No Timer, no Warm-Up
Six days ago, I bought a boneless rib eye roast at Costco. Choice. They were selling for $5.59 per pound again.
The meat is nice. Not the greatest. Frankly, I think the choice meat at my local grocery is somewhat better. But it’s hard to go wrong for Costco’s prices.
I’ve been aging the meat since I bought it, faithfully changing the cloth every day. That’s extremely important, because when the meat gets wet, off flavors and smells develop. In the past, I put up with this, but now I think it was a mistake. Let it rot a little, but not too much, and keep it dry.
I ate a steak the day I bought the meat. It really wasn’t good, by my standards. It was worth the cost, but it was fairly tough and didn’t have a great flavor. Yesterday I ate another steak. Man, was it different. Much more tender. Juicy. Loaded with flavor. I was amazed. Same piece of beef, five days later. It was like 10% worse than prime. You really have to try this, keeping in mind that I know nothing about food safety and that you may experience a hideous, prolonged death from food poisoning. This steak is good enough for company. Not IMPORTANT company, but company.
I’ve changed the way I cook steaks. I couldn’t get it into the book; it was too late. But I’ve made it simpler, and I want you to know about it.
First of all, the flat cast iron griddle is king. The black crud that accumulates on the surface adds a flavor that is truly magnificent. Like skillet seasoning, only more intense. You have to scrape it down with a spatula on occasion, and after you cook steaks, you’re smart to pour the excess grease off immediately, but you don’t want to clean the griddle, ever. Sometimes I heat it up and run water over it to reduce the amount of crud, but I never remove it completely.
Second, you don’t need a timer if you have a digital thermometer. Stick the probe halfway between the sides of the steak. Note the temperature. You should already know what you want the final temperature to be, from past experience. I like 115-120 degrees. Subtract the final temperature from the initial temperature, divide by two, and add to the initial temperature. This is the temperature at which the meat will be halfway done. At this temperature, turn the steak. You don’t have to wait for the steak to warm to room temperature before you cook it, if you do it this way.
I’ll give an example. Initial temperature, 50 degrees. Final temperature, 120. Subtract, and you get 70. Divide by two, and you get 35. Add to the initial temperature, and you get 85. When the probe hits 85 degrees, the steak is about halfway done, so turn it.
Easy!
Another thing: raise the edge of the steak once in a while to see how it looks. Depending on the thickness, you may have to cook the outside faster or slower. If you’re cooking a thin steak, you don’t have much time, so you’ll want higher heat in order to get the outside brown and crisp. If you ever see black spots developing, flip the steak immediately and lower the heat. And don’t get nervous. If you check the steak at least every two minutes, you’ll be fine. My 2-inch rib eyes take 18 minutes, total. If you’re cooking more than one steak, you don’t necessarily need to put probes in all of them. If the steaks are identical, the internal temperatures will be about the same at any given time.
I tend to start off with the heat fairly high and then turn it down once the outside is brown. But sometimes I find that the outside is still grey close to the end, and I crank the heat up to fix it.
I never put anything but salt on my steaks. I hold them over the sink in one hand and rotate them while I salt the hell out of them with a shaker in the other hand. The amount that sticks is always right. Once the steak is cooked, I’ll pour garlic butter on it, but I don’t fool with pepper or Montreal seasoning. The flavor of aged meat cooked on a griddle is so good, it would be a sin.
If you like a lot of sauce and crap on your steak, and you’re using good aged meat, it means you don’t like the taste of steak. There is nothing wrong with that, but you might as well be aware that you’re not getting what other people get out of the experience. It’s like smoking a flavored cigar.
I hope this change to the method makes your lives easier. There is really no excuse not to have excellent steak-and-potato dinners on tap, all the time. Easy, tasty, and very little cleanup.