For everyone repeating the mantra of room-temperature steaks, it's a nice idea that has been rammed down our collective throats for years but in practice it's actually somewhat ineffective and makes far less difference that steps that are both easier to achieve and have more effect on the overall quality of your cooked steak.
First-off, think just how long it's realistically going to take to room-temperature. Because it's a lot longer than you think. A lot longer. We're talking hours here, not minutes. Many, many hours.
Then think about what difference it's likely to make. You've got to get the internal temperature of your steak to around 60º for it to be cooked medium. Will it really matter than you're bringing it up around 10-15º less by having it at room-temperature than straight-out-of-the-fridge-temperature?
In theory, the whole 'room-temperature' steaks idea is a nice one. We're promised a more even cook with better results from such a simple idea. In reality, bringing a steak up to room-temperature is both time-consuming and impractical. And it doesn't even make that much difference to the end result.
But if you are insistent on taking the steak out of the fridge before you cook it, why not use that time to do something that's actually going to do something useful and salt the steak while you're at it?
Crucially, you need to remove the steak from the fridge and salt it liberally with rock salt at least forty-five minutes before you plan on frying it. Anything less means the osmosis process behind the salting doesn't have time to work properly and you're more likely to be wasting all that moisture you've drawn out of the meat before it's had time to dissolve the salt and absorb back into the steak.
And given you've spent around an hour preparing your steak for cooking, why not give it some time to relax after you've cooked it? Any chef worth their salt ought to know that resting any meat after cooking makes more difference than almost any other stage of the process - and it's usually the simplest part to achieve as well.
But when all is said and done, between salting the steak before cooking and resting it when finished, everything else is pretty much personal preference. What type of pan you use and how hot you get it is entirely up to the person cooking the meat, as is how often it gets flipped, what you cook the steak in and whether to baste the meat towards the end of cooking or not.
First-off, think just how long it's realistically going to take to room-temperature. Because it's a lot longer than you think. A lot longer. We're talking hours here, not minutes. Many, many hours.
Then think about what difference it's likely to make. You've got to get the internal temperature of your steak to around 60º for it to be cooked medium. Will it really matter than you're bringing it up around 10-15º less by having it at room-temperature than straight-out-of-the-fridge-temperature?
In theory, the whole 'room-temperature' steaks idea is a nice one. We're promised a more even cook with better results from such a simple idea. In reality, bringing a steak up to room-temperature is both time-consuming and impractical. And it doesn't even make that much difference to the end result.
But if you are insistent on taking the steak out of the fridge before you cook it, why not use that time to do something that's actually going to do something useful and salt the steak while you're at it?
Crucially, you need to remove the steak from the fridge and salt it liberally with rock salt at least forty-five minutes before you plan on frying it. Anything less means the osmosis process behind the salting doesn't have time to work properly and you're more likely to be wasting all that moisture you've drawn out of the meat before it's had time to dissolve the salt and absorb back into the steak.
And given you've spent around an hour preparing your steak for cooking, why not give it some time to relax after you've cooked it? Any chef worth their salt ought to know that resting any meat after cooking makes more difference than almost any other stage of the process - and it's usually the simplest part to achieve as well.
But when all is said and done, between salting the steak before cooking and resting it when finished, everything else is pretty much personal preference. What type of pan you use and how hot you get it is entirely up to the person cooking the meat, as is how often it gets flipped, what you cook the steak in and whether to baste the meat towards the end of cooking or not.
