The Perfect Steak: Hints, Tips and Cooking Tricks

Like poaching an egg or roasting potatoes, when it comes to preparing steak everyone has their very own failsafe method. But is there a right or wrong way to cook a delicious piece of sirloin, ribeye or fillet? Here on the My Appliances blog today, we’re sharing with you some of the top tips we’ve gleaned from around the Internet to help you get steak preparation down to an absolute fine art. Read on…

Look for Thickness – In an article over on the Daily Mail website, head chef at M Restaurant and Grill, Jared McCarroll, advises you to judge a steak’s quality by how thick it is, not how heavy it is. In short, the more fat it contains the juicier it’ll be after cooking.

Keep this in mind and look out for the thickest piece the next time you’re at your local butcher’s or in the meat aisle of the supermarket. As well as keeping your eyes peeled for a fairly hefty piece of meat like this, make sure you generally buy the most expensive cut of meat you can afford – trust us when we say it’ll be worth it!

Temperature is Key – Another tip via Jared McCarroll is this: check the temperature of the meat before you start preparing your meal.

He tells The Mail: “One of the most important steps in cooking the perfect steak that is often forgotten or never thought about, is to allow your meat to come to room temperature first. This will shorten the cooking time and help to prevent grey rings from happening.”

Jared says your steak should have a fine texture and be well-marbled (which basically means it has visible veins of fat running throughout), as well as being firm to the touch. Look for steaks which are one to 1.5-inches thick. Why? According to Jared, a thinner cut steak is more likely to get dry quicker – and no one wants that!

Consider Cooking Times – So, how do you go about cooking a steak? Of course, that depends how you like it in the first place. As a general guide, if you’re cooking it blue – based on a sirloin steak that’s round 2cm thick – go for one minute on each side; the steak should feel spongy under your fingertips. And you can expect a piece of meat that’s dark in colour if you like your steak this way.

For a rare steak, try cooking it for around one and a half minutes on either side. The meat will still feel soft and springy but you’ll notice it’s now dark red with some juice, too – delicious.

If your preferred method of cooking steak is medium rare, go for two minutes’ cooking time on either side, or two and a half minutes either side for a medium steak. If cooked this way, your steak will feel firm and mostly cooked through but with a little pink in the middle.

Love a well-done steak? Your steak, if cooked correctly, should have a firm and bouncy feel with hardly any pink to the meat. If this is how you like it, cook the meat for four to five minutes on either side – and enjoy!

How do you like your steak? Let us know by commenting on this blog, below.