HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Table Of Contents ntroduction ................................................................................................... 3 Selecting Your Meat.................................................................................... 4 Choice Cuts Chart ........................................................................................ 5 Marbling......................................................................................................... 7 Beef Grading Systems................................................................................. 8 Buying The Perfect Steak ........................................................................11 Our Signature Steak ..................................................................................12 The 3 BIG “T’s”: Time, Temperature & Thickness ..........................13 The 3 Flip Method™.................................................................................15 Steak Preparation Terminology .............................................................17 Aged Steak ...................................................................................................18 Selecting Your Oil .....................................................................................18 Smoke Point Table.....................................................................................21 Salt .................................................................................................................23 Grilling .........................................................................................................25 Putting It All Together............................................................................37 Final Words.................................................................................................38 Appendix 1: The Perfect Steak Preparation Checklist......................39 Appendix 2: Grill Guides…………………………………………40 © Bell Parc 2011 Page 2 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Introduction Cooking The Perfect Steak is something most people will never achieve. In fact, it’s the Holy Grail of grilling and if you can do it you are going to be elevated to God-like status in the eyes of your friends and family. This manual is your blueprint to achieving what 99% of BBQers never do, cooking steak perfectly. We define The Perfect Steak as; A choice cut of prime beef which has been prepared and cooked in a very specific way so as to achieve a dark, diamond-pattern crust on the outside whilst leaving the centre pink and melting. The perfect steak is a celebration of your senses. It should look ravishing, smell wondrous and taste downright remarkable. We acknowledge that different people like their meat cooked differently. We have our lovers of rare steak right through to well-done and once you understand the preparation and cooking principles you will be able to prepare each steak exactly to your guests liking. As a general rule, our experience is that when working with really good cuts of beef, which we recommend, less cooking is better and overcooking is a sin! You can use this guide to cook the steak exactly to your specific preference whether it be Medium-Rare or Well-Done. 1. As steak purists we believe that the steak should be the hero of the dish. Our MO is to minimize the use of additional flavours such as rubs and marinates. These can be added ‘to taste’ later. What we aim to achieve is to bring out the natural flavour of the beef in all its fullness. This book covers quite a bit of the theory of cooking steak culminating in the final section: Putting It All together. It is supported by videos and additional information at our website, www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net We sincerely hope you enjoy reading it and take away some practical tips and techniques which will help to make you the master of the BBQ or kitchen when it comes to cooking steak. So, to cook The Perfect Steak we need to start at the beginning: 1 Our Signature Steak is one inch thick and cooked to a perfect Medium-Rare © Bell Parc 2011 Page 3 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Selecting Your Meat Right from the get-go we need to choose the best possible steak. You’ve got no chance at all of cooking The Perfect Steak if you start with the wrong type of beef or the wrong cut of meat. Lets take a moment to review our cuts of beef so we know what to select. It’s interesting to note that the names and descriptions of cuts of beef differ between countries. The UK for instance classifies cuts of beef differently from the US and Australia. Here we’re not going to get too technical and a simple chart will suffice as to the approximate regions that the different cuts are taken from. Figure 1 - Cuts on beast © Bell Parc 2011 Page 4 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK A carcass of beef is divided into what is called ‘Primal Cuts’. These are the basic sections from which the cuts are taken. For example the overall rump section can be divided into the primal cuts of Rump, Round and Topside. To cook The Perfect Steak we need to be very selective in the cuts of beef we buy from our butcher. It helps to remember that the muscles of the animal which do the most work, that is the legs and neck are the ones which typically will be the toughest. If we’re going to cook a great steak we need to start by selecting from the best cuts of the beast. Here are the best cuts for grilling: Choice Cuts Chart The Choice Cuts Cut Names2 Brief Description Eye Fillet The most tender and expensive cut of meat on the animal. It is the strip of muscle which runs along the sides of the spine. Fillet steak is typically very lean (when trimmed correctly) with some marbling throughout the body of the meat. Although small in size it is considered to be the premium cut of beef and the most tender although not necessarily the most flavoursome. Fillet Steak Filet Mignon Tender Loin Rib-Eye Rib Eye steaks are cut from the small end of the rib roast. These cuts are well marbled, tender and full of flavour. When grilling on high heat, the marbling melts into the beef enhancing the overall flavour. For BBQing on the grill, it doesn’t get any better. Rib Eye steak has the bone removed, however, some people prefer steak with a bone. In the United States, Rib Eye with a bone is commonly called a “Cowboy Steak” or “Cowboy Rib”. Scotch Fillet 2 In Australia Rib-Eye is also known as the Scotch Fillet. A very tasty, moist and tender cut of beef. Look for marbling throughout the middle of the cut for fuller flavour. Often the same cut is known by different names © Bell Parc 2011 Page 5 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Rump Steak Rump steak has a mixed reputation. Certainly it is one of the more flavoursome cuts but at times it can be tough. It is recommended to check (where possible) the age of the animal when buying rump steak. Steers younger than 30 months are usually fine but anything over this age is risky. Porterhouse A Porterhouse is a bone-in steak similar to a T-bone steak but has a significantly larger fillet portion. T-Bone The ever popular T-Bone steak is a classic although it can be a little tricker to grill than some other cuts.3. The central T shaped bone brings into a single cut meat from the strip loin (large side) on one side and the tender loin (small side) on the other. New York Cut Think of a New York Cut as the strip loin portion of a T-bone or Porterhouse. They are boneless and usually cut quite thick (two inches or so). According to legend, King Henry VIII of England loved beef loin steak so much that he declared it be called “Sir Loin.” 3 Refer to: Cooking Steaks with a Bone © Bell Parc 2011 Page 6 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Marbling When selecting steak it’s important to understand the characteristic of marbling. Marbled meat, or Marbling, is the intramuscular fat contained throughout the meat. This is not to be confused with the fat often found around the perimeter of a cut of meat. Marbling usually appears as series of white streaks or flecks within the cut of meat. It’s called marbling because the streaks of fat tend to resemble the marble pattern of stone. The reason marbling is important to us here is because it adds tremendous flavour and tenderness to the meat. Cuts of meat which have little or no marbling tend to be tough and lack flavour. Figure 2 Marbled Meat The amount of marbling is influenced by several factors including the breed of cattle and the feed on which it has been finished. Certain breeds of cattle such as Angus and Murray Grey have a greater tendency for marbled meat than some other breeds. The Wagyu breed is famous for intensely marbled meat. The other main factor which influences marbling is the type of feed the animals are finished on. Much of the top quality beef we eat today is finished in a feedlot. The animal spends most of its life on normal grassland pasture and then the last 90-130 days in a feedlot. Here (mostly) steers are fed a specialised diet largely made up of grains specifically designed to increase the intramuscular fat or marbling in the meat. REMEMBER: Always trim away excess fat around the outside of the steak before cooking, especially on rump steak. This is not marbling, it’s just fat. This also helps minimize flare-ups as the fat drips. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 7 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Beef Grading Systems There are a lot of very smart people who have done a ton of work on how to choose the best beef. Let us summarise two of the worlds best beef-selection systems here for you. 1. The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) System It’s useful to understand the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) system for grading beef. Essentially the system sorts beef into different grades. The grading designations are largely determined by the amount of visible fat that is streaked throughout the muscle tissue (marbling). The system rewards this marbling with the higher or best grades containing the highest amount of marbling. Age of the animal is also used in the grading system with younger animals, 18-30 months, being given a higher weighting than animals which are older. The three top grades are Prime, Choice and Select. P rime Beef is the highest grade in the system. It has the most marbling and is the most expensive to buy. Choice Beef has less marbling than Prime but is still of high quality. This is the most popular grade of beef because it contains sufficient marbling for taste and tenderness, while costing less than Prime. It makes up the largest grade of meat by volume. Select Beef has minimal amounts of marbling making it leaner but usually less tender than the Prime or Choice. If the meat has a coarse grain it is less suitable for grilling. Cuts of meat with a course grain such as Silverside are more suited to stewing and slow cooking. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 8 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK 2. The MSA (Meat Standards Australia) System.4 Meat Standards Australia has developed a world leading grading system to assist customers in selecting choice quality beef. The system is called The Eating Quality Assured (EQA) Program and since it was launched it has conducted more than half a million consumer tests. The key to the MSA grading system is the meat quality score (MQ4), which is a numeric measure of the consumer’s acceptability of a piece of beef. The formula is based on the four major characteristics consumers use to rate a satisfying beef-eating experience: 1. Tenderness 2. Juiciness 3. Flavour 4. Overall Liking Figure 3 - MSA Chart Each of the four characteristics is weighted and the overall score is tallied and awarded an overall Meat Quality Score (MQ4). During the taste testing, consumers (half a million of them!!) are given a Score Sheet and asked to rank the four characteristics on a sliding scale chart. 4 Meat and Livestock Australia Limited © Bell Parc 2011 Page 9 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Then they are instructed to tick a box stating whether in their opinion the piece of meat just tasted was: Unsatisfactory Good everyday quality Better than everyday quality Premium Quality These tests have been used to develop the Eating Quality Assured Standard for Australian Beef. It’s interesting to note that tenderness has the highest weighting, double that of flavour. Basically, you can flavour a tender piece of meat but it’s harder to tenderise a flavoursome piece of meat. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 10 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Buying The Perfect Steak Let’s just imagine that we’re out shopping for The Perfect Steak. What would it look like? First off we’d be looking for a piece of beef from a steer no older than 30 months. It would most likely be from a breed of cattle such as a Black Angus, Murray Grey or Wagyu5. It would be freerange pasture fed for most of its life and then finished on a grain diet in a feedlot. In Australia for carcasses to be eligible for the description of ‘Grain Fed’ the beast must have been on high energy feed for a minimum of 80 days or for ‘Grain Fed Young Beef’ (max two adult teeth) for a minimum of 50 days. Ideally the meat would have been dry-aged before being cut-down. The cut you choose is entirely up to you but for grilling on the BBQ it is very hard to go past a Rib Eye. The steak would show a generous smattering of flecks and ribbons of marbling throughout without being too fatty around the perimeter. Ideally it would be at least one inch or 25mm thick. Figure 4: Rib Eye Steak ready to cook We recommend going for steak which is an inch thick for several reasons. Firstly, it’s the perfect thickness to manage. It takes a considerable degree more skill to cook thicker cuts such as New York Strip which are sometimes up to three inches thick. In contrast to cooking really thick steak, it can also be tricky to cook really thin steak. Thin steak tends to be more random and inconsistent on the grill and it is very easy to overcook. Secondly, having the steak cut an inch thick allows two magical things to happen when grilling; 1. You can achieve a perfect caramelised crust on the outside whilst, 2. Keeping the centre of the steak pink, melting and beautifully juicy. Dark red meat that is lean and sinewy indicates that it comes from an older beast. Chances are, it’s going to be tough. 5 A word about Wagyu Beef: Wagyu beef is off the ‘Richter Scale’ when it comes to marbling and flavour. It is an incredibly tender and rich meat and generally considered the best steak money can buy. We would certainly recommend you try it although it needs to be handled differently from a normal cut of beef. A couple of points; it is often hard to source and when you do find it, it is expensive. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 11 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Our Signature Steak 25mm or one inch thick Beautifully marbled Not fatty Steer no older than 30 Months A cut selected from our Choice Cut Chart* Grilled on high heat to a perfect Medium Rare © Bell Parc 2011 Page 12 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK The 3 BIG “T’s”: Time, Temperature & Thickness These are our three mission-critical factors we need to understand and control when cooking The Perfect Steak. 1. The Time we cook the steak for 2. The Temperature of our grill surface 3. The Thickness of our cut of meat Naturally it’s totally personal preference as to how a piece of meat is cooked and whatever your preference you can use our Grill Guide to prepare your steak exactly to your liking. The Free Grill Guide6 we’ve prepared is in the form of a simple to use Ready-Reckoner which allows you to take charge of the three T’s and control each of these critical aspects. Let’s cover each of them in a little more detail. Time: You are going to need some sort of timer to cook your steak perfectly. This is because we’re cooking our steak literally ‘to the second’ and there isn’t any room for guessing. Because we will be turning our steak three times during the process we need to accurately monitor the timing. You can use your watch or the kitchen clock. If you’re considering buying a timer there are a couple of different kinds including timers which count-up and timers which count-down. We’ve found that the count-down timers are a bit harder to use than the ones which count up as you have to work backwards which requires some calculation. The benefit, however, is that most count-down timers have an alarm which sounds when you reach the specified end time so you can’t get distracted and forget to take the steak off in time! 6 Your Free G rill Guide is available to download any time. Just go to our website and get your copy today: www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net © Bell Parc 2011 Page 13 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Temperature: This is another biggie and it’s one where most people are basically left to guess if and when their grill is hot enough. There is a much better and simpler way to manage the temperature of your grill and that is with a Grill Surface Thermometer. These are a fantastic little device which you simply sit down on the actual grill or pan surface and when the temperate needle comes around to where you want it, (that’d be 400°F or 204°C) you’re ready to go. Figure 5 - Grill Surface Thermometer One of the most misleading aspects of grilling on a BBQ is using the temperature gauge in the hood to measure the temperature of grill surface. If your BBQ has a gauge in the hood what that is reading is the ambient air temperature under the hood – not the actual temperature of the grill surface! These are two totally different measurements and apart from the fact that we are cooking with the lid opened7, if you use this method but rely on the temperature gauge in the hood you will end up with the wrong result. Thickness: Naturally enough, the thicker the cut of meat, the longer it’s going to take to cook. That’s why we need to know exactly how thick our steak is so that we can cross-reference thickness with temperature and time. 7 Our method requires no lid on the pan or hood on the BBQ be used. The reason for this is we want all the heat to come up from the grill beneath. That way we have complete control. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 14 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK The 3 Flip Method™ ™ Anyone who knows anything at all about cooking steak will have heard that the less you turn the steak whilst cooking it the better. The reason of course for this is that the more you turn the meat, the more juices are lost and the tougher it becomes. If however, cooking The Perfect Steak was as simple as slapping it onto the grill and not touching it until it was cooked then we wouldn’t have much more to talk about but the fact is there is a little more to it than that. Not only do we want the steak to taste amazing, which of course is our No 1 priority, we also want it to look ravishing and resplendent when we serve it. The perfect balance we’ve found is what we call the 3 Flip MethodTM8 of cooking steak and it works like this. Flip 1 Flip 2 Flip 3 Place the steak on the grill at this angle. Flip the steak, same side down, to this angle on the grill. Turn the steak over. The presentation side is now up. Important Note: The 3 Flip Method has been developed so as to achieve two main objectives: 1. Perfect diamond bar marks on the presentation side 2. Minimal turning of the meat during cooking If you’re grilling on a flat plate or in a pan, The Standard 2 Turn Method is perfectly ok. The only downside is the meat won’t be branded with the crosshatch bar-mark pattern. Timings for this method are included in Appendix 2. 8 The 3 Flip Method really only applies when we are cooking on bar-grills. Its aim is to essentially brand or sear the presentation side of the steak with diamond-shaped bar marks to enhance the look of the steak when served. If you’re cooking on a flat plate or in a pan without bars there is no benefit in the second flip as you can not achieve the same visual effect. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 15 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK The 3 Flip method is built around The 3 Big “T’s” and designed to achieve our key objectives namely; 1. Present a steak which looks amazing on the plate 2. Minimal turning or touching of the steak during the cooking process 3. Turn out a perfectly cooked steak9 4. A way to baste the meat so as not to burn the butter or insulate the meat with the salt The step-by-step details of the process are covered in the section Putting It All Together and demonstrated on the website video but, in summary, here is how it runs; Bring the BBQ grill up to the required temperature of 400°F Lay the steak(s) on the grill plate at a 45 degree angle (or as if the top of the steak is pointing to 2 o’clock). This counts as Flip 1. At the specified time, flip the steak 90 degrees back the other way (or as if the top of the steak is now pointing to 10 o’clock). This is Flip 2. At the specified time, turn the steak over. This is Flip 3. What you’ve done now is prepare a beautiful presentation side of steak. By flipping it two ways before turning you’ve basically seared a crosshatch or diamond pattern onto the meat. Whilst the steak is finishing cooking, baste the presentation side with the prepared butter and salt mix. When times up, remove the steak and rest in a warm place until serving. H ot Tip: When you place your steak on the grill do so carefully so as not to stretch it. Becasuse the steak is at room temp and the muscle is relaxed, if you slap rather than place your steak on the grill surface you can stretch it turning a one inch thick steak into a ¾ inch steak. This will significantly alter the cooking time. Take care to gently place each steak onto the grill surface. You’ll note that once the steak starts to cook, the muscle tenses up and it isn’t as important to take such care with the second and third turns. 9 As ordered by each person – e.g. Medium-Rare, Medium etc. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 16 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Steak Preparation Terminology Preparation Brief Description Carpaccio This is uncooked steak, usually sliced very thinly and served with a dressing. Blue Also called “Seared” or “Very Rare”, Blue steak is cooked very quickly so the outside is just seared whilst the inside remains uncooked and cool. Rare The outside of the meat has been seared and a dark crust has formed but almost all the centre of the meat remains red. The outside of the steak has been seared and a crust has formed. The meat has started to cook through but fully 50% of the centre is pink and melting. Medium-Rare Medium A thin strip of pink is still evident in the centre of the steak but the rest of the meat has been browned. Medium-Well The meat is cooked through with just a slight pink hue remaining. Well-Done The meat is fully cooked through with no sign of pink. Typically the outside is charred and firm to the touch as all juices have been cooked out. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 17 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK A Word About Well Done Although it’s a rather broad generalisation, it seems that today we are a generation who tend to cook our meat less. The most popular steaks on the menu at our top restaurants are today mostly cooked to Medium Rare or at most, Medium. In generations past the trend was for Medium to Well cooked meat. H ot Tip: If you prefer your steaks well-done, select meat which is well marbled. The fat melts through the meat as it’s cooking helping keep it moist and preventing your steak becoming tough. Aged Steak Aged meat is generally considered superior to non-aged meat. The author has personally experienced killing a steer and cooking the meat within just a few hours and his experience can be recounted as; “sharpen up your teeth; it’s tough”!10 What ageing does is to allow enzymes to go to work on the muscle tissue, essentially breaking down the hard connective tissue and tenderizing the meat. Ageing also tends to strengthen the flavour of the beef. There are two main methods of ageing meat, dry ageing and wet ageing. Dry Ageing is done by hanging the meat in a carefully controlled refrigerated environment typically for anywhere from one to three weeks. Because of the additional work involved, dry aged beef is usually more expensive than unaged beef which is why it is mostly only done for the premium cuts. Wet Ageing is another method where the meat is aged in vacuum sealed bags to help with the tenderisation process. Dry aged beef is does not benefit from cooking beyond Medium-Rare. Selecting Your Oil Using the right type of vegetable oil to grill your steak is one of the secrets to cooking The Perfect Steak. It’s is also where a lot of people come unstuck. The four most common mistakes people make are; 1. Choosing the wrong type of oil 2. Using too much oil 3. Oiling the plate and not the steak 10 A common industry term for this is “Over Fresh” © Bell Parc 2011 Page 18 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK 4. Using oil which is out-of-date 1. Choosing the Right Type of Oil. First off, we need to understand “Smoke Point.” Smoke Point is the temperature at which oil starts to burn and give off smoke. At this point the oil goes through a chemical change and the natural flavour of the oil changes. If you want to get technical…11 All vegetable oils have different smoke points and that’s why we need to choose the right oil for the job. The most popular and well known oil is of course Olive Oil. It’s widely used and highly regarded as one of the most versatile and flavoursome of all vegetable oils. When we’re grilling steak however, there is a problem with olive oil and that is, its smoke point. Grilling The Perfect Steak necessitates that we cook at a high heat. To sear the outside of the steak and achieve a beautiful crust on our meat we need to have our grill or pan at 400°F or 204°C. Extra Virgin Olive Oil has a smoke point of around 385°F. What that means is that it is going to burn and change from its beautiful natural flavour to one which has an unpleasant taste and we certainly don’t want that. This means we need to look further for another kind of oil to do the job12. You’d be surprised just how many types of oil there are available. Many of them though are quite hard to find and also they are often expensive. After much experimenting and lots of taste tests, our oil of choice is Grapeseed Oil. There are a few good reasons why we recommend using Grapeseed Oil. 1. It has a high smoke point 2. It’s readily available 3. It’s not overly expensive 11 The smoke point generally refers to the temperature at which a cooking fat or oil begins to break down to glycerol and free fatty acids, and produce bluish smoke. The glycerol is then further broken down to acrogenic which is a component of the smoke. It is the presence of the acrogenic that causes the smoke to be irritating to the eyes and throat. The smoke point also marks the beginning of both flavour and nutritional degradation. Therefore, it is a key consideration when selecting a fat for frying, with the smoke point of the specific oil dictating its maximum usable temperature and therefore its possible applications. – Source: Wikipedia.org 12 If you really prefer to stick with Olive Oil, select a Refined Extra Light variety which has the highest smoke point. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 19 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK 4. It has a beautiful mild flavour which we feel marries well with the meat and doesn’t impart an overly strong flavour13 5. It refrigerates well The Smoke Point of an oil also varies depending on whether the oil is refined or unrefined. Essentially what this means is that if an oil is refined, it has been put through a fine filter to remove most of the vegetable matter. An unrefined oil still has some fine particles of the raw plant present. Therefore, unrefined oil will have a lower smoke point than a refined oil because the vegetable matter will start to smoke and burn at a lower temperature. This is the same with normal butter verses clarified butter. Clarified butter is the butter which has been melted allowing the different components to separate. The solids are left behind whilst the melted fat floats to the surface and is skimmed off. Clarified butter has a higher smoke point than regular butter in which their remains some 20% milk. The table on the next page shows the approximate smoke points of some popular cooking oils. 13 We are steak purists and everything we do is about enhancing the natural flavour of the meat itself © Bell Parc 2011 Page 20 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Smoke Point Table Smoke Point Table14 Product Smoke Point Fahrenheit Smoke Point Celsius Butter 300°F 150°C Butter Clarified 350°F 177°C 320-385°F 160-191°C Extra Light Olive Oil (refined) 468°F 242°C Peanut Oil (unrefined) 320°F 160°C Peanut Oil (refined) 450°F 232°C Canola Oil (refined) 400°F 204°C Safflower Oil (refined) 510°F 266°C Grapeseed Oil 420°F 216°C Avocado Oil 520°F 271°C Extra Virgin Olive Oil When cooking at high temperatures always check the smoke point of the oil. Choose refined oils over unrefined oils to increase the useable temperature range. 2. Using too much oil The reason we use oil when cooking is to lubricate the meat and stop it sticking to the pan or grill. Too many people tend to drown the steak in oil before putting it on the grill. This does a couple of undesirable things. Firstly, it imparts an overly strong flavour to the meat and the last thing we want is for our steak to taste “oily.” 14 We’ve used various sources to create this table including the labels on the bottles, Wikipedia and CookingforEngineers.com. Smoke points are not a fixed measurement and should be considered an approximate guide only due to a range of variables such as the oils age and purity and its age at the time of measurement. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 21 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Secondly, too much oil makes it harder for the grill to rapidly heat the meat to the required temperature thus increasing the risk of the meat stewing rather than grilling. A light brush on both sides and around the edges of the steak is all that’s required – don’t overdo it with the oil! 3. Oil the steak and not the plate There are two good reasons for this. Firstly, the plate or grill is going to be really hot and pouring the oil directly onto it can be dangerous and could result in a flare-up. Secondly, you have more control applying the oil onto the meat than the plate. 4. Don’t use an ‘out of date’ oil This is problem which is more common than you’d think. Lots of people go out and buy really good quality oils – extra virgin olive oils, special gourmet oils like avocado or sesame, use them once then put them back in the cupboard and save them for the next special occasion. What happens though is that the oil has been exposed to the air and in a surprisingly short period of time, the oil oxidises and becomes rancid. Because most oils have been highly refined and deodorised, you can’t even smell that they’ve gone off. The result is an unpleasant (and potentially unhealthy) taste to the dish. There are two simple fixes for this problem; 1. When you open your oil, use it up in a relatively short period of time, don’t store it away. 2. Keep it in the fridge sealed tightly in its jar. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 22 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Salt We’re going to use salt to season our steak and there is quite a bit to be said about salt. First off, choosing the right salt is important and we recommend using a natural sea salt. Table salts have iodine in them as well as some anticaking agents and these additives change both the texture and flavour of the salt. Natural salt is rich in flavour and minerals and is a superb flavour enhancer to steak. Our preference is to choose salt-flakes rather than ground or rock salt. It can easily be stored in a dish and delicately applied by pinching between the thumb and fore-finger. Salt flakes give the best control as to the amount of salt you apply. The popular way to season steak is to apply a generous sprinkle of salt to both sides of the steak prior to cooking. Our experience is that this causes a problem and there is actually a better way to season the steak for maximum flavour. The problem we’ve found is this; salt is an insulating material and when it is applied to the steak prior to cooking, it creates a kind of shell on the surface of the steak. This does a couple of (undesirable) things. Firstly, it lengthens the required cooking time of the steak because it holds the meat slightly off the grill surface. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 23 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Secondly, one of the key principles we’re teaching when cooking The Perfect Steak is that people eat with their eyes and we need to make the steak look amazing. When the steak has been salted prior to cooking it makes it much harder to get the beautiful diamond bar marks evenly across the surface of the meat. The salt tends to insulate in some places and not it others resulting in a more blotchy, uneven finish. Furthermore, as the steak cooks and the salts dissolves, it brings moisture to the surface of the steak but that insulating coat tends not to let the moisture escape thus steaming or stewing rather than grilling the steak. A lot of people will argue that the salt helps create the crust on the steak. Our experience has been that this isn’t true – you get an equally good crust without the salt and the crust is more a product of the correct heat, not the salt. If you’ve watched the video on our website you’ll know that our secret to seasoning the steak is to salt it only after we’ve turned it. This is covered again in the section – Putting It All Together but essentially what we do is once we’ve flipped the steak for the final time, we take our melted butter and salt mix and apply it to the presentation side of the steak with a basting brush. This allows the mix to melt into the cooked meat enhancing the flavour with out causing any of the problems we’ve just mentioned. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 24 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Grilling Grilling is the process of searing the meat at high heat and consistent temperature to create a flavoursome caramelised crust on the outside. This is the method we recommend to cook The Perfect Steak. The method works equally well with a pan (preferably cast-iron) on the stove or on a BBQ plate or grill. This manual is geared toward grilling on a BBQ grill with one of the aims being to achieve perfect diamond bar marks15 on our steak but if you don’t have a BBQ grill, a plate or a pan will work just fine. Preparing the BBQ Ok, at the risk of offending someone here, we’re going to say that in our travels, we have seen some BBQ’s that are, how shall we put it, not the most hygienic surfaces in the world! Your BBQ needs to be cleaned regularly. It’s not that hard. A BBQ that doesn’t get scrubbed down after each cookout builds up a layer of burnt food on the grill surface. Apart from the obvious health issues, this build-up forms an insulating layer across the plate which doesn’t allow maximum heat to reach the meat. A dirty grill also smokes easily which adds a bad flavour to whatever we’re cooking. We want our surface as hot as we can get it and maintaining a clean, hygienic cooking surface will benefit us greatly in our quest to cook The Perfect Steak. Getting the Grill Hot Enough To Cook The grill surface, whether it’s a pan, plate or grill needs to be hot. You should have the cooking surface pre-heated to 204°C or 400°F. At this temperature we can sear the outside of the meat and this is the best way to seal in the juices. The easiest way to check this is with a Grill Surface Thermometer. These are a great little tool which give an accurate reading right where the steak is cooking which is on the plate itself. 15 The cross hatch cooking marks created by the bars of the grill © Bell Parc 2011 Page 25 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK We’ve found the thermometers on the hoods of BBQ’s to be an inaccurate reading of the actual grill surface. If you don’t yet have a Grill Surface Thermometer then there are a couple of general guides you might like to use; 1. We’ve found that if when the grill thermometer on our BBQ hood reaches approx 515°F, the grill surface is around 400°F. 2. It’s a pretty general guide but we’ve found that if you bring the palm of your hand down toward the the plate you should be able to hold it steady no closer than about 6 inches or 15 cm. You should be able to feel the heat radiating up from the grill surface and if your hand gets any closer than this it’s hard to hold there for more than a second or two. Know Your Grill Some BBQs and/or cooktops are very powerful and can hot very quickly. For some larger BBQ’s with bigger burners it’s no touble for them to rocket up to 550°F or more in just a matter of minutes. Some other types of cookers will struggle to even reach the “sear” tempearature range of 400°F. If your cooker doesn’t get super-hot, you’ll need to lengthen the cooking times a little. If yours is one of those super hot industrial machines then you will need to ensure when it gets to 400°F that you turn the temp down or move the meat further away from the heat source so as not to overcook the steaks. A Word on Temperature Probes These are great for cooking lamb roasts, they are not a tool we recommend for cooking steak! Probing our perfect piece of meat just allows juices which are under pressure to leak out. We’ve also found it a difficult job to manage, trying to accurately probe each piece of meat when we’re cooking at high heat. Again, if you wish to use them there are some good ones available and the manufacturers have given temperatures for when to know what stage the meat is cooked to (i.e. Rare, Medium etc). We abandoned them early on in our trials and haven’t done detailed testing with them and so we can’t comment further. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 26 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Assembling The Right Tools & Ingredients Pretty much all the tools that you’re going to need you’ve probably already got. There are, however, a few special tools that we’ve found to be very useful which you may want to acquire over time. Again if you don’t have a BBQ or simply prefer to cook on the stove this method works perfectly well. Item Its Use BBQ or Cast Iron Basically you can cook The Perfect Steak anywhere Fry-pan, skillet or and on anything, the only prerequisite is that you can grill plate get it to the required heat. Cast iron is our preferred surface. Quality Steak Choose your favourite cut from our recommended chart. Metal Spatula To lift and turn the steak – preferably one with a relatively sharp leading edge. Grill Surface Thermometer To monitor the temperature of the grill surface. Good quality Paper Each steak needs to be patted down before cooking to Towel remove any moisture on the outside of the meat. Waste paper bin To throw waste paper and any other rubbish. Basting Brush To apply the oil onto the meat and also to apply the salt/butter baste mix. Knife To trim any excess fat off the outside of the steaks prior to cooking. Small Saucepan To melt the Salt & Butter basting mix. Teaspoon To mix the Salt & Butter basting mix when it is heating up so that the salt dissolves into the mix. Timer To monitor the time the steak cooks. Large Plate To hold the steaks. Steak Warmer This can be anything, even a warmed up plate or metal tray. The point is the steak needs to rest in a warm place before being served. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 27 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Butter For flavour – not margarine. Salt We recommend natural salt flakes. They are easy to work with and dissolve best in the heated butter mix. Grapeseed Oil Or any other quality vegetable oil with a high smoke point. Grill Guide Have your How To Cook The Perfect Steak Grill Guide handy so that you manage your timings. Ruler To measure and confirm the thickness of the steaks. Organising the Troops Organising the troops is almost as important as doing a great job at the grill. In fact, they go hand in hand. Cooking The Perfect Steak involves precision timing but what happens when we bring in our magnificently cooked steaks to serve and the salad hasn’t even been made and the guests are all still standing around on the patio. It’s going to take 20 minutes or more to get everyone organized and in that time the steak is going to go cold and your mastery of the moment will be lost. Right about when you’re ready to light the BBQ and get things underway, your first job is to check-in with everyone else and make sure that they are all ready. Check that accompaniments are almost cooked, that the guests/family are moving in the general direction of the table and that everyone is ready to eat. Once you’ve got that all organised you’re freed up to concentrate on the main job of the day and that is being 4 Star General of the grill. Like any good General, your first job is to organise your troops. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 28 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Getting the Perfect Bar Marks Not only do we want our steak to taste amazing, we also want it to look sensational and branding the steak with dark diamond-shaped bar marks or grillmarks is the final-word in presentation. Dry heat such as a grill causes the outside of the meat to caramelise. This imparts a rich brown and complex flavour to the overall meat. The technical term for is the Figure 6 - Presentation side of the steaks “Maillard Reaction” which basically means that the sugars on the meat surface have changed in chemical composition to form a brown crust. To get your steak looking like it’s come out of the kitchen of a 3 Michelin Star restaurant there are some important techniques to follow. 1. Only aim to brand the bar-mark pattern on one side of the steak and that is the presentation side. We don’t need to go to the trouble of branding the underside of the meat, this just involves more turning which is something we are trying to minimize. 2. The BBQ needs to be hot – really hot. Unless you get your grill surface to Sear Temp which is 400°F or 204°C you can give up on getting perfect barmarks. 3. At each flip we need to use the spatula to press the steak firmly in contact with the grill. Just the weight alone of the piece of meat is not enough to make the necessary contact to sear the steak in this way. Essentially what we’re doing here is branding the Figure 7 - Press down & brand the meat steak, pressing it firmly against a hot metal iron in order to make our mark. Our tests have found that these extra sear-marks on the steak not only add to the WOW factor, they add genuine flavour to the meat as well. 4. The other BIG secret to diamond bar marks is using a metal spatula to turn the steak, not tongs! The reason is simple when you think about it. Because we are cooking at very high heat the meat when it comes into contact with the grill fuses slightly. © Bell Parc 2011 Figure 8 - Lift & Turn Page 29 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK What this means is that if you lift the steak with tongs the meat fused in contact with the grill will stick and stay there. You’ll essentially be tearing the meat off the surface and the bits that stay there are the bits in the closest contact i.e. The Bar Marks. To avoid this you’ll need a good quality metal spatula which has a sharpish edge. Push the spatula under the meat, carefully lifting, not tearing it away from the grill surface and then turn it over. One way to think of the technique is to image that instead of a steak that you’re turning over a really flaky piece of fish. In order to turn it all in one piece you need to get right in under it and flip it all in a single smooth motion. 5. A word here about oiling. The overuse of oil is to be avoided. Sure, it may help preventing the steak from sticking but, over oiling the steak is counterproductive in that the oil may; a. not get hot enough during the cooking time preventing searing and b. impart an oily flavour into the meat. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 30 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Preparing to Cook Take the beef out of the fridge at least one hour ahead of time to bring it to room temp16. You may want to cover it with a tea-towel. If you take a cold steak out of the fridge and put it straight onto a hot grill you will be guaranteed a tough piece of beef. Again, check what ‘the Troops’ are doing and that they have remained on schedule. If salads or other side dishes are being prepared in the kitchen, it’s really important that you know what the timing is with the rest of the team. It can be a little frustrating (to say the least) to cook your steak absolutely perfectly only to discover, for example, that the chips haven’t even been put on. Only once you’ve checked what everyone else is up-to and made sure of their timing should you begin your work of preparing the steak. You want to be last in the sequence of serving. Seasoning As steak purists we prefer not to season the steak before cooking (other than with our Salt and Butter Baste added during cooking) but rather to rely on selecting the best possible cuts of beef and let the steak do the talking. We totally understand that many people love to marinate their steaks in their favourite red wine or herb & garlic marinade and that’s totally fine. The principles we’ve covered here still apply. Our tests showed that on a mild sunny day (65°F / 18°C outside) it took our steaks 70 minutes to come to come fully to the ambient room temperature. It would obviously be less on hotter days. 16 © Bell Parc 2011 Page 31 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Cooking Steak which has a Bone Steaks with a bone such as T-bones are harder to cook through evenly than steaks without a bone. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that the bone tends to sit on the grill holding the meat close to it off the surface. This is one of the reasons why meat near the bone will be cooked less than the rest of the steak. Another is that the bone conducts heat and a lot of the heat from the grill is taken up or absorbed by the bone, not the meat. Anecdotal evidence from the many people who prefer their steak with a bone is that the meat tastes “sweeter” and more flavoursome if it has a bone. Salt & Butter Baste Mix The Salt & Butter Baste is a simple recipe to prepare and we prefer to make it fresh whilst we’re cooking our steaks. Ingredients: Butter Natural salt flakes You will need a small saucepan and a stirring spoon. Method: In a small saucepan simply add one tablespoon of butter and one teaspoon of salt for each steak. Whilst the steaks are cooking on the first side heat the mix. The butter should melt right down but not boil or burn. Mix it well so that as much of the salt as possible dissolves into the hot butter. When that’s done, remove it from the heat source and set it aside. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 32 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK When the 3rd and final flip has been done, use a basting brush to apply the baste to the presentation side of the steak. Brush the mix into the crevices where the fat has melted in the meat. This mix of melted butter and dissolved salt enhances the natural depth of flavour of the meat. Resting Resting meat is one of the secrets to serving tender steak. Resting simply means allowing the steak to relax again so that it isn’t tough. Steak is a muscle and when you cook it, two things happen; 1. it becomes tense and 2. pressure builds up inside. As steak cooks the muscle tightens and if we cut it too early before allowing the muscle to relax, the juices, which are under pressure will flow out making the meat tough. Before serving the meat, always allow a short period of time for everything to come back into equilibrium. It is important to remember that when a steak comes off the heat source it will continue to cook through for a period of time. This is known in the restaurant trade as “carry-over cooking”. As a rule, the thicker the steak, the greater the residual or carry-over cooking which will take place. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 33 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK The tricks to resting steak are; Wherever possible rest the steak on its edge17. What this does is minimises juice loss. As the muscle relaxes the juice filters back through the steak and up to the surface. If the steak is laying flat on a plate, that is a larger surface area for the juice to leak out. If the steak is resting on its edge we are limiting the surface area and thus minimising juice leakage. Again, wherever possible, rest the steak in a warm spot. We want to be serving our meat whilst it is still lovely and warm. Take the steak off the grill moments before it is cooked to the required doneness and then use the resting process to bring it home.18 Never ever rest your steak sealed under a sheet of foil. What this does is creates a kind of steam-bath for your steak which dissolves your beautiful caramelised crust and causes the meat to start stewing. This tends to make it go a duller grey colour and toughens it. The thinner the steak, the less resting time it needs. 17 That’s why we developed the Side Steak Warmer. This rack does a few things; 1. It has been heated on the bbq whilst cooking so it is hot and says warm for at least 5 minutes allowing the meat to gently relax without getting cold. 2. It holds the steak on its side putting a small surface down so as gravity is minimized, i.e. we don’t have the large flat side of the steak to the ground, just its edge and this greatly minimises juice loss. 3. It elevates the steak and allows it to sit above its juices thus minimizing any basting and loss of crusting at this crucial point. 18 Our Grill Guide Chart has factored this in already. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 34 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Biggest Mistakes People Make when Cooking Steak Resting under foil We’ve covered this one already. Resting a steak under foil dissolves the crust and stews the meat. Cooking with the pan-lid on or BBQ-lid closed Grilling means having the heat source come from underneath. When the lid is closed we build up ambient temperature and this changes all our cooking times and techniques. Because steak cooking at high heat generates quite a bit of smoke, if the lid is closed, we tend to get a build up of super-heated moisture which stews not grills. Turning too often Once when we were at a DIY Steak Restaurant we watched in horror and amusement, a young couple, evidently who weren’t experienced in cooking steak on a char-grill each purchase the biggest, baddest, thickest New York Strip steak in the whole restaurant. They proceeded to take it to the char-grill where they laid it down and almost immediately, began turning it, and turning it, and turning it. After about twenty flips they determined that it was cooked and took it off the grill and sat down to their feast. Evidently though, it still wasn’t cooked to their liking so they bought it back to the grill and proceeded to give it another dozen or so flips and turns. Eventually they sat down to eat it again and I recall noticing later-on that half of each steak was left on the plate. Steak benefits from less handling. The less you man-handle the meat, the better the chance you’re going to have of serving a tender, juicy steak. Over oiling No-one wants to eat oily meat so don’t over-oil the steak. Over-oiling can result in the meat not heating up quickly enough and the oil still staying on the outside of meat. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 35 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Over seasoning If you must season the steak before you cook it, check with your guests to make sure they like the seasoning. One of the most common seasonings people use is cracked pepper and particularly with children, this has ruined many a perfectly good steak. Not bringing the meat to room temperature before cooking Putting a cold piece of meat on a hot grill-surface immediately causes the muscle (steak) to contract and tighten. The meat never fully relaxes back again resulting in a tough steak. Grill Skill Mastering the grill is indeed a great skill, part science, part art. It is acquired over time by practice. For that short period of time that you’re master of the grill and its all happening, it should almost be as if the rest of the world has ceased to exist and all you are focused on is managing & mastering your skill at the grill. Not Drying The Steak You must, must pat the steak down with a clean cloth or good quality paper towel immediately before oiling it and putting it on to cook. If you don’t, the juices will stew the meat and you’ll lose that clean dark crust which adds so much flavour and festival to the meat. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 36 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Putting It All Together Pre-heat the cook-top. Check that everyone else is almost ready-to-go with the side dishes etc. Check with each person exactly how they’d like their steak cooked and calculate timing with the well-done steaks going on first and the rarer steaks going on last, all timed to finish together. Check your Grill Guide so that you know in advance how long each steak is going to take to cook. Dry each steak off with a paper towel or clean cloth. Apply a measured amount of grapeseed oil to each steak with a basting brush. Check that the grill surface is up to the required temperature. Start the timer and put the steaks on to cook. Put the Salt & Butter Baste on to melt. Turn the steak(s) at the first flip time. o At each turn use the spatula to press the steak into firm contact with the grill. o At each turn use the spatula to get in under the meat and lift it off the grill and over. Turn the steak(s) at the second flip time. Turn the steak(s) over at the final flip time. Remove the salt and butter baste from the heat and apply it to the steak. When times up, remove each steak and place it in a warm spot to rest. Deliver your masterpiece(s) ready for serving …..and eating! © Bell Parc 2011 Page 37 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Final Words At the end of the day, cooking The Perfect Steak is as much an art as it is a science. Steak is never exactly 1 inch thick nor does the grill temperature remain at precisely 400°F. You need to take into account all sorts of factors and make adjustments accordingly. Knowing what you know now and with practice you are bound to perfect your own system. We’d love to hear your experiences with cooking your own Perfect Steak. If you’ve got a story or some photos, share them with us and The Perfect Steak Community. We hope you’ve enjoyed this guide and we sincerely wish you every success. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 38 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK Appendix 1: The Perfect Steak Preparation Checklist Getting organised is one of the keys to cooking T he Perfect Steak. We’ve made a list of everything you‘ll need. We recommend you use this Checklist in conjunction with watching the set of instructional videos we’ve made and if you really, really want to get good at it, pick up a copy of our bestselling eBook, How to Cook The Perfect Steak. WHAT YOU’LL NEED Butter Natural Salt flakes Timer Paper towel Tea spoon Wastepaper bin BBQ, cast iron pan or grilling Quality steak surface Knife Warm place to rest the cooked meat Metal Spatula Basting brush Grapeseed oil Small saucepan Your Grill Guide Large plate Quick Preparation Tip 1: Check what everyone else is doing before putting the steaks on to cook. You don’t want to be waiting around for other dishes to cook when its time to serve up your steak. Quick Preparation Tip 2: Take the steaks out of the fridge well in advance. The meat needs to be at room temp to cook through evenly. Quick Preparation Tip 3: Ask everyone in advance exactly how they’d like their steaks cooked. Once you know you can cook each steak to taste. We’ve found it works well to start with the welldone steaks going on first and the rarer steaks going on last, all timed to finish together. If you’re cooking multiple steaks, it helps to write the timings on a piece of paper. Cooking steak perfectly means understanding The 3 BIG T’s of cooking Steak: Timing Temperature and Thickness. Understanding how each of these affects the overall cooking time is critical to achieving the perfect outcome. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 39 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] THE PERFECT STEAK GRILL GUIDE 3 FLIP MP ETHOD ™ STEAK HOW TTOHE COOK THE ERFECT This guide is has been prepared especially to help You cook T he Perfect Steak. We’ve cooked hundreds of steaks to create it. If you work to the three BIG T’s, Temperature, Timing and Thickness, you’ll be well on the way to cooking The Perfect Steak. We recommend you use this Guide in conjunction with watching the set of instructional videos we’ve made and if you really, really want to get good at it, pick up a copy of our bestselling eBook, How to Cook The Perfect Steak. Quick Grill Tip 1: Always preheat your cooking surface before putting the steak on to cook. Quick Grill Tip 2: Use grapeseed oil – not olive oil for your high heat grilling. Your Perfect Steak Cooking Ready Reckoner © GUIDE 1: The 3 Flip Method™ Thickness ½” 15mm 1” 1½” Doneness Flip 1 Flip 2 Flip 3 Rare Medium Rare Medium Well Done Rare Medium Rare Medium Well Done Rare Medium Rare Medium Well Done 1 1½ 1½ 2 2 2 3 3 2½ 3 4 6 1 1½ 1½ 2 2 2 3 3 2½ 3 4 6 1 1½ 2½ 3½ 2 3 4 7 4 5 7 8 Total Time 3 4½ 5½ 7½ 6 7 10 13 9 11 15 20 Grill Temp 400°F 400°F 400°F 400°F 400°F 400°F 400°F 400°F 400°F 400°F 400°F 400°F Resting Time 2 min 2 min 2 min 3min 3-4 min 3-4 min 3-4 min 3-4 min 3-4 min 4 min 4 min 5 min Note: All Flip Times are in minutes. All Grill Temps are in Fahrenheit: 400°F = 204°C. Many factors influence cooking times. Cooking The Perfect Steak requires finesse, practice and judgement. Use these timings as guide only and as you get to know your grill, make adjustments accordingly. Flip 1 Lay the steak on the grill at the angle shown Flip 2 Flip the steak, same side down in this direction Flip 3 Turn the steak over Bell’s Tip: Put these two pages back-to-back and laminate them. Then keep this guide close to your BBQ. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 40 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected] THE PERFECT STEAK GRILL GUIDE HOW TO COOK THE PERFECT STEAK THE STANDARD 2 TURN METHOD Use this guide if you aren’t so concerned about getting the perfect diamond bar-marks on your meat or if you’re cooking in a pan or flat plate. We recommend you use this Guide in conjunction with watching the set of instructional videos we’ve made and if you really, really want to get good at it, pick up a copy of our bestselling eBook, H ow to Cook The Perfect Steak. Quick Grill Tip 1: Make sure you’re meat’s at room temperature before you begin grilling. Quick Grill Tip 2: Don’t forget to rest the cooked steaks in a warm place before serving. Your Perfect Steak Cooking Ready Reckoner © GUIDE 2: The Standard 2 Turn Method Thickness Doneness Flip 1 Flip 2 ½” 15mm Rare Medium Rare 1½ 2 min 15 sec 2 min 45 sec 3 min 45 sec 3 3½ 5 6½ 4½ 5½ 7½ 10 1½ 2 min 15 sec 2 min 45sec 3 min 45 sec 3 3½ 5 6½ 4½ 5½ 7½ 10 Medium Well Done 1” 1½” Rare Medium Rare Medium Well Done Rare Medium Rare Medium Well Done Total Time 3 4½ Grill Temp 400°F 400°F Resting Time 5½ 400°F 2 min 7½ 400°F 3min 6 7 10 13 9 11 15 20 400°F 400°F 400°F 400°F 400°F 400°F 400°F 400°F 3-4 min 3-4 min 3-4 min 3-4 min 3-4 min 4 min 4 min 5 min 2 min 2 min Note: All Flip Times are in minutes. All Grill Temps are in Fahrenheit: 400°F = 204°C. Many factors influence cooking times. Cooking The Perfect Steak requires finesse, practice and judgement. Use these timings as guide only and as you get to know your grill, make adjustments accordingly. Flip 1 Lay the steak on the grill . Flip 2 Half way through turn it over. © Bell Parc 2011 Page 41 www.howtocooktheperfectsteak.net - [email protected]
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