anyone serious about cooking steaks at home needs to get a probe thermometer, preferably an instant-read model which is going to be close to $100

www.thermoworks.com

That's one sorry-looking sear.

Yeah, the new stove takes forever to get up to temp and I was impatient.


I hope it's really obvious how ******ed this

is.

Meh, Costco and Whole Foods do have way better meat than your average supermarket, but obv one can make a totally amazing steak purchased from Safeway if one knows wtf one is doing.

picking a good steak out of the lot in an average supermarket is an art but not that hard

amazing how many ppl pick the first one they see, or go for the ones that are all red w no marbling

and obv giant veins of fat != marbling

6 oz usda choice or sometimes prime filets

I've used this method many times and I like it, just getting a line check to see if there's another/better way.

Choice is choice, prime is prime imo.

I had the worst steak of my life from Safeway. It was a pre-marinated flank steak which I usually get from QFC (above safeway/albertsons, but nowhere near whole foods)

I grilled it to medium as I usually do with my flank steaks and it was completely inedible. I got through about a third of it before I called it quits.

I have never been disappointed with a steak from Costco. Their tenderloin is pretty much the best steak deal you will find.

Don't buy pre marinaded. You don't know what's in that.

have any of you ever ordered steak online from a site like Allen Brothers?

I recommend finding a good butcher shop, that has worked out for me. Whole Foods also has a good selection.

while a good probe thermometer is a great thing to have in the kitchen in general and quite useful for steaks, paying $100 for one is absolutely ridiculous. nearly to the point of assuming you own shares in thermoworks or something.

problem with WF is that you're paying extra for the foods being 100% organic, which you might not value much if any over the food quality:cost ratio

personally i just want good food at a fair price and being 100% organic doesn't matter to me

i assure you i'm no shill for thermapens, just a satisfied user. i have no vested interest whatsoever.

and i also laughed at them before owning one but the quick read models blow a $20 taylor out of the water if you cook a lot. it's the instant-read quality that makes it so useful. i prob use mine at least every other day in the kitchen. and if it saves just a few expensive steaks from being overcooked then it's paid for itself imo. if there's a comparable thermometer for less i'd love to know it so i can give them as presents (thin probe with near-instant read)

mine is the discontinued older $70 model BTW

also works really well for thin fish fillets like trout, somehting that's impossible to do with a $20 taylor probe

americas test kitchen also loves thermapens and reviews them well.

but if $100 is too rich for you they also have a $20 model that reads in 6 seconds which would be fine for steaks and prob 90% of kitchen uses

you know what else is ridiculous? making fun of something you don't understand, sounds like sour grapes to me.

I love ketchup way more than the next guy but anything on a steak is wrong. Too much seasoning is bad enough, but steak sauce, ketchup, peppercorn sauce etc, its all wrong - buy better steaks.

what's wrong with enjoying steaks both ways: with sauce and without?

i like toro sashimi a lot but that doesn't mean i can't also enjoy a tuna salad sandwich sometimes

anyhow if you love ketchup i hope you'll try making your own sometime, it's amazing and totally different kind of like mayo made from scratch compared to hellman's. or at least go to a good burger place that makes homemade ketch sometime.

The point is you aren't putting blue fin toro in a tuna salad sandwich.

good point.

but i stand by my opinion that a great steak tastes awesome with or without sauce. some days i want it superplain, some days i like it with blue butter or bernaise or w/e

It's a shame you only can eat one steak in your life, and as such can't experiment with different sauces and toppings and what not.

Personally I don't think ketchup is a great match flavor wise, but for some people it might be.

When I was doing Atkins years ago, I slathered a steak in mayo ('cause you can do that on Atkins, which is why I got WAY FAT after I fell off of it) and it was AWESOME.

if you liked mayo on steak try "alamaba white bbq sauce" on chicken, sounds gross but pretty f good (it's like mayo and horseraddish and stuff iirc)

and you agreeing with me on some point clearly means i've wasted far too much time on 2p2

My mom made that the last time I was back home. I didn't like it as much on chicken, because it's so strong that it was a bit overpowering, and steak holds up better next to it. Not bad, just rich as balls.

thats actually not super surprising considering a mayo is not that far removed from a Bearnaise, and Bearnaise is one of the most classic of sauce pairings with steak.

I don't know if Whole Foods' quality of beef is so much better that it is worth the extra cost. But I prefer buying steaks there over the everyday supermarket chains because they sell much thicker steaks, which are easier to cook med-rare while keeping a good sear.

Adding flavour with grilled mushroom or tomato is enough imo.

Then again its rare i have a steak (like once a month) so i dont get bored of the flavour of the steak alone.

The problem with adding sauces is you are missing out on a lot of the subtle flavours of the steak itself.

That's just a weird way to think about it though.

Do you want to eat steak, or do you want to enjoy a nice meal?

Sometimes I want steak that's just steak without much BS.

Sometimes I want a nice meal with steak and a sauce that's not just about a big ass piece of meat on the plate and then I might do something different.

I just think there's a lot of weirdly absolute ideas in this thread when the reality is that for 10 bucks you can buy a nice enough steak and try it all kinds of different ways. There's some basic notions on how to cook a steak that you'd likely want to hold to most of the time, but that's more technique that seasoning/toppings etc.

Maybe for a really nice porterhouse or ribeye, etc..but seriously if we are talking london broil or a cheap sirloin who gives a ****.