I have always let the steak come to room temp before cooking but last week on a local cooking show the chef mentioned a few myths about cooking steak. He reckons most professional chefs never leave meat out of the fridge as food poisoning is an issue and it only lakes seconds for a cold steak to come up to temp on a hot grill anyway. Another myth was turning the steak only once, he reckons turn that sucker as much as you want as it can aid even cooking especially if the steak is very thick and you don't want to put it in the oven to finish. Seems to make sense.......

edit... oh yeah and he said olive oil has a very low burn temp and should be avoided. I must say I use olive oil allot and haven't noticed a burnt taste

olive oil does have a low burn temp and should be avoided.

my thoughts on letting the steak get to room temp is so that the entire thing cooks evenly; if it's cold then the outside will cook faster than the inside.

no idea about the turning myth, though i've heard different opinions by different chefs.

I friend just got a Weber Q 220. Its a small grill designed for tight spaces but he did 7 large steaks and a chicken breast last week and I was really impressed. A great sear on the steaks and there was lots of room for such a small unit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_point

Extra virgin olive oil has a lower smoke point. I generally use canola oil for high temp uses.

El D, that looks amazing. Have you tried some (a little goes a long way) grated nutmeg in the spinach? Works great!

iggy: That steak was prob just a little over 1.5in thick. So in your opinion that is about the max where pan-only technique would work well? Also, I hope you liked this latest sear!

ax: Never tried, thought of, or heard of nutmeg in spinach. I love spinach and eat it all the time, will try some w/ grated nutmeg soon!

I got the tip from Nigel Slater, an English cook / food writer whose stuff is generally great!

a note on the weber q series:

a fine little grill but has only 1 heating element. no ability to have 2 temp zones or anything like that.

was lucky enough to score some prime filet's which look amazing...I will take pics later tonight for everyone but what method do you recommend for this bomb cut;

1) grill at highest temp possible on my convection grill
2) pan sear finish in oven
3) pan sear entire time like 3-4 mins a side

I have yet to figure out a good way to disable the smoke detector in my condo, and the kitchen has no windows. It makes steak cookery kind of a pain in the ass.

Chefs don't let the steak reach room temperture for convience reasons. By the time its done that then cooked the customer would be wating to long.

gump,

I put the stove fan on high blast, open the balcony door all the way, then cross my fingers and hope. It is an especially sweet situation for me since my living room smoke detector is mounted like 18 feet up on the wall with no way for me to reach it.

how have i never seen this thread!

filet - only way to go.
my concoction of butter/sea salts/salts/peppers and cooking strat is second to none ;-)

gonna take some time to read the thread; excited to learn if there are improvements to be made!

ps: <3 asparagus

Can someone explain to me the concept of marbling? Ive ordered steaks that said marbled and cooked many more steaks and just honestly dont know what it means.

look at the ribeye pic in the link that citanul provided earlier on the Ducasse method:



and this random ribeye from a web search:



see all those streaks of fat throughout the steak, as opposed to just having some chunks of fat on the side? those streaks of fat are marbling and give the steak flavor.

now compare them to El Diablo's steak:



well-marbled steaks aren't the easiest to find - just because a steak is "Prime" doesn't guarantee it'll have great marbling (i've seen some sorry ass Prime steaks at Whole Foods). anyways, give it a try and see if you like it better.



this is the marbling on Japanese kobe ribeye (American kobe has much less marbling). Pretty crazy if u ask me. I see Japanese kobe regularly at the Dean and Deluca in Soho but it's $170 /lb. i'll probably splurge for like 1/2 a pound at some point. supposedly it's so rich that you can't each much of it anyway.

Now I'm hungry...

are you sure it will set off the alarm? I'm in a 1bdrm condo and the first time I cooked on the skillet I was for sure it would go off (no oven vent or open balcony) and it didn't and never has. I just assumed there was something about the smoke that it was able to differentiate it from fire smoke

Really? Is this common in high end places in the US? (Specifically wagyu/kobe)

Every time I have been to a high end steakhouse and paid $80-120+ for a wagyu steak they have recommended I have it medium (I usually have my steaks rare or medium rare depending on cut) specifically because of the marbling/fat content. The one time they didn't recommended it I decided to try medium rare and the steak was pretty bad, uncooked fat all through it and not great to eat.

*This is only in Australian places if it matters.

I guess I'm a horrible snob, but once someone says this I know they have no ****ing idea what they're talking about.

try lightly brushing the steak with oil instead of adding the oil to the pan first. you use the minimum amount of oil so less smoke..

you run good. i set one off cooking bacon in a 3br condo this summer.

What's everyone's favorite cut?

I tend to buy whole strip loins at Cosctco and cut them up the thickness I want myself.

They are grilled on charcoal or with propane most of the time. Although I did try one seared in a pan and finished in the oven and it was delicious.

This is about right. I've never enjoyed fillet as much as other cuts. I can see why some people dig it, but swearing by it relative to all other cuts smacks of noobishness.

if your smoke alarm is something you can reach, you can wrap a slightly dampened dishtowel around it to make it not go off with smoke.

a combination of the stupidity of chicago law and my condo's layout: every bedroom must have a smoke detector immediately outside the door, and my stove is in the corner of the kitchen at the top of the hall... 3 feet from my bedroom door. sigh.

I've found that even with the most senstive smoke alarms, if you have a fan in your range's hood and set it on high- it can to the trick. Just have to remember to do it before you start cooking.