That was good.

I think I'm going down to 132 degrees next time. What temp are you cooking at?
[Reply]

How done do you like your steak? And how do you plan on finishing it? Grill? Pan? Other?
[Reply]

Medium Rare. I have cooked 2 steaks at 135 and then finished 1 minute each side in a very hot cast iron.
[Reply]

135 (for the wife). I'm not sure it's actually 135, but I get the same color as him. But I use rosemary instead of thyme.

My big thing is I ask my butcher to cut a steak "uneven". So it's 1.75" on one side and tapers to 1.5". So when it's all said and done, since we love to stand-up eat (stand around the cutting board on the kitchen island and and eat kinda hibachi style), we all have meat that's cooked to our preference (and corn or other veggies that we want). Clean-up is a snap too...

You have a baby, so the stand-up thing might not work for you...
[Reply]

Okay.

So I like to over-complicate stuff when I cook, so I'm going to try to simplify this so you don't think I'm crazy.

For MR, I sous vide my steaks at 128 degrees for 2.5-3 hours.

Then take out of bags, pat dry, sprinkle a pinch of seasoning on either side, and finish in a very lightly oiled blazing hot pan, about two minutes per side. If they don't reach the desired char by then, I hit them with the torch.

The real trick besides getting the steaks as dry as possible, is to get that pan as hot as humanly possible. One trick I use is to put the cast iron pan in the oven and set the thing to broil, leave it in there for at least 20 minutes. Then take out, put on stovetop at max heat, oil, put steaks in, blah blah blah.

This would work much better on a charcoal grill, since a big pile of coals gets a lot hotter than your stovetop or your oven. But the above does work just fine, it's just more stuff to do.

Note: "very lightly oiled" is pour 1 tbs of olive oil in pan and then take a piece of PT and wipe around the pan. You want the pan to look wet, you don't want to actually see oil rolling around the pan.
[Reply]

I modified our fire pit with all-thread so that I can (with read wood), put steaks (or other things) inches from a bed of red hot coals. Think of it like a stone pizza oven with an open top.

It's magic when we use it...
[Reply]

Here's one that I tried when I was in my "caveman" mode: Take a cup or so of coarse salt (sea salt or kosher) and enough water to make a kind of paste (about 2/3 cup give or take). Pack salt paste all over steak. Make it thick, like 1/4 or 1/2 inches.

Place steak directly in coals, not flaming at all so pretty grayed over. After five minutes or so (when salt case looks brown), flip and cook another 4-4.5 minutes. Some pieces of the crust will probably fall off; doesn't matter. Check for doneness, should be about 135 degrees. A meat thermometer makes this a lot easier. Remove from coals and let rest 10 minutes. Salt will be kind of crusty, so break off of steak with a couple whacks with the back of a kitchen knife, sprinkle pepper over it and enjoy.

I liked this one because it was stupid easy, and at the time I really wanted to taste just the meat with a little salt flavor.

Oh, it won't be too salty. Only a little of the salt will melt into the meat. Just don't add salt with any seasoning you sprinkle on it after you break it out of its salt suitcase. And the steak will be very juicy and tender.

Note: actual cooking time will vary depending on desired doneness, actual heat from the coals, thickness of the salt crust, etc. I make my salt case a bit over 1/4 inch thick, and basically cook until the bottom of the crust (coal-side) is mostly brown, but not blackening, then flip. But the best way for consistency is to use an instant-read meat thermometer. When the meat reads about 5 degrees less than desired temp, take it off the heat and allow to rest at least ten minutes before breaking off salt crust. That should allow the meat to cook to desired temp.
[Reply]

Sounds fun.. Will do..
[Reply]

Don't make the paste too runny; that's the secret. Just enough water so the salt will stick to the steak.

And you can season the steak with whatever prior to applying the salt paste, just go really easy on any salt.
[Reply]

If you are cooking all these steaks in Sous Vide, how does those lower temperatures breakdown the fat?

Is it still hot enough to do so?

I was always curious about that.
[Reply]

Rendering starts in the 130s Fahrenheit for beef.
[Reply]

:-)
[Reply]

This is why I will no longer do ribeye sv, the fat doesn't render enough for me without going to higher bath temps. I prefer reverse sear for those.
[Reply]

Really? I haven't noticed that with ribeyes. I'll check that out on the next ones.
[Reply]

Could be that I reverse sear on the smoker so the added smoke flavor. I just feel like the fat doesn't render in rib eyes. I prefer doing tougher cuts where the extra time will help.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk
[Reply]