Delicious steak at home. How to fry a steak: the most detailed guide

Steak is an expensive dish. After all, not all types of meat are suitable for its preparation. In addition, for such a dish, you can take only 5-7% of the entire animal carcass. Meat for steaks is a product of exclusively elite animal husbandry. To cook juicy and tasty dish, requires products obtained from a young bull. The age of the animal should be from 1 to 1.5 years. In this case, the bull must have a specific breed, such as Angus or Hereford.

Types of steaks

Steak is not Veal, which matures for 20 days, is used to prepare this dish. During this period, fermentation of muscle tissue occurs. As a result, the meat becomes more tender and friable.

For cooking, only the best part of the whole carcass is taken. Steak is a dish that is difficult to cook at home. There are several varieties of the product. It all depends on what was used to prepare the dish:

1. Club steak. For the preparation of this dish, meat of the dorsal part is usually used. Take the product on the site of the thick edge of the longest muscle. It may have a small rib bone.
2. Rib steak is a piece of meat that is cut from the shoulder blade. It has many fatty streaks.
3. Roundrumb steak - the meat is taken from the upper hip part.
4. Striploin - usually cut from the lumbar dorsal part in the head area.
5. Porterhouse steak - in this case, the meat is taken from the lumbar dorsal part in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe thick edge of the tenderloin.
6. Teebone is a T-bone steak. It is cut out from the area located on the border between the lumbar and dorsal parts in the region of the thin edge of the longissimus dorsi muscle, as well as the thin edge of the tenderloin.
7. Chateaubriand is the thick edge of the central part of the tenderloin. Such meat is fried either whole or for several people.
8. Filet Mignon - a thin cross section of the central loin. This is the leanest and most tender meat. Such a dish is never with blood.
9. The skirt steak is not the most tender meat, but quite tasty (from the flank).
10. Tornedox is a small piece that is cut from the central part, or rather from its thin edge. Usually used to make medallions.

Is it possible to cook by yourself

Probably, many have wondered how to cook a steak in a pan. It should be noted right away that this process is quite complicated and has many nuances. After all, a steak is not just a fried piece of meat. Of course, at first glance it seems that this is a fairly simple dish. However, not everyone can cook it correctly. In this case, there are many subtleties that should be considered. Everything is very important in this business: starting with the selection and preparation of products and ending with the method and technology of their roasting. That is why not everyone can cook this dish in their kitchen the way it is prepared by masters of their craft in restaurants. After all, not everyone has special equipment, experience and knowledge.

Frying technology

So how do you cook beef steak on the grill or in the oven? First of all, you should know not only how to choose meat, but also how it should be fried and at what temperature. This is what they were designed for. special technologies, which allow you to preserve the natural texture of the product. According to them, the meat should first be laid out on a frying surface, preheated to 250 ° C. The steak should quickly "grab". It happens literally in 15 seconds. A crust forms on the meat. It is she who does not allow the juice to flow out in the process of further preparation. After this treatment, the steak is laid out on a surface whose temperature is at least 150 ° C. Here the dish is brought to the required degree of readiness.

After cooking, the steak should lie down a bit. This will allow the juice to be more evenly distributed throughout the piece of meat.

Degree of doneness

Since cooking a steak in a pan is not very simple, you need to know not only the rules for frying it, but also its degree. On the this moment there are seven of them:

Salt in advance

Many claim that meat products do not salt before cooking. However, it is not. You need to salt, even if you cook a steak in a pan. The recipe with photos from professional chefs proves it. Salt the steaks and leave for half an hour. Meat should be kept at room temperature. As a result of this, the salt will dissolve in the juice that will be released from the steak. But it has a lot of protein and sugar. This mixture will create a delicious crust. In addition, such steaks will have a more pronounced taste.

Meat temperature affects cooking speed

Many professional chefs claim that room temperature meat cooks much faster than chilled meat. A properly cooked steak should be juicy and tender on the inside, and brown and crispy on the outside. If the meat is cold, then it will take more time for it to reach the desired degree of readiness. And that has a bad effect on appearance steaks. During cooking, the top layer of meat can dry out a lot and start to burn in places. Therefore, many recommend keeping steaks for half an hour at room temperature. This allows you to cook a juicy dish.

More heat - more flavor

There are many steak recipes. However, they are all cooked in high heat mode. Due to the high temperature, the aroma and taste of meat are revealed. Therefore, it is necessary to cook the steaks in such a way that they are covered with a dark brown crust. Do not believe the statement that intense heat closes all the pores on the surface of the meat. This is absolutely not true.

Grilled Beef Steak: American Recipe

This recipe is suitable for those who like meat, as well as flavor variety. At the moment, there are many ways to cook steaks on the grill. To prepare this dish, you will need:

1. Beef - 700 grams.
2. Soy sauce - ½ cup.
3. Oregano - 1 gram.
4. Ketchup - 2 teaspoons.
5. Garlic - 1 teaspoon.
6. Olive oil - 2 teaspoons.
7. Black pepper, preferably ground - 1 teaspoon.
8. Lemon juice - 30 milliliters.

Food preparation

To fry a steak on the grill, you need to prepare the meat in advance. It is better to do this 8-12 hours before cooking. The steak must be marinated. To do this, in a deep bowl, you need to mix spices, lemon juice, soy sauce, olive oil, ketchup and salt. In the resulting composition, you should lower the pieces of meat and press them. The steaks should be completely submerged in the marinade. You can also add onion rings to the meat.

How to cook

The steak from the recipe of which was described above is prepared in the same way as on the grill. The meat should marinate well. Then you can start frying it. It’s worth considering right away that beef steaks are cooked not on coals, like kebabs, but on very high heat. This is the only way to get a tasty and juicy dish. If the fire is very weak, then all the juice will flow out during the frying process. As a result, the meat will be dry. It takes about 20 minutes to cook, but no more.

Striploin steak with espresso sauce

The dish is cooked for 8 minutes on a strong open fire. The temperature should be between 230 and 290°C. To prepare 4 servings, you will need:

1. 4 pieces of loin. Each steak should weigh between 300 and 350 grams and be 2.5 centimeters thick.
2. Olive oil - two tablespoons.
3. Coarse sea salt - ¾ teaspoon.
4. Black pepper, preferably freshly ground - ¾ teaspoon.

Meat preparation

A steak from a recipe with a photo of which will clearly present the cooking process must be prepared before frying. To begin with, you should grease the pieces of meat with olive oil. This will keep the steaks from sticking to the grates. After that, the pieces need to be salted and sprinkled with spices. The olive oil will keep them from falling apart. In this form, the steaks should be left for half an hour at room temperature.

How to cook striploin steak

Where and how to cook a steak? In the oven or on the grill? In this case, the meat should be cooked on a strong open fire. The first thing to do is prepare the grill. High direct heat should be selected. Before use, the grate should be cleaned with a special brush. Now you can put pieces of meat on it. The steaks should be placed at a 45° angle, diagonally. Meat should be cooked covered.

After two minutes, carefully turn the steaks over. You need to do this not with a fork, but with tongs. The meat must be turned and placed at a right angle. Then close the grill lid and cook the steaks for another two minutes on high heat.

After that, pieces of juicy meat must be turned over. On the surface of the steaks, you should get a neat mesh. You can do exactly the same on the other side. But this is optional. You need to fry the meat to the required degree of readiness.

What do you need for espresso sauce

Striploin steaks are best served with espresso sauce. To prepare it, you need:

1. Butter from cream - a tablespoon.
2. Shallot chopped - two teaspoons.
3. Garlic, passed through a press - 1 clove.
4. Ketchup - 120 milliliters.
5. Strong natural coffee - 4 tablespoons, you can use espresso.
6. Balsamic vinegar - a tablespoon.
7. Brown sugar - a tablespoon.
8. Chili ground - two small spoons.

How to make sauce

The pork steak pictured above is also served with espresso sauce. To prepare this dressing, melt the butter from the cream in a small saucepan. After that, you need to pour the shallots into the container and sauté it for 3 minutes, stirring regularly. When the product becomes transparent, garlic should be added to the sauce. Everything needs to be sifted for another minute. Now you can pour all the other ingredients into the dressing and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer the sauce on the fire for another 10 minutes until it thickens.

After cooking

Ready steaks need to be removed from the grill, but they should not be served immediately. It's better to let them sit for a while. Within five minutes, the temperature inside the meat will still rise, by about two degrees. In addition, the juice in the steaks should be distributed evenly. Serve this dish with espresso sauce and wine.

at the stake

This dish is just perfect for a quiet family dinner in nature. These steaks are prepared very quickly and easily. This will require:

Marinating pork

To get delicious meat cooked on a fire, you need to marinate it. First you need to prepare the steaks. It is better to remove fat from them. What is left inside will make the meat juicy. The neck is best cut across the fibers. The thickness of the pieces should be no more than 2 centimeters.

Onions should be peeled and cut into rings. Parsley and dill should be finely chopped. In the dishes where the meat will be marinated, put a layer of onions and greens.

Steaks should be carefully greased with vegetable oil, pepper and salt. On each side, peas of spices should be pressed into them. The pieces prepared in this way should be put in a saucepan, and then sprinkled with a mixture of onions and herbs. Alternating layers, put all the steaks in a container. Then the meat must be removed in the cold. Such steaks should be marinated for 2 to 12 hours.

Cooking at the stake

It is better to cook pork not on an open flame, but on coals. When there are enough of them in the grill, it is necessary to grease the grate with vegetable oil and put the steaks on it. You need to fry the meat until cooked. To get different degrees of roasting, it will take from 7 to 12 minutes - always on each side. Pork is very different from beef. Therefore, it is better to overcook it than to eat it raw.

This is the most important requirement for a proper and tasty steak. If the kebabs are not the best good choice we can fix the product with a marinade, and add spices and other ingredients to cutlets, then in this case no tricks will work. Steak is generally just a piece of good meat. The maximum that you need besides it is a little vegetable oil, salt and pepper. That's all. So by now you should understand why steak meat, like this dish in restaurants, is so expensive. This is a product of elite animal husbandry. For steaks, only the meat of gobies aged 1-1.5 years is suitable, and only certain breeds, the best of which are considered Angus and Hereford. They are very carefully raised and fattened with selected wheat or corn. Only a few parts of the carcass are suitable for steaks - these are rib eye, fillet and square. Such beef is also called "marble" due to the thin layers of fat inside the muscle fibers. Also keep in mind that steaks are never fresh beef. The meat matures in special cabinets for 2-3 weeks to become more tender.

The ideal option is to immediately choose already ripened and chopped steaks in the store. Their thickness must be at least 3 cm.

2. Before frying

You bought good expensive steaks in the store, brought them home, hid them in the refrigerator until X hour. And now it has come. Do not hurry! Meat should not be cold. Steaks are rarely fried completely - not that meat. So that those who eat it do not seem cold in the middle, the steak must warm up before cooking. So take it out of the fridge and leave it at room temperature for 1.5-2 hours.

3. What to cook on

Most the best way – grill. However, even if you have a grill and coals at your fingertips, cooking a steak on a live fire the first time is not an easy task and requires experience. Chefs cook it according to a strictly defined technology: first, very quickly, for some 20 seconds, they fry it on both sides on a surface heated to 250 degrees, and then bring it to the desired degree of roasting on a surface at a temperature of 200 degrees. Agree to understand how to do this on a grill grate is quite problematic. Steak lovers who want to master the art of cooking them at home should take a closer look at electric grill. The beauty of this gadget is that the heating temperature is very easy to adjust. In addition, if you are not stingy and invested in a double-sided electric grill, then you will not even have to turn the pieces of meat. We adjusted the distance between the heating surfaces for your piece, set the required temperature, put the meat, covered- and in a couple of minutes you have a real steak with characteristic dark grill stripes.

If you are cooking for electric grill, then you can not even use fats, unless you want to get an extra crust on top, then lightly grease the meat with vegetable oil.

4. What should be the roast?

This is purely a matter of your taste. There are several classical and already familiar degrees. By the way, we advise you to remember your favorite option so that you can give instructions to the waiter in the restaurant. So, there are seven degrees of roasting in total:

1. blue rare(or extra rare or just blue) - almost raw piece of meat, but hot. The steak is heated on the grill so that it is only slightly "grabbed" on both sides. The temperature inside should be 46-49 degrees.
2. Rare- so-called steak with blood. The meat is fried on top, leaving the inside raw to such an extent that red juice continues to stand out from the steak. Frying time will take 2-3 minutes at 200 degrees. The temperature inside the steak should be 49-55 degrees.
3. Medium Rare- the most popular degree of roasting all over the world. The steak is fried from above to a crust, and inside it is weak, but not blood is released, but pink juice. This will take about 4-5 minutes at 200 degrees. The temperature inside the piece of meat should be between 55-60 degrees.
4. Medium- a medium-done steak, pink juice almost does not stand out, and the temperature inside the meat is from 60 to 65 degrees. The frying time will be approximately 6-7 minutes.
5. Medium Well- instead of pink juice, transparent juice stands out, and in the cut, the middle of the steak almost does not differ in color from the edges. Cook for 8-9 minutes at 200 degrees, and the temperature of the meat inside is 65-70 degrees.
6. well done- a piece of meat well and completely fried inside already without juice, you will first need to fry for 8-9 minutes on a grill or electric grill, and then bring the steak to readiness in the oven so that the middle is definitely well baked. The temperature inside the steak is over 70 degrees.
7. Too well done or overcooked- very strongly fried meat, the temperature inside is above 100 degrees.

And it was not in vain that we indicated the temperature inside the piece of meat for each degree. Determining by eye how well your steak is cooked is not a task for beginners. However, modern gadgets allow you to cook meat correctly even for people without much culinary experience. Just stock up temperature probe for meat. It is enough to stick it into your steak so that the tip is in the middle, and you will immediately know the temperature inside and, accordingly, the degree of roasting.

5) When to salt and pepper a steak?

Just remember - you can pepper, as well as sprinkle with various dry spices to taste, the steak before frying. Salt should only be fried meat!

6) After frying

Take your time to pounce on your steak with a knife and fork, no matter how appetizing it looks. He must rest first. Transfer the cooked steak to a microwave-heated plate (so that it is warm and does not cool the meat), and cover with a sheet of foil or a dome of foil on top. Leave for 5-7 minutes, and then serve your steak to the table.

1. Take only beef

Just in case, we remind you: only beef has the right to be called a steak. No pork, lamb, or especially chicken! This is the fundamental point.

2. Decide in advance which steak you want

If you think that “steak is steak”, you are wrong. There are about a dozen types of this fried meat. Basically, they can be divided into three groups:

• marble steaks. They are prepared from the so-called marbled meat: tender, soft, streaked with fat parts of the back and loin (thin and thick edges). This type of steak includes the popular ribeye and striploin.

• lean steaks. Prepared from cuttings. They are also distinguished by tenderness, but at the same time, due to the smaller amount of fat, they are slightly less high-calorie. These include, for example, filet mignon and chateaubriand.
• Alternative steaks. Prepared from other parts of beef carcass: shoulder blades, flanks, and so on. These steaks are less fat and tender, rarely have the correct shape and may contain tendons. They are more suitable for lovers of "real" meat, which can be torn with your teeth ... This type of steak includes flank, skert, top blade, and so on.

Once you’ve decided which flavor and nutritional characteristics you need, go for meat.

3. Don't Just Buy Beef

We partially repeat the previous point. The rules are strict: to get exactly the steak that you want, you need to choose meat from well-defined ones. A skint steak is always a flank. Top blade - shoulder blade. Ribeye and striploin - back and loin. Filet mignon is prepared only from the most tender tenderloin - and from nothing else!

4. Be smart

If you are not an expert in choosing and cooking meat, it is better to limit yourself to the classic, most popular and easy-to-cook types of steaks - marbled (ribeye) and lean (filet mignon). The premium parts of the carcass from which they are prepared will be quite edible, including in inexpensive meat.

But alternative steaks will only taste good if they are cooked from really good, aged grain-fed beef bull meat.

5. Check the quality of meat before buying

The meat for a rib-eye steak should be soft and marbled, that is, with visible streaks of fat.

The quality of meat for filet mignon can be checked as follows. Press firmly on the cut with your finger: it should give in easily, but as soon as you remove your finger, quickly return to its previous shape.

We will not talk about the quality of meat for other types of steaks now: it is difficult for a non-professional to determine the necessary characteristics, so it is better to focus on the classics.

6. Frozen meat is allowed

But it is important to take it only from trusted sellers, so as not to run into a “second freshness product” or the wrong part of the carcass.

Please note that this option will require competent defrosting. In no case do not defrost meat in the microwave or in the sun: a temperature jump will lead to the loss of precious juice, and this will worsen the taste characteristics of the future steak.

About a day before the planned frying, put the beef out of freezer into the main compartment of the refrigerator. So the meat will become soft, but not lose its juiciness.

In general, you can not defrost meat at all.

How to prepare meat for frying

5. Dry the meat thoroughly

Before frying, pat the meat dry with a paper towel to remove any excess moisture from the surface. If you do not get rid of the liquid, the steak in the pan will cook rather than fry.

To remove moisture for sure, you can sprinkle raw meat with cornstarch.

And a way for perfectionists. Take a disposable foil mold, pierce it in several places with wooden skewers (so that you get a kind of lattice inside the form) and put the wrapped in paper napkin meat. Let it sit in the refrigerator for about 24 hours. Perfect dryness of the surface is guaranteed.

However, if you have a wire rack, you can do without skewers.

Let it lie in the air for at least 20-30 minutes. During this time, the meat will be weathered around the edges and covered with a light crust, which, when frying, will keep the juice inside the piece.

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7. Do not salt or pepper!

If you add salt to the steak during the frying process, the meat juices will seep out. As a result, you will get a harder piece than you could.

Here we will make a remark: many neglect this recommendation, because they prefer just such a slightly harsh type of meat. Experiment. In this case, you can rely on your own taste sensations.

If we are talking about alternative steaks, then they should either be marinated, or salt and pepper and brushed with olive oil before frying.

What else to do before frying a steak

1. Choose the right pan

The ideal choice is a grill pan or a regular heavy-bottomed pan (cast iron would be nice). The thick bottom of the pan ensures that after heating it will keep the temperature at one level for a long time.

If the bottom of the pan is thin, it cools down quickly. This means that the meat is not fried, but rather boiled in its own juice.

2. Consider Your Oil Choice

Butter adds fat (softness) and flavor to the meat. Which one would you like? Some recommend frying in olive oil, adding a little cream towards the end.

Others advise Food Tips: How to Cook the Perfect Steak exotic - liquid peanut butter: it has a mild flavor that will give the steak tenderness and originality.

However, if you are cooking rib eye or other marbled meat steak, additional fat content is not necessary. It's up to you, but come to this moment consciously.

One more important point- boiling point (smoke point) of oil smoke point. If the fat smokes, it will give the steak an unpleasant taste. Therefore, it makes sense to choose for frying vegetable oils boiling at an elevated temperature.

For example, unrefined sunflower and linseed oil not suitable for cooking steaks. They begin to smoke already at 107 ° C, while the temperature of a well-heated pan is 150 ° C and higher. Extra virgin olive oil and unrefined peanut oil tolerate up to 160 °C. Creamy, coconut, unrefined sesame do not smoke up to 170 ° C.

Fine options are refined sunflower and avocado oil: they begin to smoke after 200 ° C.

3. Get a thermal needle or learn to do without it

The degree of doneness of a steak is determined by the temperature inside the piece of meat. The easiest way to measure it is with a needle thermometer.

Common degrees of roasting look like this:

• 38 ° C and above - raw / blue (steak with blood);
• 48 ° C and above - rare (very lightly fried);
• 52 ° C and above - medium rare (lightly fried);
• 58 ° C and above - medium (normally fried);
• 63 ° C and above - medium well (well fried);
• from 74 ° С - well done (very well fried).

If there is no needle at hand, you can roughly determine the level of roasting by pressing the meat with your finger.

Blue and rare steaks feel like the muscle tissue at the base of your thumb: press it down index finger with the other hand and feel the softness.

If you squeeze the tips of the large and index finger, the muscle will tense and the base of the thumb will resemble a medium rare steak. Large and medium - medium. Big and nameless - medium well.

Well, by connecting your thumb and little finger, you will feel approximately the same pressure as when you press a well done steak.

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1. Pre-fry the steak in the oven

This technique How To Reverse Sear A Steak will allow you to get the most uniform roasting without gray, overcooked meat around the edges.

Put the steak on a baking sheet and bake at a temperature of 90-95 ° C for 30-60 minutes - depending on how well-done the steak you want to get at the exit.

If you want a rare steak, you can omit the pre-roasting episode.

By the way, in a similar way, you can restore the taste of an already cooked, but cooled and stale steak. Place it in the oven at 120°C for about 30 minutes, and then pan-fry on both sides to bring back the crispiness.

2. Heat up the pan

Let it stand on high heat for at least 8-10 minutes. Better - more. The chef at Alinea in Chicago, for example, recommends 12 Unexpected (But Totally Legit) Tricks For Making The Best Steak heat up a cast iron skillet for half an hour!

Then add the oil, wait a few more minutes until it warms up, and only then lay out the steak.

3. Fry the steak at a high temperature

1.5-2 minutes, depending on the desired color of the crust, on each side. During frying, protein - primarily on the surface of a piece of meat - folds and turns into a kind of film that blocks the exit of liquid. This means that the steak fried over high heat will remain juicy inside.

Only then reduce the heat to low, cover the meat with a lid and let stand for another 1-5 minutes - depending on the desired degree of roasting. This recommendation applies to steaks made from fatty and juicy marbled meat.

Check readiness with a thermal needle or a finger. Cutting or piercing a steak with a knife is not worth it: juice will flow out of the meat.

If we are talking about leaner tenderloin steaks, the technology will have nuances. After frying the steak properly on both sides until golden brown, add a little more oil (for example, butter) to the pan, as well as - if desired - your favorite spices (the same garlic) and herbs (rosemary, lavender, thyme, sage ...) . Lower the heat to medium and continue browning the meat on both sides, basting it with the juices that come out. This will ensure the steak is properly cooked.

4. Bring to the desired degree of roasting in the oven

In a frying pan covered with a lid, steaks are perfectly cooked with a degree of roasting up to medium rare. If you want a really well done steak, place it in a preheated oven at 180°C immediately after browning it in oil on all sides.

The time the meat is in the oven depends on the desired level of roasting:

• medium rare - 4 minutes is enough;
• medium - 7 minutes;
• medium well - 10 minutes;
• well done - 14 minutes.

How and with what to serve a steak

1. Let the steak rest for 3-5 minutes

At high temperatures the top layers of meat are compressed, fixing the juice inside. If you cut the steak right away, the juice will simply run out onto the plate. Wait up to 5 minutes: this is enough for the top layers of the meat to expand and absorb the juices as well.

2. Serve hot!

This is one of the basic rules for serving a steak. In this case, meat is an independent dish, simple and understandable. To fully reveal its taste, the steak must be hot.

3. For fatty juicy steaks, choose a minimum of spices

On the same ribeye, it is enough to put a sprig of rosemary or a clove of garlic: hot meat will quickly absorb the aroma. Also, the taste characteristics of the steak are well emphasized by parsley, thyme, cilantro.

4. Lean Steaks Need Sauce

The tenderloin from which filet mignon is prepared is a very tender meat that literally melts in your mouth. But at the same time, it is rather tasteless, and therefore such a steak is always served with sauce.

5. The best side dish is vegetables

Fresh or grilled. This is an ideal side dish for steak in terms of proper nutrition.

Pavel, hi. I bought a cut of ribeye in the middle of the week, and the guests will not come until Saturday. Can you tell me how to prepare the meat and how to properly fry a steak at home? There are so many recipes and tips on the Internet that I did not dare to trust any one.

1) I love cooking beef and don't limit myself to classic ribeye, New York or filet mignon steaks. Moreover, there are many parts of the carcass that have a brighter taste and aroma. It should be understood that we will not be able to cook oxtail as quickly as rib eye, and it makes no sense to stew filet mignon for as long as beef cheeks. Each cut, part of the carcass has its own characteristics in cooking.

2) If you are dealing with chilled steak meat, you should carefully inspect the packaging for smudges and tears. It should inspire confidence - be tight, without signs of damage, let alone depressurization. Tip: carefully inspect the packaging, smell it around the edges and at the joints.

3) Shelf life. Chilled marbled beef can be stored for a long time under certain conditions, for example, a cut - about 5 months (according to the information on the package, in reality, no more than 4), and an individual cut steak - about 6 weeks in a special package. Tip: find the packing date.

4) At home, steak meat should be properly stored in a cool and ventilated place. Ideal cold store with a temperature of 0 to -1 ° C, and better loosely clogged with other products.

5) The guests come on Saturday, and we bought the cut on Thursday. We open the vacuum package, cut into portioned steaks of at least 3–4 cm, put on a wire rack and put in the refrigerator for 2 days. The grill allows air to circulate freely, which will dry the steak a little and allow it to ripen additionally. It is worth noting that I have a good flora in my refrigerator: there are no fish and dairy products, the temperature is about 2 ° C and additional airflow is turned on. I recommend you read about autolysis: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autolysis_meat. Now you understand why fresh meat on the market is a marketing ploy?

6) After 2 days, we take out the steaks and leave them at room temperature for 2 hours, so that the heat is evenly distributed inside the piece. Never cook meat immediately from the cold, you risk getting a steak with an uneven degree of cooking. The cold will push out the heat, acting as a kind of barrier to the external heat. The result is a delicious crust and the wrong pattern on the cut.

7) Heat the pan or grill well, almost to the maximum. No oil when heated, and even more so in large quantities. Lubricate the meat with a small amount of refined oil, only to create a thin film.

8) How do you get the right steak doneness? This is probably the most popular question among my readers. I will not describe in detail all the possible types of roasting and how to achieve them. They can be found in large numbers on Russian and foreign Internet resources.

I'll just say:

Option 1. We heat the pan well, grease the steak with olive oil (second extraction, refined) and fry for 1 minute on each side until a pleasant caramel crust forms. The crust is achieved by the Maillard reaction: the interaction of an amino acid with sugar when heated.

Next, depending on the size, bring the steak to readiness for 5-6 minutes, often turning every 15 seconds. I recommend a core temperature of 52-55°C for the steak. If your steak is not so fatty, add a couple of cloves of crushed garlic, thyme and butter 20 seconds before cooking, pour the meat with the resulting sauce. After frying, it is important to put the meat on wooden board or a warm plate, add salt and pepper. If you let it rest for 2-3 minutes, the juices can evenly soak into the fibers and make the steak even juicier.

Option 2. Cooking a steak in the oven. After we have fried the steak in a pan for 1 minute on each side, we put it in the oven preheated to 180 ° C for 8 minutes. Be sure to measure the temperature inside the piece of meat with a special thermometer or by touch. The elasticity of the meat has become similar to your temple? Remove, add salt, pepper, let rest. And I will advise you not to be afraid to experiment - this is the only way you can comprehend all the subtleties of cooking a steak.

Despite the claims of some doctors that the consumption of red meat is injurious to health, and the increase in the number of zealous vegetarians, there are still many more meat-eaters among the city dwellers. But few people really understand what is on his plate: often people do not even suspect where the beef came from, from which the served steak was prepared, how it was butchered and stored, and what part of the carcass is made of, for example, ribeye or striploin. The Village decided to explore this issue from a to z. The meat specialist helped us with this Kirill Martynenko, Managing partner of the Moscow network of steakhouses Torro Grill.

Kirill Martynenko managing partner of a chain of steakhouses Torro Grill

Kirill got into the restaurant business in 1989 as a waiter at the restaurant "At Jozef", where he later became a cook's assistant. Then he worked as a cook in the restaurants "Assol" and "Anna Mons", as a chef and manager of the bar-restaurant "At Petra", the manager of the Finnish restaurant-club Maxim's and as a chef in the entertainment complex "Alexander Blok". In 2002 Kirill became the chef of the Global Foods company, and in 2004 he became the concept chef of the Arpikom restaurant group (Goodman, Filimonova and Yankel, Kolbasoff). In 2007, together with partner Anton Lyalin, he opened his first steakhouse Torro Grill, which has now become a chain of six restaurants in Moscow.

History

Steak(English) steak, from Old Norse steikja - « fry"") - a piece of meat cut from the carcass of an animal and cooked on fire.

It is difficult to say exactly when the steak appeared, but it is safe to say that our ancestors began to eat raw meat many millennia ago in order to survive in harsh conditions. They began to fry meat on fire when they realized that it was easier to eat it that way. In the middle of the 15th century, the description of the steak first appeared in British cookbooks. Three centuries later, the technology of cooking meat on an open fire began to spread across continental Europe.

English Herefords and Scottish Aberdeen Angus were brought to the New World, on which, in fact, the American meat industry began to develop. In addition to the United States, steaks have become widespread in all former British colonies, as well as in Latin America, Germany, Italy and France.

Actually the culture of steak and steakhouses was born at the end of the 19th century, and it happened, as you might guess, in America - in Chicago.

Meat

The herd of cattle is divided into two unequal parts: meat, intended for quick slaughter, and dairy. The first is, as a rule, bulls, the second, of course, cows. But even from meat gobies, not everyone is suitable for steaks.

Pedigree

An extremely important parameter is breed. All the time that people were engaged in animal husbandry, they bred and fixed breeds that best gained muscle mass, could lay a certain amount of fat and were unpretentious in maintenance. It is also important for the steak industry that the animal be compact. The most steak breeds are the entire Angus family ( Aberdeen Angus- a breed bred in Scotland and brought to the USA in 1873), Herefords ( Hereford- a breed bred in the county of Herefordshire, in England), as well as their hybrids. It is from them that the vast majority of steaks in restaurants around the world are made.

The diet of the animal plays a special role in meat production. The natural food for a cow is grass and hay. But from the point of view of the meat industry, this is unprofitable and is possible only in countries where there are appropriate areas, and climatic conditions allow livestock to eat grass. all year round like, for example, in New Zealand.

cow stomach able to digest exceptionally poor feed: hay and grass, so the transition to more rich fodder, grain, must occur gradually, otherwise the animal gets sick.

Grain feeding appeared relatively recently, in the mid-60s in the United States. The producer, by giving the cattle a standard highly nutritious feed, can control the growth rate of the animals. Besides the consumer wanted to receive beef of a certain marbling (eng. marbling- small particles of fat deposited between muscle fibers), the degree of which cannot be controlled with herbal fattening. For this reason, it became necessary to develop a system of grain feeding and certification of meat. Grain-fed is more expensive than grass-fed, and the diet itself is more complicated. The transition to a richer feed, grain, should occur gradually. It is important to develop a balanced diet and gradually transfer the animal to a new diet of compound feed, barley, alfalfa, corn and other ingredients.

IN USA meat is divided into eight categories, three of which are - prime, choice And select- suitable for cooking steaks. IN australia categories are denoted by a serial number from 200 before 1 100 (most marbled) in increments of 100 units.

In Russia today there is no beef certification system similar to Western ones. Modern GOSTs and TUs do not describe what kind of meat is suitable for steaks. While other countries have their own criteria for certification and categorization of meat. The most stringent standards are set in countries with a developed meat industry: in the USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Russia must develop its own standards and definitions of VKG (high-quality beef) within a year and a half after joining the World Trade Organization, that is, approximately by 2014. In Russia, beef that meets VKG standards has not been produced and is not being produced.

Main exporters and meat prices

The country of production also plays a role in pricing. It is easy to guess that the labor force in the US and Australia is more expensive than in Argentina, and therefore the price of meat is higher. Climatic conditions and seasonal fluctuations are also important. In the USA, for example, meat always rises in price around Christmas, and gets cheaper in summer. Financiers often play on meat - futures contracts for beef are concluded no less often than for grain.

Japanese beef Wagyu marbling surpasses the American prime. The price, of course, is higher than one and a half to two times.

Beef is brought to Russia mainly from the USA and Australia. The most popular breeds are Angus. Sometimes supermarble beef made using Japanese technologies appears on the Russian market - Wagyu. Due to the lack of manufacturing capacity in Japan, this meat is also produced in the US and Australia. Less is coming from Latin America and New Zealand, since the fattening there is grassy - marbling cannot be guaranteed, and the consumer is already used to a certain level. The price of beef depends on the complexity of transportation and seasonality. However, Angus from the USA and Australia are comparable in price. Japanese varieties are significantly - up to one and a half to two times - more expensive. Grass-fed beef tends to be cheaper, as grass-fed beef is cheaper than grain-fed beef if there is adequate grazing land.

Russian meat

Recently, more and more Russian meat has appeared on sale, claiming to become a steak. However, the price-quality ratio is still shocking. Considering that there are places to raise cattle in Russia, it is sad that meat production is still at an early stage.

An underdeveloped industry and infrastructure does not allow farmers to sell their goods efficiently and profitably. Since the restaurant business is able to absorb no more than 10% of the carcass, the rest of the meat remains ballast in the hands of the manufacturer. In countries with a developed meat industry, everything is recycled.

carcass cutting

There are documents that regulate the process of carcass cutting and describe in detail how to properly cut fat and how each piece should look. In the United States, standards for cutting are written in a handbook called Meat Buyer's Guide. Australians have a similar Australian Beef Product Guide, In Canada - Meat Cuts Manual.

The tradition of cutting carcasses in our country does not at all imply such a product as a steak. Therefore, those wishing to experiment with domestic meat should be prepared for the fact that the restaurant will have to additionally mess with the carcass - to make steaks from an unformed piece.

Storage and transportation

Meat enters the market in two forms - frozen and chilled.

Freeze

The meat is subjected to shock freezing: its temperature drops from plus 2-4 degrees to about minus 30 in a matter of minutes. Thus, the cell walls do not have time to be destroyed by ice crystals. Subsequently, when defrosting, the loss of juiciness is minimal. Such meat, as a rule, comes to Russia by sea: this is the cheapest way. Properly frozen and thawed beef is no doubt inferior in taste to aged examples, but it is perfectly serviceable. Defrosting should take place in the refrigerator at a temperature of plus 4-5 degrees.

Vacuum storage

dry aging

Typically, dry aging takes place where the meat will be cooked. In this case, it is delivered to a restaurant, where it enters a special chamber and ripens and winds there. Such exposure leads to a loss of up to 25% of moisture, which means that a piece of beef is much more expensive than frozen or aged in a vacuum, but it also has a brighter taste. In Moscow restaurants, dry-aged meat is extremely rare. But it is normal to keep the meat in a special refrigerator in a separate area with the subsequent delivery of the vacuum-packed cut to the restaurant kitchen. On the Russian market there are offers of foreign dry-aged meat.

Steak

Up to 10% of the total weight of the animal's skeleton is suitable for cooking a steak (the weight of the skeleton does not include the weight of the head, entrails and skin) - hence the high price of the steak. The whole back is suitable for steaks: tenderloin (inside loin), ribeye (breast) and striploin (loin), shoulder and front of the back are the main cuts used in the restaurant industry. The shoulder and front of the hind cut are characterized by a low price and a more pronounced taste. There is also a diaphragm - these are two cuts - skirt And hanger(thick aperture). The diaphragm is the softest muscle of the animal, since its purpose is to support the insides, it is not involved in movement. Diaphragm is also called "butcher's steak" because traditionally butchers kept these cuts for themselves as the most tender.

Moscow restaurants prepare these steaks:

Roasting

Of course, all these cuts require varying degrees of heat treatment, as their fat content is different. Experts are still arguing about the number of degrees of roasting a steak, but most are of the opinion that there are still six of them:

There is a simple rule: the fatter the piece, the higher the degree of roasting suits it. Ribeye steak is recommended to be brought to medium or medium-well, but it is better to serve tenderloin medium-rare or even rare. The low degree is especially loved by the French and Spaniards, while the Americans prefer well-done meat.

Photos: Olya Eichenbaum
Illustrations: Alexander Pokhvalin