Recipe for beef steak at home. How to cook meat steak

Juicy beef steak is a classic of the genre. However, cooking at home perfect steak pretty hard. The likelihood that a ten-centimeter piece of beef will be evenly fried, will not lose juiciness and taste excellent is not so great. How to fry a beef steak in a pan? You can't do without knowing some tricks from real chefs.

Cooking

So, in order to cook a steak, you will need the following ingredients:

Marbled beef (sliced steak or cut from the thigh).
A little sunflower and butter.
Herbs, spices and seasonings to taste.

How to cook delicious steak beef in a pan? First you need to choose the right meat. Better choose marbled beef- With big amount patches of fat. This type of meat is ideal for steaks. Cooked meat will have great taste and retain its juiciness.

You can take frozen beef, only before use you need to keep it in the refrigerator for a day. Slowly thawed meat perfectly retains all the juices and will be tender. At the same time, steam beef is not the best option, since the meat must be ripe. And it matures for at least two days. Then the fibers will be softer, and the steak will be correspondingly tastier.

How to cook

We take a cut of meat and cut off a piece from three to five centimeters thick. Beef is the type of meat that can have several degrees of doneness. If you want to cook medium steak degree of roasting, then cut off a piece of meat with a thickness of 3.5 - 4 centimeters.

At the same time, there is one caveat: meat should be cut strictly across the fibers. Cut off in one motion so that the surface of the piece is as even as possible. To do this, you need to have a large and sharp knife at hand.

How to marinate beef steak? We take a piece of meat, water it vegetable oil. Then sprinkle on both sides with pepper and seasonings to taste. It is sprinkled, not rubbed. Otherwise, the taste of beef will be “drowned out” by spices.

How to fry

Ideally, the steak is grilled. However, for lack of a better way, we will cook on the stove. How to fry a beef steak in a pan and achieve the perfect result? Let's start with a frying pan. It must have a thick bottom. Cast iron or aluminum is best.

If you cook in a thin frying pan, then the meat will not be fried - only stewed. So, we take a suitable frying pan, heat it at maximum heat and fry for four minutes. Then turn over to the other side and fry again for three to four minutes.

Putting a piece of meat on hot pan or baking sheet. Then we send it to the oven preheated to 150 degrees. Or alternatively, we continue to fry it in the same pan. However, in this case, you can overcook the meat.

It's time to salt the meat. To do this, first dilute in a bottle with hot water salt. You can also add herbs there. For example, rosemary and thyme are the perfect complement to the taste of beef. We continue to fry. At the same time, from time to time we grease the steak with the prepared solution.

How long does it take to fry the meat in a pan and not dry it? A medium-thick steak should be pan-fried for about 16 minutes. Remember that eight has already passed. Therefore, fry for another eight minutes, turning a piece of meat every two minutes to the other side.

Remove the meat from the heat, transfer to a warm container and leave for 5 - 10 minutes. During this time, the juice is evenly distributed throughout the piece of meat. We shift the meat and serve to the guests. Best used as a side dish light vegetable lettuce or greens.

You can also serve beef with creamy, mushroom or pesto sauce (greens and butter, whipped with a blender). Complements and reveals the taste grilled steak glass of red dry wine from beef.

Bon appetit!

A steak is a piece of meat that has been pan-fried or grilled until golden brown. But the pulp taken from any part is not suitable for him. beef carcass. It is prepared only from beef of the highest grade.

For him choose a fillet with the minimum amount connective tissue. Such qualities are tenderloin only. It is located inside the carcass and is not involved in muscle movement. Represents big piece teardrop-shaped fillet.

The flesh of the brisket is very soft, without veins, so it cooks quickly.

In extreme cases, you can use thin and thick edges for the steak. But this meat does not always meet the culinary requirements.

Only the meat of young bulls, whose age does not exceed one and a half years, is suitable for steak.

Also, you can not use fresh meat. It must lie in freezer at least twenty days. During this time, a fermentation process takes place in it, due to which the pulp fibers soften. Steak from such meat is soft and juicy.

Beef steak in a pan: the subtleties of cooking

The meat on the steak is cut into large pieces across the fibers. During heat treatment the heat passes through the fillet faster, and it warms up evenly.
Frozen pulp is thawed in the refrigerator for several hours. You can not defrost meat in the microwave, as it is violated temperature regime and the steak cooks unevenly.
Steaks are cut into equal pieces with a thickness of at least 2.5 cm. Such meat in ready-made stays juicy. And thin layers of meat are easy to overcook. But do not make steaks more than 5 cm, as they are difficult to bring to readiness.
It is not necessary to beat the steaks (with rare exceptions), because the juice will flow out of the meat ahead of time and the steak will turn out dry.
In order for the finished steak to turn out to be the correct shape, raw fillet you need to tie it with a harsh thread and fry it in this form. After cooking, the thread is removed.
Fry the steak in a hot cast-iron (or with a thick bottom) frying pan at maximum heat. A golden crust should quickly form on the steak, which will “seal” the juice inside the meat. If this does not happen, the juice flows out and the meat is stewed. For the same reason, the steak should not be touched, pressed with a fork or knife.

There are several degrees of roasting a steak:

Extra-rare. The steak is quickly fried on the grill, warming up to 49 °. It comes out almost raw.
With blood. The steak is cooked for 2-3 minutes at 200°. It has a fried crust, red, not fried meat inside, red juice.
medium rare. It is cooked for 5 minutes at 190-200°. It has uncooked meat and pink colored juice.
Medium rare. Cook for 7 minutes at 180°. It turns out medium-rare, with light pink juice.
almost done. Cook for 9 minutes at 180°. It has soft meat with clear juice.
fried. It cooks for 8-9 minutes at 180°. Bring to readiness in the oven. He has almost no juice.
deep fried. Ready for over 9 minutes. It has a golden brown crust and no juice at all.

Beef steak in a pan: a classic recipe

Ingredients:

tenderloin;
salt;
black pepper;
vegetable oil.

Cooking method

Wash the cutout. Dry well with a towel. Cut off the head - the thickened part of the tenderloin. Save it for another meal. Remove the film from the rest of the fillet, cutting it off with a knife near the meat itself.
Cut across the grain into pieces up to 3 cm wide.
Lay them flat. Give them a round shape, tying a thread for reliability.
Heat up the pan. Using a brush, brush one side of the steaks with oil. Place them in the pan with the greased side down.
On big fire fry until golden brown. Brush the top of the steak with oil. Turn over carefully. Bring to readiness. And now salt it. Remove the ropes.
Leave it in the pan for 3-4 minutes so that it reaches the condition. You can also transfer to a plate and cover with foil for a few minutes.
Serve with any side dish. Steak is delicious with fresh or roasted vegetables.

Note: If you're grilling the steak right away with the vegetables, you'll need to cook them ahead of time. That is, wash, clean and dry. Place the steaks and vegetables in the skillet at a distance from each other so that they do not touch.

Beef steak in a frying pan

Ingredients:

tenderloin;
mustard;
salt and pepper - to taste;
vegetable oil.

Cooking method

Wash the cutout. Pat dry with a towel.
Cut off a wide slice.
Lay it cut side up on a cutting board that has been dampened with water. cover cling film. Beat with a special hammer into a thin pancake.
Salt. Lubricate half the fillet with mustard. Cover with the second piece. Give the steak a round shape. Pepper.
Heat the pan until a light smoke appears. Lubricate it with oil. Place the steak carefully. Fry over high heat for half a minute.
Lubricate the top side with oil. Flip. Cook for another half minute. Pepper and salt.
Serve with any side dish you need to prepare ahead of time.

Note to the owner

Steak can be cooked with different herbs. To do this, grease a slice of meat with oil and rub with chopped herbs. Hold for a few minutes. Place the steak in a hot skillet and fry until golden brown.
To determine readiness, there is unusual way. Press down on the browned steak with your finger. If it is very soft, like a cheek, then the meat is still raw. If, when pressed, there is an association with the chin, then the meat has reached medium rare. When the meat becomes elastic, like a forehead, then the frying is complete. But such a steak will turn out tough and dry.

Text: Egor Kaznacheev
Photo: Nikolai Gulakov

Our expert

Kirill Martynenko, chef at Torro Grill Moscow restaurants.

"We will make the best-selling world steak- ribeye,” said Kirill Martynenko, our expert, head chef of Moscow's Torro Grill restaurants, opening the refrigerator. "It's a classic of the genre because when people say 'steak', they usually mean ribeye."

“Frying thick steaks at home is difficult. Kirill continues. - There is a high risk that a 7-10 cm piece will not be fried, or will be fried unevenly, or completely overcooked. Chefs use meat thermometers and other tricks to determine readiness. An inexperienced person will not be able to determine the degree of readiness of meat by eye. But if you still decide to cook a big steak, follow our advice, and then put it in the oven to finish cooking.

Shopping list

“You need to take either an already cut steak, or a special cut from the supracostal part of the carcass,” Kirill admonishes. At the same time, the beef should be marbled (with a large amount of white fat inclusions - they give the meat a taste) and in no case frozen. It's also not worth overpaying for steam beef. “In order for the fibers to become softer, the meat must mature for at least two weeks. The ideal temperature inside the refrigerator is zero degrees,” the expert assures. Choose Australian or American meat. The local bulls are bred specifically for steaks and fattened with wheat and corn, which makes the tenderloin marbled (read: high-quality and tasty). It is unlikely that you will be able to find out the age of the purchased animal, but know that the bull must be slaughtered at the 12-20th month of life.

● Sunflower and butter

● Black pepper and salt

● Greens (at your discretion)

● Washing powder

You don’t need it for a steak, we just decided to remind you so that you don’t forget again.

How to do

“Beef is the only meat that has several degrees of doneness, and they can be clearly controlled,” says the expert. We decided not to go into the professional subtleties of chefs and, showing an undemanding, but human taste, asked for a medium-rare steak (cooks call it medium). Here is an instruction for repeating the feat of Cyril.

Take a look at the cut and decide how much meat you want to eat. “In order for the roast to be of high quality, the steak should be no thinner than three and no thicker than ten centimeters,” says Kirill. The standard thickness of a steak ranges from 3–5 cm (our piece has 3.5 cm).

Cut off. “So that the meat does not lose juice and taste qualities, and the cooking process was not delayed, it must be cut strictly across the fibers, ”our consultant warns. Finally sharpen your knives and take the bigger one. You need to cut the steak in one motion: only in this way the surface of the piece will be almost perfectly even. This is necessary for the same as cutting across the fibers.

Pepper a piece on both sides. However, do not try to rub each peppercorn into the meat, as this will only drown out the taste of the beef. The same can be said about spices in general, so they, with the exception of pepper, are not used at all.

We grilled a steak. Since you have a house instead of him gas stove(ha ha!), take a thick (ideally special for steaks) cast-iron or aluminum frying pan and, having heated it well, put the steak in. "If you use thin frying pan, a piece of meat will cool it down, and the meat will not be fried, but boiled in own juice", says the expert. Grill the steak for 4 minutes on each side.

Ready? Now transfer the piece to a hot (but not hot) frying pan or baking sheet and place in an oven preheated to 150 ° C. However, you can simply reduce the heat and continue to fry the meat in the same pan. In this case, be careful: you will not burn the steak, but there is a risk of frying it too much.

Salt the steak. “Do not be too lazy to dilute the salt in boiling water in advance. Dissolved salt is better than loose salt, it will soak the meat. In addition, herbs can be brewed in a bottle of water and salt. Like thyme and rosemary, for example,” the chef winks.

Periodically brush the steak with melted butter in the microwave. “It will make the crust softer,” the expert explains. Add finely chopped herbs to the oil. However, this is optional.

Steak of standard thickness on fire should be kept for about 16 minutes. Eight of them have already passed. Spend the remaining eight on turning the meat every two minutes.

“After removing from heat, the steak should lie in the pan for 2-3 minutes. This is a kind of timeout, during which the juice is evenly dispersed throughout the piece,” says Kirill.
“Since meat is a solid meal, and a steak is a heavy piece, a light side dish is needed,” the expert argues. - Lettuce leaves and grilled vegetables (or just vegetables) are suitable. Classic in the form mashed potatoes- the option is heavier, but it will fit if you are very hungry.

Sauces
“Best for steak creamy sauces, such as mushroom, as well as pepper or cooked on the basis of tomatoes. More good addition- pesto sauces, when greens and oil are mixed in a blender,” Kirill says and warns that sweet and sour sauces, no matter how much you love them, they categorically do not combine with beef.

Beverages
“A win-win combination is a steak with dry red wine. They optimally reveal each other's taste,” says our consultant. However, if you do not favor wine, you can stop at good beer. Preferably on varieties with bright taste(ideally - a cry or ale). For those driving, offer to limit yourself to a glass of water (can be carbonated) or tomato juice. Other drinks are dangerous because they will interrupt the taste of meat.

What is a steak?

Steak is whole piece meat of sufficient quality that it can be quickly grilled or pan-fried until cooked. Steak can be made from any meat: beef, pork, lamb, game and more, but most often steak is beef. Often this meat is from the premium part of the carcass - the back or lower back, and these parts are called premium because the meat in them is softer and rich in fatty layers. With the advent quality meat It became possible to cook steaks from the so-called alternative parts of meat breeds: shoulder blades, shoulders, legs or flanks.

across the fibers

Probably, you often heard that steaks are cut across the fibers. What does this mean in general? The fact is that muscles are made up of fibers that are parallel to each other. One muscle fiber is no thicker than a human hair, but the fibers are collected in bundles that are already clearly visible to the naked eye. Muscles are designed in such a way that it is very difficult to break the fibers along, and it is easy to separate individual bundles of fibers or fibers from each other. So it turns out that if you cut the meat in such a way that the length of the fibers in the piece is minimal, then it will be easier to chew.

For example, the longissimus dorsi and spinalis dorsi, which form the basis of the dorsal portion known as the ribeye, are cut across the spine because these muscles have fibers directed along the spine.

Excerpt

So, we cut out a piece of meat, or bought a pre-cut one. What's next? Now is the time to talk about endurance. No, not about the stamina and self-control in the face of the temptation to eat meat, but about the fact that meat greatly benefits from keeping it at a certain humidity and temperature for quite a long time. Dry aging, that is, aging uncovered meat in the refrigerator, noticeably changes the taste of beef (to a lesser extent, pork or lamb), I’ve already talked about this. But at home, it is difficult to do the right dry exposure: a regular household refrigerator does not allow you to control humidity.

Still endure steak at home you can: for this you need to sprinkle it on all sides with the usual table salt and leave on a wire rack in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. What it does: The salt will draw some of the moisture out of the meat, leaving the surface dry and ready to be fried; fermentation will slightly change the taste of the meat, not as dramatically as in 2 weeks, but still. Salt will suppress the activity of bacteria on the surface of the piece, and in 2-3 days the meat will not spoil, but it is not worth keeping the steak longer in this way.

Fire

As I said, a steak is a quickly cooked piece of meat. Depending on the thickness, size and quality of the piece, a steak can be cooked from 5 minutes to almost an hour. But one way or another, the main condition for cooking a steak is a strong fire, whether it be hot coals on the grill or a well-heated pan. Strong heat is needed to make the crust, the crispy fried layer whose aroma and crunch we associate with taste. fried meat. Here, as with all other food: we are pleased with the contrasts in taste - in this case the contrast between the half-baked steak on the inside and the crisp, fragrant outside.

In order for a crust to form, the so-called Maillard reaction must begin, chemical reaction between proteins and sugars, as a result of which the meat turns brown and the characteristic aroma of fried meat appears. This reaction starts at a temperature of at least 120 degrees, and for this reason, the steak must be dry when placed on the grill or pan, because the evaporation of moisture takes too much energy, the pan will cool down, and the appearance wet steak will be boiled, not fried.

If you took my advice and kept the steak in the refrigerator, you can immediately put it on a heated grill or pan, after brushing it a little with vegetable oil. If the steak is fresh from the store or vacuum bag, you must first dry it with a napkin.

Fry the steak over high heat until a crust forms over the entire surface, but the meat does not begin to burn. If the steak is done at this point, great, you can remove it from the heat. If the steak is large and thick, it must be brought to readiness by wrapping it in foil and moving it to the less hot side of the grill, or by placing the pan with the steak in an oven preheated to 180 degrees.

Temperature and readiness

You need to check the temperature inside the steak with a kitchen thermometer, preferably an electronic one (it is more accurate). Well known trick with fingers curled is biased and generally does not work: not only are different steaks not the same to the touch, but also everyone’s hands are different, and so is tactile sensitivity. Chefs are cunning when they say that they can accurately determine the readiness of a steak in this way, well, or only if dozens of the same steaks are cooked daily.

Despite the fact that the meat looks rather rough, from the point of view of cooking it is a delicate substance. In the range of 50 to 70 degrees, that is only 20 degrees, it goes through many changes from almost raw to completely shrunken and dried up. The ideal core temperature for most steaks is 54–56 degrees.

Approximate temperatures for different degrees of doneness of beef steaks

Bleu - 50 (raw)

Medium rare - 54

Medium well - 60

Well done - 64 (fully done)

What does it mean, the temperature inside? When a steak is grilled, the outer layer is subject to extreme heat and the meat on the outside is more likely to be overcooked. The laws of physics were created at least in order to comply with them - meat has a certain thermal conductivity, and heat penetrates into the thickness of the meat gradually, from the edge to the center. When we talk about the temperature inside, we are talking about the coldest part inside the piece, that is, as far as possible from the surface. But even here there are subtleties: if there is a layer of fat on the side of the steak lying on the grill, then from this side the heat will penetrate more slowly: the thermal conductivity of fat is lower than that of meat.

You can make sure that the meat is perfectly cooked not only in the center of the steak, but throughout its entire thickness. Unfortunately, without special equipment you can't do it - for this you need an immersion thermostat, colloquially known as sous-vide, a device that allows you to cook at a constant low temperature.

How often to turn?

You can hear arguments about how often you need to turn a steak during frying: there is an opinion that the less often the better. And here physics comes to the rescue: the more often the steak is turned over, the faster and more evenly it will cook. Faster because the side farthest from the grill will not have time to cool too much, but more evenly because the side lying on the grill will not overheat too much.

Rest before serving

When the temperature in the center of the steak remains a couple of degrees to the desired one, it must be removed from the heat (pull it out of the foil or from the oven) and leave it alone on a plate for a few minutes. It is customary to call it rest, but in reality it steak time will come to readiness by inertia, and the fibers that have contracted from the extreme heat will relax and will not actively squeeze the juices as soon as the steak is cut.

To salt or not to salt - that is the question

Another reason for controversy among steak lovers: when should a steak be salted - before or after cooking? You can immediately before frying, you can after, you can in the process. The main thing is not in advance, because the salted piece raw meat literally in a minute or two it will become wet and not ready for browning. If the steak was aged in the refrigerator, as described above, then during cooking it can not be salted at all.

If this is not enough

Steak is best grilled open fire, on the coals, the temperature is higher there, and among other things, the steak will be more aromatic - smoke, that's all. In the pan, you can use this trick: after the initial frying from all sides, throw a heavy piece of butter into the pan, melt it to make it sizzle, tilt the pan slightly and, scooping up the boiling oil with a spoon, pour it over the steak. Not only will the steak brown faster, but it will also be enriched with the aroma of fried butter. This should be done when the steak is almost ready, so as not to burn the oil to blackness and bitterness. Instead of butter, melted beef tallow is also suitable.

Conclusion

Properly cooking a steak at home is not only easy, but even simple. But you still have to buy a thermometer.

In the summer of 2014, on the instructions of the chef and co-owner of the Delicatessen and Yunost restaurants, Ivan Shishkin, Petya Pavlovich went to study at the American Butcher School in New York. Since then, in the kitchen of the Yunost cafe, he has been carving meat, dressing ribs and steaks, preparing pastrami, roast beef, sausages from the rest, smoked ham and jerks. Since March 2016, Petya has been running a funny and smart blog

Juicy beef steaks are served in every restaurant today, and they have firmly entered the diet of the modern consumer. But not everyone can afford to visit a restaurant every day to enjoy their taste. Moreover, to cook it at home, at first glance, it may not seem surprising. But sometimes cooking a steak, even for a professional, can be quite difficult task. The fact is that if you fry too fast, small pieces of meat can become tough and dry, and if you take more large piece, then it may simply remain raw inside.

If you want to learn how to properly cook a steak, and you are new to this business, then we recommend that you use a frying pan, which will allow you to more correctly control the temperature.

Choosing the right meat for beef steak

To get a juicy and evenly fried steak as a result, you need to choose the right meat. Today at butcher shops sell ready-made, properly cut pieces of meat that allow you to get delicious steak even if you make a little mistake with the roasting.

When choosing meat for a steak, first of all, you need to pay attention to the fact that the fat is evenly distributed over the meat. The thickness of the piece of meat should be 2.5 cm.

Take the steak meat out of the fridge ahead of time.

Do not use cold meat to cook steak. It must be taken out of the refrigerator in advance so that the meat can warm up to room temperature. Remove excess moisture from the meat with a paper towel.

Brush the steaks with olive oil

IN a small amount of olive oil Sprinkle salt generously and mix well. Brush the meat pieces on both sides with a silicone brush.

Checking the heat level of the steak pan

Place a frying pan on the stove and heat it well over high heat. Once you feel the pan is well heated, turn the heat down to above medium. To check the heat level of the pan, we recommend dropping a little water into it. She should instantly gather into a droplet and run around the pan.

Fry beef steaks on one side

So, the pan is warmed up, let's proceed to the main thing - frying the meat.

For a medium-rare steak, dip the pieces of meat into the skillet and sear them on one side for 1 minute.

Fry the steaks on the other side

Gently flip the pieces of meat, preferably with special tongs, and fry them on the other side for another 1 minute.

Repeat the process of frying the steak

At this stage, reduce the heat to medium, and turn the pieces of meat over again. Now fry them for another 2 minutes on both sides.

You can check the readiness of steaks in the following way. Press with your fingertip on a piece of meat - it should be pliable and soft.

Remove the skillet from the heat and cover with a lid. 3-4 minutes are enough for the pieces of meat to evenly absorb the juice, which will make them tender and juicy.

Serving beef steak cooked in a pan

Serve steaks on a warm plate, which will allow him to keep his heat until the end of the meal. You can serve green salad as a side dish.

The degree of doneness of the steak

Rare steak - 2 minutes on each side. Rest time - 6 minutes.
Medium rare steak - 2.5 minutes per side. Resting time for steaks is 5 minutes.
Medium-rare steak (medium) - frying for 3 minutes on each side. Rest time - 4 minutes.
Well done steak - 4.5 minutes per side. Rest time - 1 minute.

And do not despair if the first time you did not manage to achieve the level of roasting and juiciness of the steak, as you would like. It's all about practice. To make your job easier, you can use a meat thermometer in the early stages.

Cooking Tricks for Cooking Steak

If you prefer juicy steaks that just melt in your mouth, you can also use the following culinary trick. When the steak rests after frying in a pan, it can be transferred to a baking dish, put a piece of butter on the steaks, cover with food foil and send to rest in a warm place for 5 minutes. Then season it with a mixture of black ground peppers and serve on a warm plate. The juiciness of this steak is guaranteed.

You already know how to fry a beef steak in a grill pan. And now you just have to surprise your family and serve them your culinary creation for dinner.

Bon appetit!!!