglet .

Where It’s Cut From: From the plate section of the cow , it “hangs” off of the cow’s diaphragm, hence the name. U.S. meat-cutting classification of NAMP 140.

The Skirt

Also Sold As: Fajita meat, Roumanian Strip .

Where It’s Cut From: The outside skirt is the diaphragm muscle of the cow, cut from the plate. It is the traditional cut for fajitas, and is generally sold to restaurants. Inside skirt is part of the flank, and is the more widely available form of skirt.

The Short Rib

Also Sold As:Kalbi , Jacob’s Ladder , asado de tira

The Flap

The Flank Steak

The Tri-Tip

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How Long To Cook Steak

  • Blue: Should still be a dark colour, almost purple, and just warm. It will feel spongy with no resistance.
  • Rare: Dark red in colour with some red juice flowing. It will feel soft and spongy with slight resistance.
  • Medium-rare: Pink in colour with some juice. It will be a bit soft and spongy and slightly springy.
  • Medium: Pale pink in the middle with hardly any juice. It will feel firm and springy.
  • Well-done: Only a trace of pink colour but not dry. It will feel spongy and soft and slightly springy.

Its very important to consider the size and weight of your steak before calculating the cooking time. If youre unsure, take advantage of the expert eye of your butcher who should be able to tell you how long you need to cook your meat.

How To Grill A Frozen Steak

There are many debates about cooking frozen meat. Conventional wisdom holds that it is ideal to let meat thaw before cooking, but experiments with cooking frozen meats have shown that there is often no difference in the results from doing this.

It will, however, take a lot more time to cook a frozen steak to your preferred level of doneness. So be prepared to wait a bit if you are throwing some frozen cuts on a grill.

Additionally, make sure you know the rules for defrosting frozen meat before you grill a steak that has been frozen.

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Which Cut Of Steak Is Best For Grilling

When I first started working on this recipe, my top contenders for the steak were the ribeye , the rib steak , the porterhouse, and the T-bone.

Any of those cuts will taste great grilled due to the significant marbling of fat, which leaves the meat tender, and flavorful. Let’s take a closer look at each:

  • Ribeyes vs. Rib steaks: A ribeye has the bone taken out a rib steak, also known as a bone-in ribeye, is a ribeye with the bone in. Due to its extensive marbling, this cut cooks beautifully on the grill, bone in or out. Trim the thick fat from the outside edgeleaving it on will cause flame flare-ups that can give your steak an unpleasant burnt flavor. Don’t worry, trimming it off won’t result in lost flavor!
  • T-Bones vs. Porterhouses: People often confuse these two cuts, which is understandable because both cuts come from the loin and both have a T-shaped bone with meat on both sides. But porterhouses are larger and actually have more of the tenderloin than the T-bone. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Institutional Meat Purchase Specifications say the tenderloin of a porterhouse must be at least 1 1/4 inches thick at its widest, while that of a T-bone must be at least 1/2-inch.

Ultimately, I chose to use ribeye steak for its flavor, size, and the lack of bone — I wanted to slice and serve this steak family-style, and the fact that it doesn’t have a bone makes that easier.

Thicker Steaks Should Slide Over

~ Learn how to prepare absolutely perfect steaks using ...

Most steaks grill beautifully over direct high heat alone. The only time you might need to move them is if/when they cause flare-ups. However, some steaks are so thick that if you left them over direct heat alone, they would burn on the outside before they reached the internal doneness you like.

If your steaks are much thicker than an inch, consider the sear and slide approach. After you have seared both sides nicely over direct high heat, slide the steaks to a part of the grill that is not so hot, perhaps over indirect heat, and finish cooking them safely there.

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The Best Cuts Of Meat To Cook On Your Pellet Grill

Steak from the strip loin is a great cut of meat to cook on a pellet grill. The whole strip loin can be harvested from a cow, and it includes part of the back bone, which means that steaks cut from this area have great marbling.

The entire top loin section also provides many different types of steaks for you to enjoy. The most popular types of steaks include porterhouse, T-Bone and New York Strip Steaks.

These types of steak are leaner than other cuts such as ribeye or tenderloin, but they still have excellent flavor when cooked right! To get the best taste possible when cooking your strip loin steak on a pellet grill we recommend cooking your steak to an internal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit for medium rare or 160 degrees Fahrenheit for medium.

You can also use a touch test to determine when your steak is ready. To perform the touch test, lightly press on the center part of the steak with your index finger and thumb. If it feels soft, its not done yet. If there is no resistance when pressing down then its ready! This method works great when cooking thicker cuts of steak such as porterhouse or ribeye steaks.

How To Tell When The Steak Is Done

To tell if a steak is done, many chefs use the age-old trick of touching themselves . Understanding how different parts of your hand feels is an easy way to gauge the relative doneness of your steak. To do the hand trick, make an OK sign.

  • Rare: Touch the pad at the base of your thumb. It should feel spongy with very little resistance.
  • Medium Rare: Press your middle finger to your thumb and again touch the pad below your thumb. Search for the same sponginess.
  • Medium Well: Press your ring finger to your thumb, then feel the area below your thumb.
  • Well-Done: Press your pinky to your thumb. It should feel firm with no give.

The skin youve just been pressing gets progressively firmer with each finger tap. A medium steak would be between medium rare and medium well. If this step is too hard, feel free to use a thermometer

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Season Your Steak And Refrigerate

You’ll want to season the steak with salt a few hours before grilling. Follow this simple rule of thumb from grilling expert Meathead Goldwyn: Season the steak with 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt per pound of meat and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours. “You do not need to rinse off excess salt. It will all be sucked into the meat.” The salt acts as a dry brine, helping the meat stay juicy throughout the cooking process.

For thinner, tougher cuts like skirt, hanger, or flank steak that come from muscular parts of the cow, you can also use a instead. Consider adding sugar into the mixit’s a secret trick for tenderizing tougher cuts.

Make sure to remove steaks from the refrigerator about 20 minutes prior to grilling so they don’t have a chill on them before you throw them on the grill.

Top Seasonings And Marinades For Smoked Flank Steak

How To Prepare Steak For Grilling Or Pan Seared

Because flank steak is so naturally lean and tough, along with being relatively thin, it benefits from a good marinade before cooking to keep it from drying out on the grill or smoker.

Generally this is done with a combination of oil and acid, which can come from citrus, vinegar, or both.

For our smoked london broil we opted for a traditional red wine vinegar based marinade, but in the recipe at the bottom for our smoked flank steak we are going to opt for a combination of Worcestershire, garlic, and soy sauce for a more savory and umami flavor.

You can also simply season you smoked flank steak with salt and pepper, or use your favorite BBQ rub.

If you are going for more traditional steak flavors, or dont have the time to make your own homemade marinade from scratch, you can use 2 parts oil to 1 part red or white wine vinegar along with something like a Montreal Steak Seasoning rubbed on the flank steak.

However, if you plan to reverse sear like we recommend, stay away from sugary rubs that will burn with high direct heat.

We like Bad Byrons Butt Rub for reverse seared beef when we are avoiding sugar as you get great BBQ flavor without having to worry about the rub burning.

Save your sugary rubs for the ribs and pork butts you will be smoking low and slow and less likely to burn.

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