usvi-on-line
Cooking Steaks?
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California Girl
A good Rib Eye with nice marbling is great. But a top shelf Sirloin wins for me any day!!sherban wrote:What cut of steak do you-all think is "the best", excluding filet mingnon?
Buy in Roasts and slice away! It's wintertime, so you should be able to get some great deals (Rib Roasts have been on sale at my local for $4.49 a pound for almost 2 weeks now...a very good deal. Buy full pismo (the vacuum pack thing)tenderloins, $7.99 a pound or lower is a deal and you get not only about 8-10 nice sized trimmed Filet Mignon, but 2 tenderloin roasts, and and the chain and trimmings for tenderloin burgers!!! (thanks Alton!!)
When it comes to steaks, I hate to say it, but I am a fan of the french variety. Pan cooked, and finished in the oven if it's over an inch. Seasoned with kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, thyme, a SCANT dusting of garlic powder (so little you can count the grains) and another scant dusting of ancho chili powder. A little butter in the pan for caremilzation. When done, take em out to rest (5 min please...no sizzling serving pan....it makes the flesh too tight!!) and do a full deglaze of the pan with shallots (or some onion if out of shallots) thyme, and a nice red wine (Chianti Classico riserva, lately) let reduce, and stir in a tablespoon of butter, as soon as the butter is fully melted, strain and drizzle on the steak (it should only yield about an ounce of sauce)
BTW....i just finished dry aging a rib roast. It's 2 weeks old, and gave me 3 1" Ribeye steaks that I cannot WAIT to devour!!
We did tri-tips and sirloins when we were at Alessandra with the Bs and Jorge. I prefer the beefier cuts and cut them on the bias (against the grain) and serve them sliced. Filet mignon are too mushy for me and lack
Good advice in this thread, here are my comments:
- The bigger the piece of meat the easier to cook and hit your temperatures
- Undercooking is easy to fix with more heat
- Medium high heat on the grill - 500-600F
- Medium high heat in a skillet - 450F
- Season ahead of time (salt too!)
- Steak at room temperature, or close enough
- Cook 60-70% of complete on first side
- Turn and cook to desired doneness
o 125F Rare
o 130F Medium Rare
o 135F Medium
o 140F Medium Well
- Rest for 5 minutes before serving/slicing
I use a Taylor thermometer with a wired remote to keep track of temperature. I use an infrared thermometer to check the temp of the pan (these are awesome!)
I like my steaks medium rare, or what I call "steakhouse medium" as steakhouses tend to undercook their meat. My daughters like their steak somewhere between Sweet Christine's "still mooing" and my medium rare. For me, the doneness has more to do with getting to the point wear the callogen starts to break down and the texture both firms and becomes more tender.
And... I'll eat MrB's steak any day. I cook Hanger steaks that way.
Cheers, RickG
Good advice in this thread, here are my comments:
- The bigger the piece of meat the easier to cook and hit your temperatures
- Undercooking is easy to fix with more heat
- Medium high heat on the grill - 500-600F
- Medium high heat in a skillet - 450F
- Season ahead of time (salt too!)
- Steak at room temperature, or close enough
- Cook 60-70% of complete on first side
- Turn and cook to desired doneness
o 125F Rare
o 130F Medium Rare
o 135F Medium
o 140F Medium Well
- Rest for 5 minutes before serving/slicing
I use a Taylor thermometer with a wired remote to keep track of temperature. I use an infrared thermometer to check the temp of the pan (these are awesome!)
I like my steaks medium rare, or what I call "steakhouse medium" as steakhouses tend to undercook their meat. My daughters like their steak somewhere between Sweet Christine's "still mooing" and my medium rare. For me, the doneness has more to do with getting to the point wear the callogen starts to break down and the texture both firms and becomes more tender.
And... I'll eat MrB's steak any day. I cook Hanger steaks that way.
Cheers, RickG
S/V Echoes - Coral Bay - St. John, VI
We mostly grill KC Strip and the only other tip I have is to brush them with grapeseed oil before they go on the grill. This tip was from a grill store in our area and it really makes the steaks seem restaurant quality. We have one bottle of seasoning that we use and then often just ground pepper, salt and garlic powder. Sounds good right now!
Hi Sherban,
John's favorite steak is a bone-in rib eye. I usually don't grill, because by the time I get home from work it is dark outside. I sear in a cast iron skillet, and finish in a 400 degree oven. I bring the steak to room temperature before cooking it, and let it rest at least 5 minutes, usually 10 minutes, before slicing.
Here is a recipe for John's favorite steak seasoning. I slather it on the night before on both sides. Make sure to remove the excess paste from the steak before cooking to prevent burning. This makes enough for 28 ounces of steak. It's a Mario Batali recipe.
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. kosher salt
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp. red peppper flakes
1 tbsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup dried porcini mushrooms, ground to a fine powder in a coffee grinder
1/4 cup olive oil.
Combine all ingredients and slather paste on both sides. Cover steak with plastic wrap and let rest in fridge at least 12 hours or overnight.
John's favorite steak is a bone-in rib eye. I usually don't grill, because by the time I get home from work it is dark outside. I sear in a cast iron skillet, and finish in a 400 degree oven. I bring the steak to room temperature before cooking it, and let it rest at least 5 minutes, usually 10 minutes, before slicing.
Here is a recipe for John's favorite steak seasoning. I slather it on the night before on both sides. Make sure to remove the excess paste from the steak before cooking to prevent burning. This makes enough for 28 ounces of steak. It's a Mario Batali recipe.
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. kosher salt
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp. red peppper flakes
1 tbsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup dried porcini mushrooms, ground to a fine powder in a coffee grinder
1/4 cup olive oil.
Combine all ingredients and slather paste on both sides. Cover steak with plastic wrap and let rest in fridge at least 12 hours or overnight.
It's like looking in your soup and finding a whole different alphabet.
Hey Sherb...It took me years of grilling tough steaks to find the method that works best for me:
Indirect Grilling -
I do this now with all custs of beef (except ground chuck of course)...Seems to work best with steak tips, which used to come out dried out and tough until I started cooking with this method.
*If you have a three burner grill, light the two outside burners to high
*Like everyone else said, take the meat out of fridge 20 minutes prior to grilling to get to room temp
*If you marinated (I usually do tips in either a honey teriaki or Cruz Bay Grill Rub and EVOO), throw them right on that center burner (the one that is not lit)...If grilling a steak, oil and salt and pepper
*Depending on what your cooking, cook on each side for 5-8 minutes
*After both sides have been cooked, move the meat over the lit burner/flame on each side for 30 seconds or so, just to char them up a bit
Crispy on the outside, moist and tender on the inside everytime.
My wife marinated tips and brought them down to STJ with us in July...cooked them this way in Ellison and they came out great!
Indirect Grilling -
I do this now with all custs of beef (except ground chuck of course)...Seems to work best with steak tips, which used to come out dried out and tough until I started cooking with this method.
*If you have a three burner grill, light the two outside burners to high
*Like everyone else said, take the meat out of fridge 20 minutes prior to grilling to get to room temp
*If you marinated (I usually do tips in either a honey teriaki or Cruz Bay Grill Rub and EVOO), throw them right on that center burner (the one that is not lit)...If grilling a steak, oil and salt and pepper
*Depending on what your cooking, cook on each side for 5-8 minutes
*After both sides have been cooked, move the meat over the lit burner/flame on each side for 30 seconds or so, just to char them up a bit
Crispy on the outside, moist and tender on the inside everytime.
My wife marinated tips and brought them down to STJ with us in July...cooked them this way in Ellison and they came out great!
July 2003 - Honeymoon at The Westin
July 2004 - Glenmar, Gifft Hill
July 2005 - Arco Iris, Fish Bay
December 2007 - Dreamcatcher, GCB
July 2008 - Ellison Villa, VGE
July 2004 - Glenmar, Gifft Hill
July 2005 - Arco Iris, Fish Bay
December 2007 - Dreamcatcher, GCB
July 2008 - Ellison Villa, VGE
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Teresa_Rae
- Posts: 2053
- Joined: Mon Oct 09, 2006 5:44 pm
- Location: Downstate IL
Steaks are one of my passions in life.
I’m a meat scientist, my family raises beef cattle, and I specialized in beef in college so you might say that I have some opinions on this
First you have to consider quality grade. Quality grades are based on two things: physiological maturity of the carcass based on bone ossification and marbling. The USDA beef quality grades are Prime, Choice, Select, Standard, Commercial, Utility, Cutter, and Canner. Meat packers have to pay the USDA for quality grading, so typically carcasses that are expected to fall among the top three grades are actually graded. The rest go ungraded and are used for meat products where the seller doesn’t care or need to make a quality grade declaration.
When you want a high quality steak you are talking Choice or better. Only about 2% of cattle grade Prime so you will pay a premium price for it, and very few stores sell Prime cuts. I always buy Choice. Choice is widely available but has become harder to find in recent years, and many grocery stores will use “clever” marketing to try to sell steaks of lesser quality…for example, I’ve seen marketing terms like “premium choice”….”blue ribbon choice,” etc. Those silly marketing terms mean nothing and are often put on Select cuts to fool people into thinking they are Choice. The meat must say “USDA Choice” or it isn’t really Choice.
Once you’ve established what grade of beef you’re going to purchase, you still need to look at the marbling in the cuts. Note that even within a specified grade there are different levels of marbling. A steak will simply be marked Choice but the marbling score ranges from 0 to 100, so by looking at the marbling you can find steaks at the top end or “high choice.”
As for the cut, I definitely think that the ribeye is the best. The filet is more tender but it isn’t as flavorful as the ribeye. I use Lawry’s seasoning salt, maybe a little pepper, and maybe a little garlic, but keep it simple. Marinades are for cheap/low quality cuts.
It’s a crime to cook a high quality steak more than medium rare. I cook steaks by temperature, but I use an expensive thermometer with a fine needle probe. Commercially you probably won’t find a fine needle probe, so if you use a thermometer you should add a good 5 or 10 degrees to what the reading says because a thick probe will give you a low reading and result in an overcooked steak. Cutting them in the center is also an option if you don’t have a thermometer. Grilling steaks on a hot grill is the best method, and flip as little as possible.
Forgive me if this was verbose…I have barely scratched the surface but felt the need to go at least a little in depth
I’m a meat scientist, my family raises beef cattle, and I specialized in beef in college so you might say that I have some opinions on this
First you have to consider quality grade. Quality grades are based on two things: physiological maturity of the carcass based on bone ossification and marbling. The USDA beef quality grades are Prime, Choice, Select, Standard, Commercial, Utility, Cutter, and Canner. Meat packers have to pay the USDA for quality grading, so typically carcasses that are expected to fall among the top three grades are actually graded. The rest go ungraded and are used for meat products where the seller doesn’t care or need to make a quality grade declaration.
When you want a high quality steak you are talking Choice or better. Only about 2% of cattle grade Prime so you will pay a premium price for it, and very few stores sell Prime cuts. I always buy Choice. Choice is widely available but has become harder to find in recent years, and many grocery stores will use “clever” marketing to try to sell steaks of lesser quality…for example, I’ve seen marketing terms like “premium choice”….”blue ribbon choice,” etc. Those silly marketing terms mean nothing and are often put on Select cuts to fool people into thinking they are Choice. The meat must say “USDA Choice” or it isn’t really Choice.
Once you’ve established what grade of beef you’re going to purchase, you still need to look at the marbling in the cuts. Note that even within a specified grade there are different levels of marbling. A steak will simply be marked Choice but the marbling score ranges from 0 to 100, so by looking at the marbling you can find steaks at the top end or “high choice.”
As for the cut, I definitely think that the ribeye is the best. The filet is more tender but it isn’t as flavorful as the ribeye. I use Lawry’s seasoning salt, maybe a little pepper, and maybe a little garlic, but keep it simple. Marinades are for cheap/low quality cuts.
It’s a crime to cook a high quality steak more than medium rare. I cook steaks by temperature, but I use an expensive thermometer with a fine needle probe. Commercially you probably won’t find a fine needle probe, so if you use a thermometer you should add a good 5 or 10 degrees to what the reading says because a thick probe will give you a low reading and result in an overcooked steak. Cutting them in the center is also an option if you don’t have a thermometer. Grilling steaks on a hot grill is the best method, and flip as little as possible.
Forgive me if this was verbose…I have barely scratched the surface but felt the need to go at least a little in depth
Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
- Mark Twain
- Mark Twain
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silverheels
- Posts: 890
- Joined: Thu Aug 10, 2006 10:18 am
- Location: The Nutmeg State
As a rule we are not meat eaters, but on New Year's Eve we do have a filet mignon. The best are the ones that we grilled on the stern of our boat while sailing in the VI. This year won't be the same. Next year we will have to charter and grill out on New Year's Eve. All your recipes sound great but too much work for me as far as meat is concerned. Enjoy your food whatever is your fancy.
You people are awesome, really helpful...
T-Rae...a "meat scientist", cool, and thanks for your inputs. Do you wear a white lab coat when you cook your steaks?...just kidding.
Looks like I got some cooking to do once we burn through the holiday left-overs.
Cheers!
T-Rae...a "meat scientist", cool, and thanks for your inputs. Do you wear a white lab coat when you cook your steaks?...just kidding.
Looks like I got some cooking to do once we burn through the holiday left-overs.
Cheers!
STJ Villa Map:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie ... 2&t=h&z=14
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie ... 2&t=h&z=14
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Teresa_Rae
- Posts: 2053
- Joined: Mon Oct 09, 2006 5:44 pm
- Location: Downstate IL
Since we're on a roll here...I have another question-
Does anyone have a reccomendation for an online steak supplier (pls resist the urge to tell me to buy local...). I have used Omaha steaks in the past and they are pretty good...any good experiences to share?
And yes, I understand that food-porn photos must follow in the future!
http://www.allenbrothers.com
http://www.kansascitysteaks.com
http://www.mychicagosteak.com
http://www.stockyards.com
http://www.omahasteaks.com
Does anyone have a reccomendation for an online steak supplier (pls resist the urge to tell me to buy local...). I have used Omaha steaks in the past and they are pretty good...any good experiences to share?
And yes, I understand that food-porn photos must follow in the future!
http://www.allenbrothers.com
http://www.kansascitysteaks.com
http://www.mychicagosteak.com
http://www.stockyards.com
http://www.omahasteaks.com
STJ Villa Map:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie ... 2&t=h&z=14
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie ... 2&t=h&z=14
OK, when we lived in Kansas City we shopped at McGonigles for meat - and can you say won der ful.
I just did a search and guess what................they ship (not to me
but to you )
I can't vouch for their meat when shipped but fresh...........fabulous
Pia
http://www.mcgonigles.com/
I just did a search and guess what................they ship (not to me
but to you ) I can't vouch for their meat when shipped but fresh...........fabulous
Pia
http://www.mcgonigles.com/
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Teresa_Rae
- Posts: 2053
- Joined: Mon Oct 09, 2006 5:44 pm
- Location: Downstate IL
The prices at Omaha Steaks are absolutely out of control! I cannot even fathom how they and companies like them are still in business. Trust me when I say that those premium prices are NOT being passed on to the farmer!
Honestly you're going to pay an uncesssary premium for steaks bought online, and most likely they'll be frozen, which is less desirable than fresh.
My favorite place for getting ribeyes is Sam's Club...their regular price is around $7/lb or so, which is about 75% or more LESS than you'd pay at places like Omaha Steaks, and the meat has never been frozen which is a plus because ALL freezing, no matter how quick, damages meat.
Honestly you're going to pay an uncesssary premium for steaks bought online, and most likely they'll be frozen, which is less desirable than fresh.
My favorite place for getting ribeyes is Sam's Club...their regular price is around $7/lb or so, which is about 75% or more LESS than you'd pay at places like Omaha Steaks, and the meat has never been frozen which is a plus because ALL freezing, no matter how quick, damages meat.
Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
- Mark Twain
- Mark Twain