For years, cooking a great steak eluded me. I could cook a steak. Whether it came out the way I wanted was another matter entirely.
Overdone. Underdone. Burnt outside and too rare inside. I tried the oven. I tried pan searing. I tried reverse searing. If somebody had a theory about the perfect steak, there was a reasonable chance I had read it, considered it, and eventually stood over a piece of beef wondering what had gone wrong.
Meanwhile, my friend Dan kept telling me how he cooked his.
“Get your grill as hot as it will go. Throw the steaks on for four minutes on each side. That’s it.”
And I ignored him. Not once. Dan and I talked about food often, and whenever steak came up, he would explain how simple it was. I would listen politely and then go back to looking for the real answer.
Because surely there had to be more to it.
I had worked in restaurants. I had seen things. I had done things. I had also worked with a master chef who used to say, “Simpler is better.” I had repeated that advice to other people over the years. Apparently, it didn’t apply to steak.
Two ribeyes and one last theory
One day I had two beautiful, well-marbled ribeyes, each nearly an inch thick. I did what I usually did: I read, thought, and planned my attack. Then I remembered my old chef’s advice. Simpler is better.
I had tried just about everything else. Maybe it was time to try what Dan had been telling me all along.
I got the grill hot. I put the steaks on. Four minutes on one side, four minutes on the other. They were terrific: a browned, flavorful outside and a juicy center. The kind of steaks I had been trying to make for years.
A fluke, I thought. I’d gotten lucky before.
So I tried it again. Same result. Then a third time. Same result again.
Eventually, I had to accept that the answer had been sitting across from me, patiently repeating itself, while I searched for something more complicated. I was wrong. So wrong.
What Dan knew
I don’t think either Dan or I was talking about the Maillard reaction at the time. He knew what worked. Later, I began to understand some of why.
When a steak’s surface gets hot enough, proteins and sugars react and create new flavors and aromas. That’s the Maillard reaction. It helps give browned meat its savory flavor. You don’t need to remember the name to make dinner, but understanding the idea gives you something useful to watch for.
Surface moisture has to evaporate before the surface can get hot enough to brown efficiently. Patting the steak dry helps; a hot grill gives it a chance to develop color. Brown is what we’re looking for. Black and bitter is a different culinary achievement.
And despite something I once believed, a crust doesn’t seal the juices inside. It makes the steak taste good. That’s a perfectly respectable accomplishment on its own.
How I cook it now
The first three times, I followed Dan’s method exactly. Once I knew I could repeat it, I started paying closer attention and making small adjustments for our steaks, our grill, and the way we like them.
I take the steaks out of the refrigerator about 30–40 minutes before cooking, while I get everything else ready. It’s part of my routine. I once thought that brought the whole steak close to room temperature, but the center warms more slowly than I realized. A thermometer and the way I finish the steak tell me more than the time on the counter.
I pat them dry, brush them lightly with oil, and season them with salt and pepper. Meanwhile, I get the grill hot.
These days, I usually start with about three minutes per side. Then I turn the heat down low and move the steaks to the upper rack. From there, I check them as they finish. Mine comes off first. Hers stays on a little longer.
The first hot stretch develops the outside; the gentler finish gives me more control over the center. Steak thickness and grill heat vary, so use the clock as a starting point, not a verdict. Check the thickest part with an instant-read thermometer.
The USDA recommends cooking whole-cut beef steaks to 145°F, measured before removing them from the heat, followed by a rest of at least three minutes. I let ours rest on a plate while I get the rest of dinner together. Occasionally the side dishes need those minutes more than the steaks do.
Simple doesn’t mean careless
“Four minutes on each side” sounded too easy to be good advice. Underneath it were a few useful ideas: get the grill hot, give the steak a chance to brown, and don’t make the process more complicated than it needs to be.
Now I look at the crust. I check the temperature. I move the steaks to a gentler part of the grill when they need more time. I take mine off before hers. That doesn’t mean Dan’s method needed fixing. It gave me a place to begin.
An old chef had told me simpler is better. Dan showed me what that could look like on a grill. Eventually, I listened.
And now that I understand a little more about what’s happening, I can take the same lesson inside to cast iron when Buffalo decides it’s winter again. But that’s another steak, and another story.