How to Cook the Perfect Steak

Cooking the perfect steak is not rocket science but there are certain steps that do add to the success of it. I personally like a stripe loin or a rib steak. My theory about buying the best cuts of steak is that I would rather eat a smaller piece of a really good quality steak than eating a big piece of tough not so good quality steak. That being said- the preparation that I outline here is good for any cut of steak. I have even had great success with flank steak, which is a less expensive cut of beef, but it has a lot of flavors.

If you have time either marinate the steaks for a couple of hours before or when I am organized, I will do it the night before. The 3 ingredients that make up an ideal marinade are:

· Steak rub or spice blend- a few of my favorites are Acadian Coast Steak Rub, Loire Valley Living, Beijing Broth Builder

· Soy sauce or substitute e.g. Tamara Sauce, or Worchester sauce as these will help to break down the enzymes in the steak, making it more tender

· Olive oil or avocado oil as this helps to transport the flavor of the spice blends into the meat.

To prepare the steaks cover the steak in a light layer of the soy sauce or Worchester sauce, add a drizzle of oil and sprinkle on a generous amount of the Posh Nosh spice blend. Repeat on the other side. If overnight or many hours ahead of time cover and put in the fridge.

A trick I learned many years ago from a Presidents Choice cookbook was that you want to bring the steak,-and this applies to a roast also- is that you want to bring the meat to room temperature. What this means for me is to take the meat out of the fridge approximately one hour prior to cooking.

I am not a big BBQ person unless it is the proper charcoal kind, so I like to cook my steak in a frying pan.

I place the frying pan on fairly high heat to start the cooking process, and I melt a good amount of butter to the pan, don’t be shy, as with this will be part of the juices that you end on top of the steak, and you don’t want the steak to stick to the pan.

You want to sear both sides of the steak in the pan to keep in the juices so I am attentive to the cooking process making sure that I sear the steak on one side for just a couple of minutes on a med to high heat, then flip the steak and repeat. I then keep the heat on medium and make sure that I am flipping the steak over until it is cooked how I like it which is quite rare.

A couple of options at this point is that you can put the steak on a plate and enjoy, or what I usually do is put the cooked steak on a platter and slice it in thick pieces, about the thickness of the steak, and throw it back in the frying pan with all the yummy juices, mix it around in the juices so that the sliced meat then has a chance to absorb so of the juices and flavor into the middle of the steak. Depending on if the steak is cooked enough, I will leave it low for just a minute or two, then put on a platter pour over the juices, and serve.

The reason I like to slice it like this is that especially when serving a group of people it makes the steak go further, and people tend to take as much as they will eat, and not have a whole steak on their plate that may be too much for them. The other reason for this is that everyone likes their steak cooked differently so if a person likes more well done it is easy to just throw some pieces back in the pan with some of the juices and cook for longer.

Enjoy!