To cook the absolute best steak you can, should you salt before, during or after cooking? Use butter or oil while searing? And what's the deal with poking the steak with a fork during cooking?
The Food Lab at Serious Eats answers these questions so you can master your steak-cooking technique.
Photo by ZagatBuzz
If you look around for advice on how to cook a steak, you'll find many competing points of view on the fine details. To put to rest common points of contention, Serious Eats offers the results of some steak-cooking experiments and a scientific look at the cooking process.
Without ruining the reveal, in terms of salting: you need enough time to do it right. Regarding searing in butter versus oil: add both, but at different points. And, well, poking doesn't really do anything (except maybe give you a false impression).
Hit up the article below for lab results, gorgeous photos, and even a timelapse video of the salting process.
Comments
I have noticed that when cooking steak I preoil the steaks and salt them as well, helps them to be less tough (cause I freeze mine).
Also if you freeze them as I do, best to leave them defrosting naturally and not microwaving to defrost them.
Microwaving is definitely the number one step on the road to a terrible steak!
I've also found throwing in some lemon juice helps start breaking down the muscle fibers of the steak and I tend to have more tender steaks as a result.
on business interstate i went to a grill restaurant that served me one of the best steaks i'd ever had...even better than the superb Argentinean houses i love.
i cornered the staff and asked them how they did it and they said the secret is a room temperature steak.
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