Steaks of Zion

Summertime really is the best time for male-type cooking. There are few male instincts deeper than cooking meat over a fire. But what to do when the weather turns a balmy 30 degrees and the wind and snow pushes any thoughts of bar-b-que literally out the window? What's a male-type cook to do?

Luckily, there's a perfect substitute right under your stove. It's the little-used broiler. This part of the oven is perfect for cooking a steak. You'll see why shortly.

There are only a few things you need to make a great steak. First, and probably most importantly, is to get a good steak. For this recipe, we're going to use the tried and true ribeye. I like the bone-in kind because it gives a little more flavor to the meat. I won't get into what other steaks you could use here, but I probably will in a future post.

So the first thing about picking out a good steak is the marbling. That's the white, fatty tissue you can see running throughout the steak that makes it look like marble. Hidden within that fat is a ton of flavor, juiciness, and tenderness. You want to pick a steak that has good marbling, but there is such a thing as *too much* marbling. If there's too much fat, it will be hard to find a good piece of meat on the steak. It's not a common problem, but I've seen a few ribeye's that were too fatty to be any good.

So after you've picked a good steak, the next thing you need to do is season it. If you're looking for some super-secret ingredient here, you're going to be a little disappointed. The reason is because I only use 2 seasonings for a steak. Freshly ground pepper and kosher or sea salt. The reason for using freshly ground pepper is because pepper looses its flavor the longer it's been ground. That's because the heat of pepper is in the oil. Once you release that oil by grinding it, it starts to deteriorate and loose its flavor. Freshly ground pepper is actually not as spicy hot as pre-ground pepper, (because it releases more flavor, not just heat, right when you grind it. The other kind of pepper just has heat, most of the flavor is lost,) so you can let loose on the steak with the freshly ground peppercorns. It also makes it easier to scrape off the steak for those who don't like so much pepper, once it's done, because the pepper is in bigger chunks than the store-bought pepper.


The next thing you want to add is salt. The reason I use sea salt or kosher salt is twofold. First, I think it tastes "saltier" than tale salt. I mean it's a little stronger or more flavorful than table salt. The second reason is because salt soaks up moisture, or juiciness, from the steak. If you put table salt on it, it will draw more of the juice out of the steak, which makes the steak dryer. The big crystals of kosher salt are spread out farther apart than the fine crystals of table salt are, so there is less wicking of the moisture out of the steak. I know this sounds like a small problem, and most people can't tell the difference, but we're not most people, now are we?

So you want to be generous in the pepper and salt. If I had to measure it, I'd say at least a teaspoon per side of the steak of both spices. Probably more. It's ok if you cover it up too much, because you can scrape it off when it's done, if it's too hot or salty. The bigger chunks make it easy to do that.

Now comes the part you've been waiting for. Cooking the steak under the broiler. One of the keys to a good steak is heat. Not just a little heat, but hot, hot, heat. You want to start the broiler before you do anything else-- even before pulling the steaks out of the fridge. You need it to get as hot as it possibly can before trying to use it to cook. Again, it's all about the moisture. The hotter you can cook it, the juicier it is inside the steak. This is because the outside of the steak sears shut and the moisture can't escape as easily. Another thing a good steak has is carmelized blackened bits on the outside, and a nice pink center. You can't get that without having the heat hot enough. If the temp is too low, either the center will be pink, but the outside won't sear and blacken a little, or the outside will be blackened, (but won't sear the juice in) and the center won't be pink. I "ruined" a good set of steaks just thing week because of this. I cooked it super hot, alright, but left the steaks in the oven to stay warm, while I finished the pasta I was making. Bad idea. They just kept right on cooking and loosing juice, and getting tougher, and drying out. Don't start the steaks untill everything else is almost done. I hadn't even started the pasta sauce when I put the steaks in. That was my first misteak. Or mistake. Whatever. :)

So now you have the hot, hot, heat of the broiler all ready to go. You know that gray, rectangle pan that's in the bottom drawer of your stove that hasn't seen the light of day since, well, ever? It's called a broiler pan. It's specifically made to broil things like steak. See how there's a bottom and a top to it? The top of the pan is bumpy, or has little hills and valleys, and has long, rectangle holes in the bottom of little valleys. This is to allow hot air to circulate around the meat as it cooks. As the meat sits on the pan, it's only touching at the "peaks of the little hills," which leaves a little space of air under the meat in the "valleys". This helps the meat to cook faster, and dryer, because the slots in the valleys allows the juice it does release to drain into the pan below. This dry cooking style allows the black bits to carmelize instead of stew in the juice, making tasty blask bits all over the steak, which is what we're looking for. This does create a little problem because the bottom pan is hot too, and when hot juice hits a hot pan, it makes a mess to clean up. So I just put a sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom pan to catch the juice and you can just throw it away later.

So now we have our seasoned steak resting on top of the broiler pan. You want to put the oven rack at the very top level, or the second to highest level, before you start the oven. You don't want the steak so close to the fire or heating element that it's touching it, but you want it to be close. That's because we want it to be as hot as possible, and the closer you are to the fire, the hotter it is. So put the steak on the broiler pan, and slide the broiler pan onto the top rack of the oven. You can leave the door to the oven open just a little so you can see what's happening. Almost immediately, the steak starts to sizzle and complain about the heat. That's good. If it doesn't start sizzling right away, your fire isn't hot enough and next time you need to let it preheat a little longer. The steak will cook with the oven door open or shut, because it's so close to the fire, so leave it open so you can see when it's time to turn it over. Usually it's about 7 minutes for the first side, and 5 minutes for the second. You can tell it's ready to turn over when there are a lot of black bits forming and the entire top and sides of the steak are brown. Grab an oven mitt or hotpad and quickly pull out the oven rack, flip the steak with tongs, NOT A FORK, and shove the rack back into the oven. You should have already salt and peppered the back side, and we want to keep the steak cooking and not loose it's temperature, so that's why you need to flip it fast. We dont' use a fork because if we poke a hole in the steak, it will start to loose juice, even if it's just a little.

After the flip you only need to broil it for about 5 minutes on this side. That's because this side has already been cooking a little bit because of the hill/valley thing in the broiler pan we talked about already. If you ate this steak right now, it would be as good as any you've ever had on a bbq grill, or nearly any restaurant. BUT, there's still one thing more you can do.

You know that part I said earlier about only seasoning the steak with salt and pepper? That there aren't any secret ingredients? Well, that's not entirely true. It's mostly true, because the secret ingredient isn't a spice or herb. It's an oil. Extra virgin olive oil to be precise. So after the 5 minutes is up, and the steak is all done and piping hot, you're going to cover the steak in olive oil. Not so much that it's dripping all over the place. Just enough to completely cover the meat and then just a touch more. Put it back under the heat for another 30 seconds to heat up the oil. Now you're done. Serve it with garlic herb pasta and steamed green beans or broccoli. It will bring out the beast in you.