Cooking steak and cooking steak something other than well done is new ground for me. I avoided red meat for a long time. I had a two ribeyes that were apparently thinner than ideal about 1/2-3/4 in thick, cooked in a cast iron pan (electric stove) with canola oil. The plan was to cook one rare and one to be medium, with a sear on both sides. I was only able to get a sear on one side, because they started cooking through too much after they were flipped. One steak, the one with more fat, cooked unevenly and the fat on the edges was rubbery. My recipe suggested four minutes on one side and five on the other for medium, but that was for a thicker steak, I ended up using something like 2.5 on one side and 1 or 2 on the other. I want to try again, and I guess the first step is buying thicker steaks.
I couple of years ago I received a copy of Anthony Bourdain’s cookbook for my birthday. He has a chapter in there called “Big F—ing Steak”, where he outlines his technique for cooking steaks. Once I mastered it I’ve managed to cook some amazing steaks:
[ol]
[li]Get your cast iron skillet really hot.[/li][li]Cook your steak for a short time on each side while basting them with butter. I usually do about two minutes per side for the much thicker steaks I use; for the thin ones you described I wouldn’t go more than a minute.[/li][li]Place the skillet with the steaks in it in a 400 F oven to finish cooking. I’ve found about 10 minutes gets them to medium rare like I like them, but again that’s using thicker steaks and you definitely want to reduce this for your thinner steaks, although I’m not sure by how much. [/li][/ol]
There’s a lot of variables here - size and thickness of steak, heat of the pan being two red flags for me.
This may be a case of trial and error to find the perfect cooking time for you, but first I’d suggest buying a cooking thermometer, which will dramatically help you get the right result.
Rare = 50C
Medium Rare = 55
medium = 60
Well done = 70
Cooks Illustrated’s recipe for pan fried steak says to use steak 1" to 1.25" thick. Heat the cast iron pan for 10 minutes over medium heat. Cook until well browned on one side, 5 minutes, then turn and cook 4 minutes more for medium rare. It’s really important to make sure the pan is well heated. Cast iron takes a long time to come up to temperature, and if the pan is not hot enough the steak won’t brown well and will overcook before it browns.
Do you have an oven or just the stovetop? It makes a huge difference. It’s much, much easier, near foolproof even, if you have an oven.
I agree about heating the pan. I use the pancake test – does a drop of water dance around the surface? Then the pan is ready. If the water just boils off, it’s not hot enough.
I don’t use any oil, but I do sprinkle the pan with salt, and (right before adding the steak) pepper. Steak doesn’t stick if the pan is hot enough.
And I agree that once the surface is brown, if the interior needs more time (probably not for thin steaks, but likely for thick ones) it works well the move the pan to the oven to finish cooking.
I do it the other way around, the so-called “reverse sear.”
Put the steak, straight out of the fridge (you don’t need it room temp) into a 275F degree oven until internal temp reaches about 115. (This should take 30-40 minutes, but will vary wildly depending on how thick your cut is. I’m assuming about a 2-inch steak) LGet your cast iron pan sizzling hot. Once ripping hot, sear for one minute a side. Let rest 5 minutes and serve (though the article below says the rest is unnecessary with this method.)
Article here. I’ve been doing it this way for about 10 or so years now, and I don’t think I’ll go back to the standard sear-and-finish in the oven method.
Yeah, reverse sear is the new champ for cooking a steak. But, to take it to the next level you need to butter baste it as well.
I don’t reverse-sear, because I don’t know when to pull the meat to start searing it. If I sear first, I just lower the temp and cook until it’s done.
Probably not a huge deal for steak, but I do a lot of roasts, and I like having a “soft” end point, rather than needing to be all precise at the end.
It is very important that you let your steaks get to room temp before cooking them. If you take them straight from the fridge to the skillet, you’re going to have a bad time.
I let mine sit with kosher salt and course black pepper until they get room temp. At the same time I’m heating my cast iron on 7 (out of 10) on my gas stove. After about 7 minutes of warming I put some high temp oil in it (I prefer avocado oil as it has a really high smoke temp) and then do my steaks for 4 minutes per side. My steaks are usually about an inch and a half thick ribeyes. After 4 minutes per side, take them out of the skillet and let them rest for about 10 minutes on a plate before eating.
I’ve had wonderful results with this method. The keys for me were:[ol]
[li]steaks at room temp before starting the cook[/li][li]warm the cast iron for several minutes before use[/li][li]use a high temp oil (butter burns to easily and can’t take the heat in my experience)[/li][li]let the steak rest after cooking[/li][/ol]
I prefer my steaks to have a nice crust or char on the outside and be medium rare on the inside. Delicious!
How long do you let it sit? Because while it is good to let the salt sit on it, it’s probably not coming up to room temp.
With reverse sear, at least, it’s absolutely not at all necessary to bring steak to room temp. It’s probably not even necessary if you’re doing the flip-every-30-seconds method, either. Straight from fridge is absolutely fine at least for the first method, because all you’re doing is taking the steak and bringing it all very slowly (and thus evenly) internally up to a target temp. The only difference is it may take slightly longer to hit that internal 110 or 115 target from a fridge steak, but it’s still faster than waiting for it to come to room temp.
I do exactly the same thing with roasts. Straight from fridge, bring it up slowly, finish off over high heat at the end.
ETA: I see the above article actually does actually attempt the standard sear-and-finish method for the steaks, and it works fine there, too. So it doesn’t matter.
I’m honestly not sure what to say here. I’ve had the exact same cut of meat from the exact same vendor provide extremely different results when I’ve let it sit out for an hour before cooking the steak as opposed to simply grabbing it out of the fridge and hitting it with the salt and pepper and putting it in the skillet. When I don’t let it rest before cooking it doesn’t seem as tender, the inside isn’t as juicy, and the crust is almost overdone compared to my normal method.
It may all be in my head, but I know what works for me. 
Actually, if you’re doing the low-temp reverse sear method, you actually want them cold in the middle- even frozen.
That’s an initial-sear method, though. Or am I not reading far enough? That method says just to freeze the outside of the steak, not the middle, so when you sear it, it doesn’t cook too far down into the meat.
I’ve learned a lot from this thread.
I’m quite surprised by the length of cooking here for the steaks for what people call medium rare. I’d say medium cooked for me is.
Room temperature steaks. Pre salt. Not pepper (it burns).
Hot pan.
Cook 2.5 minutes each side.
Pepper it, leave to rest for 5 minutes.
Serve with Bearnaise sauce.
I do have an oven, but I never thought of it as an option to cook anything but well done steak until this thread.
This has all been very helpful.
It sounds like your room temp steaks are salted early, and have time for it to soak into the meat, while your refrigerated steak is seasoned right before cooking. I suspect the difference you’re noticing is due to the salt having more time to brine the meat and dry the surface, rather than the temperature of the meat itself. I bet if you tried this experiment with both steaks salted at the same time, either right before cooking, or an hour or so before cooking, the differences between room temp and refrigerated would vanish.
I also find my meat comes out better if I let it warm up before cooking. (And i salt the pan, not the meat, either way.) I think it’s mostly because it cooks much faster if it starts warmer, and so dries out less. It’s not a big difference for a steak, but it’s huge for a roast, especially a large roast. I’m convinced that much of the benefit people get from brining the Thanksgiving turkey is that that forces them to fully defrost it, and in the case of all those people who don’t have room for a giant bucket in their fridge, it also gives them “permission” to leave the turkey out to warm up above fridge temps.