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With steak you can skip the grill marks

• Scott Daniels: We Ate Well and Cheaply
• July 10, 2021
• 751

If you think all this food pricing and scouting means I must spend a lot of time in grocery stores and markets, you’re right. We shop for food in exactly the way you aren’t supposed to do it: every day, rather than in a single, well-planned trip each week that sticks strictly to a list and avoids impulse.

But what fun is that, I ask you? And I think there is merit in checking for the kind of sales you might miss if you went once a week. Getting something on a Friday after work only to find it is the daily unadvertised special on Monday at half the price would vex me terribly.

I spoke with you recently about the soaring price of meats due to lingering supply imbalances and bloated exports. That situation continues and will likely hold out through the remainder of the year. But I spotted some extra thick New York strip steaks on sale — cut to a thickness no one could eat by themselves without a great deal of unseemly boastfulness — and brought one home to split with my brilliant chef wife, who cooked it perfectly, as always.

I was reminded again of the secrets of cooking a good steak. In short, disabuse yourself of the need for grill marks and buy a good instant-read thermometer.

I think many, if not most higher end restaurants, are far too fond of their grill-marked steaks. When I see photos of plated dishes and they include meats with perfectly criss-crossed black marks, I immediately think they are stuck in a booth at a Ponderosa. Don’t get me wrong. I love a good, grilled steak over a real fire. But for me, a proper, even sear is far more important than lattice tattoos.

To cook a tender cut of meat, be it beef or a pork chop, you need a heavy-bottomed pan and a good heat source. Cast iron is best, but a heavyweight aluminum nonstick sauté pan also is fine.

The key here is heaviness. Don’t try this in Revere Ware or a Farberware skillet, certainly not in one of those silly “copper” lined, paper-thin nonstick things that cropped up everywhere for a while.

Get a big, well-seasoned cast iron job with an extra grab handle opposite the main one that literally takes two hands to pick up. Cast iron, erroneously credited with even heating, does no such thing. It heats quite spottily. What it does do is heat up nice and hot and stay that way.

It holds heat beautifully, but be prepared to keep the food moving to avoid scorched food in the middle and uncooked bits at the edge. When cooking a steak, cast iron lends itself to the technique of basting after a good sear is achieved.

An instant-read thermometer is indispensable in the kitchen. We have one by Thermopro with a digital readout that has magnets on the back to stick it to the side of the fridge when parked. Temperature, especially with the thick steaks so popular now (tomahawk, anyone?), means more care is needed and you cannot guess. Cooking a thin, curled-up T-bone by feel is one thing; something an inch or more thick needs to be checked.

Salt and pepper your steak and have three cloves of garlic, three tablespoons of butter, and sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme at the ready. Heat the pan over medium-high heat until it has absorbed plenty and threatens to be smoky. Add a few tablespoons of olive oil, wait until it shimmers and drop the steak into the pan. You should hear a good sizzle.

When you have an even crust, flip it to sear the other side. Add the butter, garlic and herbs and baste the steak with the butter using a large metal spoon. When you think the steak is nearly done after a few minutes, pull it out of the pan and check it. Consult a chart for the doneness and matching temperature you prefer. Don’t check it in the pan or you’ll be measuring pan temp, not the meat. Continue cooking and basting as needed until the correct temperature is reached.

And skip the grill marks.