Top Steak With Butter And Move To The Grill
The Spruce / Leah Maroney
The steak has been cooking for 4 minutes if you want it very rare it’s time to take it off the heat. If you want it more cooked than this, transfer the skillet to the preheated grill .
Drop a pat of butter on the top of the steak right in the middle. This butter will melt quickly and pour down over the steak giving it an extra rich, caramelized, nutty flavor. Close the lid of the grill, or the oven door, and let cook until the desired doneness.
To get a precise temperature reading on this steak, use an oven-safe thermometer or digital thermometer .
How To Cook Steak
The Best Herbs To Season Steak
The four basic spices that you should include in a steak recipe are onion, garlic, salt, and pepper.
Besides those spices, it’s common to use herbs to season steaks. Herbs like thyme, rosemary, sage, and oregano, infuse your dishes with unique flavors.
Using southwestern spices like coriander, cumin, and chili peppers make for a brighter-flavored steak.
Asian dishes use a special seasoning that contains fennel, peppercorns, star anise, cloves, and cinnamon.
What’s excellent about steak is that it’s so versatile. You can use culture to influence how you prepare your meat. Each approach will result in a delicious and flavorful meal.
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Reheating Leftover Pan Fried Steak
After you cook steak, it can sometimes be a challenge to preserve when you reheat it. Leftover steak is something you certainly dont want to waste, though!
To reheat your leftover steak, we recommend the following method:
Avoid using the oven or microwave, if possible, to prevent your steak from drying out.
Tips For Perfectly Cooked Steak On The Stove
As long as the steak will fit in your skillet, then you can cook it on your stovetop. Here are a few more tips to ensure success:
- Use any cut of steak: Some of my personal favorite cuts to cook are ribeye, strip, and porterhouse, but any cut will do.
- Pat the meat dry and season before cooking: Before you put the steak in the skillet, make sure to pat it dry to remove any excess surface moisture, which helps achieve a nice crust, and season it fairly liberally with salt. If you want to infuse your steak with extra flavor, you can season the meat ahead of time and let it rest in the fridge until you’re ready to cook. This is when you can also marinate the steak to your liking if you want to season it with more than just salt.
- Turn on your exhaust hood! Because you want to get your skillet extremely hot, there will be smoke once the steak hits the pan , so turn on your exhaust hood and/or open a window to keep your smoke alarm from going off. It will get SMOKEY! There isn’t anyway around this.
- Baste your steak: For that extra special restaurant touch, baste the steak with butter and herbs.
- Don’t forget to let it rest: Once your steak is cooked to perfection, let it rest for a few minutes so the juices don’t run all over the plate from cutting into it too soon.
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The Best Pan For Frying Steak
Before we get to the meat itself, we should first devote a few words to steak pan selection. Walking into your local home supply store you may find yourself overwhelmed with the number of options when it comes to frying pans, like non-stick vs cast-iron vs aluminum vs copper. From surface construction to material composition, the choices can seem unending.
Dont shell out a ton of dough for that high end, diamond plated, titanium infused contraption just yet. Good pans for frying steak have a few common characteristics, regardless of price or brand. First, stay away from non-stick surfaces. While there are quality models out there that are perfect for whipping up your morning eggs, there is just no way to get a good pan seared steak on a non-stick surface.
Next, you want a pan with some heft as weightier pans tend to retain heat better and produce a more even cooking temperature. A cast iron skillet is perfect for the job, as its heavier than most pans and it attracts heat well, leaving a crispy crust on your steak. While we prefer a nice, thick, well-seasoned cast iron pan for the job, there are a number of variations in material and construction that will get you frying steak like a pro if you follow these basic principles.
In conclusion, consider paying more for quality when it comes to pan frying a steak. Skimping on quality to save money will end up costing you money in the long run when you spend top dollar on steaks that you cant cook to perfection.
Why Cook Steak On A Griddle
Looking for a quick way to get some steak on the table? Try using a griddle pan. Griddles can give your steak those beautiful sear marks, without needing an open grill. Griddle pans come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and materials, but we’re partial to cast iron griddle pans, which gives the most even heat distribution.
Cast iron is very durable and retains heat well. You can even place a cast iron griddle on your BBQ for a more even cook on your steak. Once seasoned, cast iron griddle pans have a non-stick surface which can be maintained through proper cleaning and re-seasoning methods. Our cast iron products come preseasoned, so you can get cooking right away.
Whether you’re using the grill, your stovetop, or placing it in the oven, cooking steak on a griddle makes for easy cleanup. The angled grease slope ensures your unwanted fat drains away from your meal. If you want to master the perfect steak, cast iron cookware is definitely the way forward. Cast iron gives you a lot more control in the cooking process than when you pan cook steak.
Cooking steaks on a griddle is the best way to cook steak indoors. The steak will be tender, juicy, and flavorful, and at the precise “doneness” that you were aiming for. The cast iron cooking surface maintains its temperature even when you place a cold steak on it, unlike the thinner metal of a frying pan.
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How To Pan Fry Steak
Pan searing a beautiful steak is wayyy easier than you’d think. Follow our easy tips below and you’ll become a pro in no time.
1. Use a THICK cut of steak.
You want something at least 1 inch1 ½ is even better! The Delish test kitchen prefers boneless ribeye steak because of all the marbled fat, which turns into the softest, most tender, velvety bite once cooked. But New York strip steak is another great option.
If you want to do something thinner like a flank or skirt steak, youll need to reduce the amount of time per side to avoid overcooking and producing a tough steak. Depending on thickness, it could be as quick as 2 or 3 minutes per side!
2. Take them out from the fridge ahead of time and dry them off.
I know it sounds weird, but for a really good crust sear, you want your steak’s surface dry as hell: surface moisture is the enemy of crunch! Just pat the steaks with paper towels before you add them to the pan and you are good to go.
*EXTRA CREDIT: Season the steak with salt the night before and let it rest in the fridge overnight. Its the best way to draw out even more moisture from the raw steak, and as an added bonus, the interior meat will be much more flavorful.
3. Dont be afraid of salt.
Salt leads to flavor. Never forget that. You want the surface of each side to be thinly covered in kosher salt for a properly seasoned steak!
4. Get the pan HOT.
5. Let it rest.
butter
The Best Carbon Steel Fry Pan
Carbon steel is also a durable option with great heat retention â but it’s smoother and lighter when compared to cast iron. This frying pan from De Buyer has over 4,500 reviews and an overall 4.4-star rating, so it’s certainly worth considering. It’s treated with beeswax to prevent oxidation, and after seasoning, it’s naturally stick-resistant for easier cleanup. Get it in your choice of six sizes, though this 12.6-inch option is great for cooking two steaks at once.
- Size: 12.6 inches
- Material: Carbon steel
One reviewer wrote: “These are truly a lifetime investment item if they are taken care of. Once it’s seasoned, you cannot cook a better pan-fried steak. One of the best pans I’ve used thus far, and I’ve owned a restaurant.”
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Start In Oil Add Butter Later
Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt
What’s the best medium to sear in? Butter, or oil? Some claim that a mixture of both is best, often using the excuse that butter alone has too low a smoke pointit begins to burn and turn black at temperature too low to properly sear meat in. Somehow, cutting the butter with a bit of oil is supposed to raise this smoke point. Unfortunately, that’s not true. It’s because when we say that “butter is burnt,” we’re not really talking about the butter as a wholewe’re talking specifically about the milk proteins in butter, the little white specks you see when you melt it. It’s these milk proteins that burn when you get them too hot, and believe me, they couldn’t care less whether they’re being cooked in butterfat or in oil. Either way, they burn.
What all this means is that the best cooking medium for a steak is actually plain old oil. And make sure to use plenty of it so that your steak cooks nice and evenly. I like to use at least a quarter cup in a 12-inch skillet.
Adding butter to the pan a few minutes before it’s done cooking is a fine idea. This is just enough time to allow the buttery flavor and texture to coat the meat, but not so long that it will burn excessively and produce acrid undertones.
What Steak Should I Use
Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt
You can’t end up with a great cooked steak if you start with a crummy raw steak. For the record, we’re talking high-end steaks herethose are the tender ones cut from the loin of the cow that generally command the highest prices at the market.
There are four different high-end steaks that you should know and each one is a little different.
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How Long To Cook Steak In A Cast Iron Skillet & Steak Doneness Temperatures:
The cook time for cast iron skillet steak varies greatly based on the temperature of your skillet, the thickness of your steak, & your desired level of doneness.
Nothings worse than spending a lot of money on a nice steak & accidentally overcooking it! Eliminate all of the guesswork by using an instant-read thermometer to measure the internal temperature of the steak.
A quick guide to steak doneness temperatures:
The Final Steak U Word On Frying Steak
As you can see, there are a number of options for cooking up a gourmet pan fried steak. As with other cooking methods, seasonings and finishing can give an easy steak recipe your own, unique spin. Experiment with a few family favorite flavor profiles to find the recipe that fits your palette the best. Have a recipe in mind that you know is a sure winner? Email us at Steak University and maybe well feature it in an upcoming future article. Until then, remember that whether grilled, BBQed or pan fried, there is no wrong way to enjoy your high quality, gourmet steaks from the Chicago Steak Company.
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Make Sure Your Skillet Is Hot
I start by patting the steak dry, seasoning it liberally with salt, and letting it rest at room temperature for about half an hour before cooking.
This does two things:
- Salt draws out some of the moisture, which helps get a better sear.
- Letting the steak come up to room temperature helps it cook more evenly.
When it comes to actually cooking the steak on the stove at home, most people don’t get the skillet hot enough to get a good sear.
To get the best possible sear on your stovetop steak, heat a cast-iron or heavy-bottomed stainless steel skillet over medium-high heat for about three minutes until you can see the faintest whisper of smoke.
After that, add the steak to a dry pan â thatâs right! You don’t need to use any oil â and build up that delicious outer crust. Press it down every so often to make sure the beef gets good contact with the skillet.
And, contrary to what you may have heard before, feel free to move it around to get to a hot spot in the skillet or flip it over every minute or so.
Prepare A Nice Big Cast
To sear the steaks, you’re going to want to grab a 12-inch cast-iron pan, or the heaviest 12-inch stainless steel pan you’ve got. A cast-iron pan holds and retains heat especially well, helping to brown the steak more evenly.
Heat that large, heavy skillet over high heat until hot, then add 1-2 Tbsp. vegetable oil, swirling the skillet to coat the bottom. Then continue to heat the pan just until the oil starts to smoke .
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How Do I Cook Steak
- First start out by letting the steaks rest at room temperature for 30 minutes .
- Heat vegetable oil in a 12-inch cast iron skillet over medium-high heat . I like to turn on vent fan above stove.
- Dab both sides of steak dry with paper towels then season both sides with salt and pepper .
- Place steaks in skillet and using metal tongs press down across top surface of steaks to ensure the entire bottom surface is making direct contact with skillet.
- Let cook until browned on bottom, about 3 minutes.
- Flip and continue to cook until steak is about 10 degrees away from desired doneness approximately 3 minutes longer.
- Reduce heat to medium-low, add butter, garlic and thyme. Using an oven mitt grasp pan and tilt pan so butter pools to one side, spoon butter over steaks and continue to cook until steaks registers temperature of desired doneness, about 1 minute longer.
- Transfer to a plates, let rest 5 minutes before slicing.
Buy The Best Steak For Pan
The best steaks for cooking on the stovetop are boneless steaks that are between one and one-and-a-half inches thick. Thicker cuts like a New York strip steak or a boneless rib-eye work best for this method. Look for a steak with plentiful marbling and dont be afraid to ask your butcher to cut a thicker steak if needed. When a steak has enough fat, it tends to remain juicy during the cooking process and has the meaty flavor and texture you want from a steak.
Buy the best steak you can afford. It will cost you more than stew meat or burgers, but cooking steak at home even with a decent bottle of wine, appetizers, and sides will still cost less than the cheapest steakhouse steak.
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What Kind Of Steaks Should I Use
Filet mignons are the easiest to cook at home, because theyre the most tender. Ribeye is great too, though. This recipe is great for all steak cuts! If you need to do some steak reading, check out this article that explains the difference in each cut. Its pretty informative and will help you when youre grocery shopping for some beef.
Cutting And Serving Your Steak
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