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Make sure the steaks are dry...no moisture/blood/marinade, etc. Then season as you wish and lightly rub or spray with olive oil. You'll get a nice caramelized brown crust even on a steak cooked rare. Wet steaks are more apt to stick to the grill and do not brown up well. Same goes if you're browning meat in a pan on the stove, pat it dry with a paper towel, season, and presto, brown crust. Makes a stew or roast so much better in flavor and color.
Thank you, sir, for your helpful advice. While I haven't had a problem with my steaks sticking to the grill, I've been on a quest for the perfect crusted steak and patting the steaks dry is something I have not done.
You'll actually carmelize(crust) more with no oil, from my experiences.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cosmicrowbar
You'll get a nice caramelized brown crust even on a steak cooked rare.
Hey, y'all. According to the scientific research of Nathan Myervohld and Co in last year's celebrated "Modernist Cuisine," The tasty brown crust that forms on meat is actually formed by the Maillard reaction, not by caramelization. We've all been using that word wrong. Caramelization is what happens to high sugar foods like carrots and onions brown when the sugars in them reach a high temperature, such as by sauteing. Caramelization creates a few primal flavor notes, whereas the Maillard reaction creates over 100 complex flavor notes, which is why it is so appealing to our senses of smell and taste.
His team recommends scraping the grill glean and them wiping on a thin film of oil using a folded paper towel to allow good release, rather than oiling up the whole steak, which basically just gives you an oily steak.
But in the biggest turnover of conventional beliefs and practice, his team found that the juiciest, most uniformly cooked steaks are made by turning the meat very frequently... every 15 - 30 seconds or so... using a spatula or tongs to avoid breaking the crust. The name of the game turns out to be keeping as much of the total surface as hot as possible. That will cook the center to the doneness you prefer with the least loss of juices of any method.
But definitely allow the meat it to rest for 10 - 15 minutes after removing it from the heat before cutting into it. In one final piece of research, they found that the real reason this works is that the juices thicken slightly as they cool, so they tend to stay in the meat rather than leaking out.
flip the steak every 15 seconds.....lol im going to try that at the next bbq ,,,,see what someone says,,,or throws at me..
I've tried it with steaks, and with burgers, and it really works. The meat cooks faster and more evenly. It definitely takes more attention from the cook, which is the only downside I can see to it. BTW, the same goes for cooking on a plancha or in a skillet. Oh, and every 30 seconds is plenty often enough as far as I'm concerned. Even once a minute is better than the old and now obsolete "cook it halfway then turn it, once only" instructions I originally learned, as did most cooks i know.
I do recommend y'all check out the "Modernist Cuisine" cookbooks if you can. It's about 45 pounds of cookbook, and list price is something like $650, but I got lucky. My local library bought two sets, one for circulation and one for reference, and I've worked my way through the whole thing twice.
Much of it I'll never use, because I'm not personally interested in the high-tech world of creating spheres from liquids, or aerosol essences or foams, or any of the signature El Bulli tricks. But their hardcore research into how everyday cooking actually works is fascinating, and studying it has changed the way I cook.
Plus, the photographs are astonishing... such as the Weber kettle and charcoal fire and food that are cut in half so you can see exactly how it works. And the pressure cooker, and the Ronco chicken rotisserie, and the commercial steam oven, and more... all cut in half to show you exactly what is going on inside.
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