How to cook the perfect steak

Steak is at once the simplest thing to cook and yet the most difficult to get right. Cooked to your liking, whatever that may be, there’s nothing better. Follow these tips and you won’t go wrong with what is quite an expensive piece of protein.

Serves: 4
Prep time: 5 mins
Cooking and resting time: 15 mins

Ingredients

4 steaks, e.g. rump, New York, scotch fillet
Salt flakes and freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Vegetables or salad to serve
Sauce
1 cup (250mls) beef stock
1/2 cup (125mls) red wine
3 tablespoons redcurrant jelly or quince paste

Method

1. Preheat frypan (or BBQ) to medium high. Sprinkle steak with salt and pepper and brush with olive oil and place in the pan or on the grill and cook for several minutes or until some blood begins to rise to the upper surface of the steak, before turning over to cook on the other side. This seals the cut surfaces to retain juices. (So if you are cooking a beef fillet or lamb eye of the loin seal them too in a pan before putting them in the oven.

2. Test the meat by pressing gently with a clean finger. DO NOT USE A FORK OR CUT WITH A KNIFE OR YOU WILL LOSE THE DELICIOUS JUICES IN THE MEAT.To compare, place the thumb and forefinger of one hand together and feel the ‘mount’ below the thumb, near the edge of your hand. The ‘give’ you feel is just like that of blood-rare meat. Now place the thumb and next finger together: this is how it feels when it is medium–rare. Move the thumb along to the next finger and that indicates medium; to the last finger and it’s well done.

3. Remove meat from the pan to rest in a warm place and cover loosely with foil. This lets the natural juices equalise throughout it, making the steak more tender and easy to carve. It also means that no blood will run out of the meat.

4. For the sauce: Put all the sauce ingredients into the pan in which you have cooked the meat, bring to the boil and boil vigorously to reduce. This takes 5 – 10 minutes, just the time it takes the steak to rest. A reduction is simply a sauce made by evaporating moisture and reducing the volume of ingredients. It thickens naturally as this happens.

5. Serve steak and sauce with salad or vegetables of choice.

You can catch my Facebook Live here as I demonstrate how to cook the perfect steak in real time. Cook along with me.

Tips

Have steak at room temperature
brush with oil or excess will burn in pan. You want it on the meat.
Preheat the pan
Don’t keep turning it over – do it once
Use your sense of smell as well as eyesight and sound
moisture on the top as the blood is rising to the top- a sign it’s time to turn over.
Reduce heat a little for the second side.
Feel your meat don’t cut it.
Leave the fat on – cut it off later if you must
Rest the meat – the heat goes in from the outside and the juices all go to the middle. If I was to cut it straight away, that’s when it might be tough and that’s when you lose the juices.
Sauce – boil wine will boil for at least a minute to evaporate off the alcohol, the red currant jelly is going to help it to thicken up.

How to cook the perfect steak