HOW TO: make the best fucking steak

Alternate titles for this post:

How to make a perfect steak
How to get a restaurant-quality steak at home
Put away the steak sauce

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This is a 10 oz New York Strip Steak that cost six dollars at the grocery store. One way to look at that is that you could spend anywhere from $30 to $50 for a NY Strip at a steakhouse. Another way to look at it is that you can spend six dollars getting a "value meal" at McDonalds.

First step, getting the steak out of the fridge and letting it come closer to room temperature sitting on the counter. I start by rubbing the whole steak in olive oil, a little salt and pepper. Also, right away I get my pan up a hair past medium on the stove.

While that's resting, I start cooking the asparagus. I'm using frozen spears, turn the oven to 425, cover in a drizzle of olive oil, bit of balsamic, salt, pepper, and whatever else seasonings seems appropriate. Goes in the oven.

Once my pan is hot and pour some more olive oil in the pan, and in goes the steak.


Boom! Now we're cooking. Literally. I don't touch it for 4-5 minutes. What's neat is that by looking at the side, you can see it cooking. My goal is to get that juicy, bright pink medium center with a nice crust on the outside. If that's not your goal, you could do a variety of other things, including finishing it in the oven, under the broiler, whatever--I believe what Alton Brown says, "If you like your meat well-done, you don't like meat."

So I flip it over, and you can see in this next picture how you can see the meat has cooked through on the (now) top side. After I flip I like to give the side that was just cooking and crusting a nice coating of seasoning salt and montreal steak seasoning.


The way it works out, is that by the time I get a good crust on the outsides, it's just about cooked how I want it. For fun, I put about half a pat of butter in the pan, and let the meat cook in the butter for 30 seconds, and then repeat on the other side. Just for that final color and taste.

Then I remove it to the plate. SUPER IMPORTANT STEP: I let it rest for at least 5 minutes. It works out that the asparagus has been in the oven for about 15 minutes now, so it's almost done.

So I take a little bit of white wine, pour it in the now empty steak pan to deglaze it, and add the asparagus. I let that cook for a minute or two, to absorb some nice flavor and color of the wine and steak drippings.


Now it's time for plating. Here comes the money shot.


Boom! Look at that crust. Look at the pink center. But wait there's more. Let's cut that bad boy open. Here's what it looks like, halfway though the meal.


Juicy, pink center and crust on the outside. Asparagus that tastes delicious and provides a nice, earthy contrast to the meat. So good. I did the same treatment last week with a 12 oz ribeye and they both turned out perfect.