Rourke's Random Musings

Cooking steak is hard. Why did I think all you had to do was slap the meat on the grill for a few minutes, pull it off, and eat it? It’s not that simple. I managed to spoil two nice pieces of grass fed, dry aged New York strip steak in the last week.

What did I learn?

• using a thermometer inside the steak doesn’t make things easy
• you can’t tell anything by looking at the outside
• you can’t tell much by cutting it open and looking at the inside
• steak continues to cook after you take it off the heat
• better to err on the side of rare — you can always put the steak back

I overcooked the steak both times. The first time it ended up well done, and the second time is ended up medium. The next time I try this I’m going to cook the steak less and I’m going to rely on the time and the way the steak feels when you push on it. I can find no connection between the numbers on the probe and how done the steak is.

The second time through the steak was much better the the first time. I suspect that was due to the fact that I used the cast iron pot on medium high heat (3 o’clock) for three minutes on the first side and a minute and a half on the other side. At that point the smoke in the apartment started to worry Jen, so I moved the steak to the oven. The sear on the first side was excellent. The steak was probably in the oven for another ten minutes.

Also worthy of note was the fact that I salted the steak lightly on both sides before cooking it the second time, per Alton Brown.

I’ve got the sauce down. I saut?ed some onions in olive oil first, then put them aside. I saut?ed some portabella mushrooms (cut up) next and put them aside. Then, after cooking the steak I deglazed the pan and threw the onions and mushrooms back in. I added some salt and pepper and let that simmer for about five minutes.