What does a Hibachi grill cost these days? Cheap, compact, and the results are about as good as any other grill. Go to your nearest grocery store and drop $30 on a Hibachi!
Make sure it’s not a Teflon skillet, though, as heating them scorching hot is a no-no.
Now, I’m a big outdoor griller/smoker/cooker in general, but I prefer both my steaks and my hamburgers cooked on a cast iron skillet. The general steak technique for me is what is called a reverse sear: salt the steak well, and roast it in a slow oven (about 250F) for around 25-30 minutes for medium rare. (Check for an internal temp of about 105-110 or so. The temp will come up in the next part). In the meantime, fry up a suitable skillet blazing hot. Cast iron works the best. You can even use a cast iron dutch oven if you’d like. Anyhow, get it nice and hot, add a little oil suitable for high temps. Once you just about see it smoking, throw in the mostly cooked steak. Wait 1 1/2 minutes. Flip. Wait another minute and a half. Take off the pan. Let it rest about 5-10 minutes, and Bob’s your uncle.
Why do I prefer pan-seared to grilled? I like the big layer of crust pan-searing gives you vs. grilling. Although you don’t have that grilled flavor. I’ve sometimes split the difference by starting the slow cooking part in a smoker over coals and a little wood, and finishing by pan-searing.
Here’s another site that details the reverse sear. The original Cooks Illustrated is behind a membership paywall, unfortunately, but that’s how I remember it. They say to bring the steak to 90-95 for medium rare before searing. That might be more accurate. I don’t take the temp. I just wait 25 minutes and throw it on a pan, and it’s just right.
I’d probably just go out for a steak. This is indeed a silly problem you are having by the way, I’d imagine most adults could solve this one without the help of a message board.
Grilling is grilling, there aren’t any easy replacements inside a home kitchen for that exact method of preparing food. Commercial kitchens have indoor grills and there are some home-sized options but the home quality ones often don’t work as well because they don’t get to sufficient heat.
That being said, you can cook a perfectly cooked steak (to the doneness of your preference, but it should medium-rare or medium or you’re wasting your money on steak in my opinion) utilizing a skillet and a pre-heated oven. But, and this is a big but, in my experience every range / skillet / oven combo is slightly different. And it takes trial and error to learn exactly what your combination of steps will be to yield the best steak. Generic instructions on the internet for skillet cooked steaks will often fail, not because the instructions were bad, but because every range is different. Especially if you’re unfortunate enough to have bought / rented a place with an electric range, I’ve skillet cooked steaks on an electric range it will usually take me 2-3 tries to learn exactly what temperate works right for that particular electric range.
If you’re going to skillet cook long term, it’s worth the effort, but if you’ve plans to get an outdoor grill then it’s not really worth it in my opinion. Just have a restaurant steak to tide you over and resume grilling when you buy the grill.
I buy my steaks cut very thick and I don’t do any oven finishing. I like middle pink, not raw.