Frankly speaking, if the steak thickness is less than 1.5cm, it is actually more difficult to get a steak with both "gravy" and "burnt flavor", because the window time for thin steak to cross from "tender" to "hard" is really too short, which may not exceed 1 minute. Therefore, it is best to have a proper thickness of the original cut steak.
Generally speaking, the thickness of steak is positively related to the cross-sectional size, and the recommended thickness of steak with large cross-sectional area (cold in the west and ribbed eyes) is 2.5 ~ 3 cm; The recommended thickness of steak with small cross section (filet mignon) is 3.5~4.5cm. Thick-cut steak has enough time to fry, which can make the surface completely coked, and at the same time, the interior will not lose too much juice because of too fast temperature rise.
The steak must be placed at room temperature before cooking.
After the steak is completely thawed, be sure to leave it at room temperature for 20~30 minutes before cooking. The reason is that too cold steak will consume the initial heat at the bottom of the pot and slow down the dehydration of the steak surface; At the same time, the severe temperature difference will also make the muscle fiber contract more violently and overflow more juice, which is not conducive to the formation of a "coking shell". The surface of the fried steak is gray like a boiled steak, and the meat flavor and oily feeling will be greatly reduced.
The best thawing method of steak: tear off the vacuum packaging bag, wrap it with absorbent paper, and slowly thaw it in an air-cooled refrigerator. This method can retain the juice in the steak cells to the greatest extent. Although it takes a long time (more than 12 hours), a good steak is worth waiting for. Of course, if time does not allow, it can also be soaked in cold water to thaw, but it is best to deflate the vacuum packaging bag properly, because the volume of steak will increase after thawing, and it will be squeezed in the narrow space of vacuum packaging, which will lose valuable juice like a towel.
3. The pan should be fully preheated.
The thick pan is preferred for frying steak. The reason is very simple. The total heat required to roast a thick-bottomed pot is more than that required to roast a thin-bottomed pot. Similarly, it will be faster to cool the thin-bottomed pot than the thick-bottomed pot after the steak is cooked. From the point of view of heat conservation, the thick-bottomed pot has a stronger "endurance" ability in heat. Even if the gravy keeps evaporating and absorbing heat, the bottom of the pot can maintain a relatively long high temperature, which makes use of the formation of the coking shell of steak. The temperature change of the thick-bottomed pot due to the adjustment of fire power is also moderate, which is also beneficial to the uniform heating of the steak.
If the pan is not fully preheated, the gravy overflowed after cooking will vaporize slowly and gather around the steak, which is equivalent to "smouldering in the broth", the frying time will be prolonged and the burnt flavor will be discounted. How hot is the pot to be? It generally needs to reach the smoke point of the oil, that is, let the oil at the bottom of the pot start to smoke. It can be said that fully heating the pot is the most important step in frying steak. The steak can be seasoned with salt and black pepper before cooking, which can also help the formation of a coking shell on the surface. It is the best time to turn down the fire when one side of the black pepper is burnt.
4. Don't rush to turn over the steak after cooking.
Don't turn over the cows after they are discharged into a fully preheated pan. Take the 3cm thick rib-eye steak as an example. When the pepper is burnt, turn the fire to low heat, and don't turn it over for at least 1.5~2 minutes, even if the sky collapses. Sirloin steak and rib eye steak, which are rich in oil, will dissolve out a lot of oil during frying and roasting, so there is no need to worry about burning at this time. The purpose of not turning the steak is not to affect the formation of coking shell on the surface of the steak.
When the steak is almost medium-ripe, there will be spots of red gravy on the surface, and then it can be turned over after a while. Generally speaking, the rib eye with a thickness of 3cm needs to be fried for at least 3 minutes if you want to medium-rare and medium-ripe, and turn over once in the middle. Because the initial temperature of the second side of the steak touching the bottom of the pot is not as high as that of the first side, the coking shell of the second side is far from perfect. In this regard, we can add a small piece of butter to help the second side of the steak coke after turning over, and the melted butter can also be poured on the steak to increase the oily texture.
5. Sectional cooking method is more suitable for thick-cut steak.
If conditions permit, frying in pan and oven can make a more perfect thick-cut steak. Pan-fried steaks allow heat to be directly transferred to the inside of steaks through hot metal, and the surface of steaks will be dehydrated rapidly under high temperature roasting, browning and emitting burnt fragrance in just a few tens of seconds. However, the disadvantage is obvious, and it can only be heated on one side, so the heating shrinkage inside the steak is uneven, and the total heat absorbed by both sides is not equal.
At this time, we can use the oven to help. The oven is an indirect and uniform heating tool. The heat heats the steak evenly from all directions through air convection and infrared radiation of the box wall. Take the rib eye with a thickness of 3cm as an example. We can fry it on both sides for 3 minutes to fully coke the surface, and then bake it in the oven 180℃ 10 minute, which can also reach a state of 50% to 70% maturity, while retaining more abundant gravy.
6. The fried steak must be left standing.
The steak is finally fried, but don't rush to eat it. The fried steak needs to wake up for a while. In the process of frying steak, the temperature inside the steak is always rising, and the muscle fibers are in a high pressure state of continuous contraction and squeezing out gravy. If the steak is cut in a hurry when the temperature inside the steak is the highest, the stress that there is no place to put it will be released quickly, and the result is a large loss of valuable gravy.
What we need is to wait quietly, let the high-temperature steak slowly cool down, the muscle fibers slowly relax, and the enlarged cell gap "absorbs" the gravy again, and it is usually enough to wake up for 6~ 12 minutes at the moment of entrance. When you wake up, you need to keep warm. You can wrap the steak loosely with tin foil or put it in an oven at about 50℃ to stand. It is especially important to note that it is best to suspend the steak or put it on the grill when waking up, so that the dripping gravy will not soften the precious coking shell, which is the essence of hard work.