How do you cook a medium rare steak? I mean do you use low heat or high heat, do you cover the saucepan, use oil, how many times do you turn it over? Thanks in advance.
Zenster or someone else of a higher culinary leaning will be along shortly to blow my method out of the water, but here’s how I do it (this assumes a filet, ribeye, or other nice cut of meat):
Pre-heat oven to 350. Put a dry (no oil) cast iron skillet on the stove over high heat, allowing it to get extremely hot. After seasoning the meat (pepper and a touch of salt for me) put it in the skillet, allowing it about 30-60 seconds for each side. You want it nice and crispy to seal in the juices. Transfer to pie tin and insert into the oven. Depending on thickness, after about 5-10 minutes, it should be medium rare. Remove from oven and let sit on a plate at least 10 minutes before cutting. Do not under any circumstances cut the meat immediately after leaving the oven.
Tender and juicy every time.
im no chef, but i know what i like, and i like steaks!
i bar-b-que my meat over an open flame. i only use the oven for pork and chicken.
i try for a medium heat to slow cook, fliping the slab’o cow many times (2-4 times)
when the flame flares up, i move the steak over just enough to keep it from burning.
for very thick cuts, i may butterfly them to cook more evenly through.
my wife thinks im nuts, cause i bar-b-que in the snow and wind, i dont care! i average about 3-4 nights a week.
favorite cut is tri-tip, london broil (marinated), t-bone, ribeye and filets.
damn, now im hungry…
I heat a dry cast-iron skillet to medium-high temp (so that drops of water roll around in the skillet). Then I sprinkle the skillet with salt; I also season the steak. Cook the steak in the skillet for 5 minutes per side, then let it rest for 5 minutes.
Barbecue over an open flame causes the steak to be covered in carcinogens its why you are usually advised to cook on barbie after the flames are gone and the coals are still hot.
A nice semi raw / med steak way to cook something is to get a pan heat up some oil and make that pan HOT real hot
for a blue steak (al la like in France) its five seconds on one side then flip it for 5 seconds on the other
for a less bloody experience (if you don’t want your napkin to look real bloody) 5 seconds flip five second flip five second flip five seconds .
Also don’t press down on the steak as it squeezes its juices out which makes it dry and have a weaker taste.
Just make sure the pan is as hot possible else you may get ill , helps if the steak is quite fresh too.
I don’t eat steak any other way so can’t recommend anyother cooking techniques.
Manduck and DMC both suggested that you let the dead cow “rest” for a while before you began slicing it further. What happens if you’re just voraciously hungry and can’t keep your hands off of it for long enough? Will it spew blood on you or moo angrily?
I’m a -very- inexperienced cook, so please excuse me if it’s a really dumb question. 
I always grill steak. For medium rare, which is the only way to eat a good steak, turn the meat as soon as the blood begins to rise through the surface. Then remove the steak when it rises from the surface on the second side.
And don’t let is sit, it will continue on to medium.
deltopia,
It’s simply to allow the juices to settle back where they belong. This lets them stay in the steak, instead of running all over your plate.
another winter bbq’er here. I like mine rare to rare-raw (if that’s a clasification). if I’m not bbq’ing they it’s into a perheated broiler (not oven) set to broil (continous gas heat). the steak is maybe about 3in below the flame.
I usually turn it 0 to 1 time - seasoned with little more then garlic salt.
I’m a little late to add anything truly informative, but post we must, or some such. I grill 'em. But first I poke the hell out of 'em with a fork. Salt and pepper as desired.
The fire I let burn for about an hour, until the flames are gone. Then on they go, cooked as per the Shib rule, flip once when the blood spots appear, remove when they appear again, move only if you get a flame up. Takes about 4-5 minutes per side for a ~1" thick steak. Filet and Porterhouse preferred. Easy, perfect every time.
'Course the easiest way to cook a steak and keep it juicey and from shrinking is to just wrap it in tinfoil like a baked potato and throw it in the oven. You can leave it at 350 for a few hours and it will still be swimming in it’s own juices when you pull it out. To have it medium rare, just don’t leave it in as long… say no more than 1 hour. Naturally this doesn’t give you much mystique, descriptive ammunition, or an exotic master-chef aura in the eyes of on-lookers, but it does work.
((And I do live in Alberta))
Steak should be cooked over a grill…Outside…Like god intended…Oven my ass, thats heresy.
Turn the grill up to a spinal tap eleven, close the lid and let it get one step away from the “this will void your warranty temp.”
open it up and throw the the steak. Let sit just long enough to sear the meat, then flip it. This will keep it from losing too much of the natural flavor and juice.
I prefer gas grills for steak, because you just cant get wood hot enough to do this properly. The major players, Del Frisco and Ruth Criss etc, cook them at 1800 degrees. You aint gonna git out of kingsford. I have a mondo death grill made in australia, that puts out 75,000 btu’s. I do have one friend who out did me though. He took his charcoal grill, and hooked up an industrial fan to the grill, turning it into a fan forced forge. He could barely get near the thing, but he said it was a damn fine steak.
Also, Never season a steak until after it is seared. No salt, no nothing.
Last, when it gets close to done, hose the top of the steak down with butter…real butter, to keep it from drying out.
Oh, and for Gods sake, you NEVER poke, puncture or cut a steak until it is done. Use tongs to turn it…
Just for the hell of it, I’m going to try your method once, mmmiiikkkeee.
As everyone has said, the key is very hot temperatures and very short cooking time. Very very very very hot and very very very short. You want a crispy charcoaly outside and a juicy pink inside.
The exact method of delivering the hot hot hot isn’t quite as important as the idea. Now, class what was the idea? That’s right, very very high temperatures for short times.
Oh, and mmmiiikkkeee? I’m afraid you flunk this class. We’re cooking steak here, not making stew. Your method would be fine for a pot roast, but please don’t call it a steak, no matter what cut it started out as.
My two favorites.
a
Stoke a charcoal grill up plenty hot.
place a mat of sliced onions on the grill, place meat on top.
Let the onions grill sending the flavor above.
Pull off the steak and turn, pile the salvageable onions on top.
Cook till right.
b
Heat a pan with oil. Just a dab.
Put a GOOD steak in and sear, 3-5 mins is about right. Flip it and sear the other side.
Cook till right.
What I mean by cook till right is that I like mine medium/ slightly well, while others like the meat to be slightly gelatinous. And there are always heathens who want it brown all the way through.
I never understood the concept of broiling, a seared (fried hot) steak has a flavorfull crust that is beyond anything the hottest bbq could achieve.
all good suggestions… might I just add that regular salt is not good. You need to use Kosher salt - the flaky stuff. World of difference.
D@mn, you are so right as to make my mouth water (if it weren’t already full of bread and fine French cheese).
PS: Yes, the type of salt you use can make a difference. Sea salt has a much more complex flavor. However, if you have the wits to let your meat rest before serving, you have won half the battle already. Congrats!
Hardly use any salt at all, especially on thinner cuts of meat. You will end up with a hot beef thing that resembles steak but is tough like a rawhide chew bone for your dog.
I never put salt on any of my meat when cooking it, never, only after I have cooked it to my preference do I add salt.
While grill cooking is great, I find that on tender cuts like a tenderloin or filet, a quick pan searing (high flame) is the best way to start out. Then lower the temp to about med to med-high and cook the rest through.
I do this a lot with my dad’s recipe for pepper steak which is basically a tenderlion or filet cut (about 1 1/4" thick) in your favorite oil, depends on your dietary needs, with course ground fresh pepper, cooked to medium rare (keep in mind cook times will differ with altitude) place some Major Grey’s chutney on the top of the first cooked side, and just before serving, put some Grand Marnier in the pan and flame it.
With heartier cuts like sirloin to flank, grilling is preferred. It takes some fiddling with but my school of thought is to never salt till your family or guests see the thing, try different cuts, see what works. And if you have to test it with anything, use a meat thermometer. This will tell you what kind of doneness you have.
The more tender the meat, the less likely I will put it on a grill.
But it comes down to preference for many.
Oh and kind of mentioned in here, meat, much like eggs, needs to rest. Eggs need to be placed in cold water to stop the cooking, meat needs to sit out for a while to retain the juices and stop its cooking too. I don’t know why but I imagine that it has to do with the protein and how proteins react to heat. But then again I could be full of crap but it make sense to me.