For a long time I was too scared to cook steak. It’s expensive, and you don’t know whether you have over or under cooked it until you cut it open (too late!). Everyone likes their steak cooked differently (medium for me, rare for Andrew, cremated for my mum …) and it’s just too stressful. Then during lockdown, we treated ourselves to a Hawksmoor at home box (one of the first ‘at home’ restaurant kits which launched, and the first of many we sampled), which came with a huge and expensive porterhouse steak, and the Hawksmoor cookbook. It was time to put aside my fear, and cook that steak.
If you want the story, and that of many more lovingly cooked (and eaten) steaks … some failures, but mainly successes, this post is for you, and you can read on at your leisure. But if you are basically here for the tips and want me to get on with sharing them, I understand, and here they are.
The steak cooking tips
Please first let me caveat this list of tips with a disclaimer: everyone seems to cook steak differently, and have their own tips. These are mine.
If you like medium or rare steak, go large. Thick cut steak with a nice ridge of fat (which you don’t have to eat, by the way) is your friend.
- AIR: Open your windows.
- HEAT: Heat your pan until it is HOT. More hot than you think. You want the steak to sear in the pan and develop a delicious crust. I don’t oil my pan or my steak.
- SEASON: Salt your steak more than you think is acceptable. I use table salt, and dredge my steak right before sticking it into that hot pan. Having learned this lesson, I now heavily season all meat, and it makes a big difference to the flavour.
- DON’T TOUCH IT: Get your seasoned steak into your hot pan and keep it still. Let that salty crust develop for a couple of minutes, so just leave it alone.
- FLIP: Turn the steak over and again, don’t touch it. Let it sit there sizzling (and smoking up your kitchen … remember, I did tell you to open some windows).
- REST: When you take the steak out of the pan, put it on a plate and leave it to rest for at least as long as you cooked it for. That steak needs to relax and settle down, and this will help with the juiciness. Again, this goes for all meat.
- EAT: Enjoy the deliciousness of your juicy, tender steak.
How long for?
Wait a minute, in all my tips I didn’t mention how long the steak would take to cook. Well, how long is a piece of string? How well cooked do you like your steak? How thick is it? What cut?
This is where you have three options.
My very rough guide below, based on how long I usually cook a steak for (medium to rare cooked). In my experience this works, but you never know … it’s risky and I don’t want you to come at me and say I have ruined your expensive and romantic meal.
- A big fat T-bone steak or porterhouse steak (t-bone with a bigger fillet) needs a good ten to fifteen minutes on a searing heat (5-8 mins each side), and at least that amount of time again to rest.
- An inch thick sirloin or rib eye needs 3 minutes each side to cook, 2 mins if it’s not too thick, and again the same amount of resting time as cooking time.
- A chatueaubriand takes 20 mins in a hot oven (with no browning in a pan to avoid washing up!) and the same amount of time to rest.
Or you buy a meat probe (the local butcher lent me a meat probe when he sold me a very expensive waygu steak as he didn’t want me to overcook it, and it’s very handy).
Or you press the cooked steak and feel whether it’s solid (well done), rare to blue (very soft to the touch) or somewhere in the middle (medium). An impossible technique to master without practicing cooking steak, and you will have some cock-ups. I recommend the meat probe.
What to eat with your steak?
No question, chips and bearnaise sauce, maybe a nice salad with a vinaigrette.
My steak story
Ok so you have had the tips, now here’s my steak back-story, starting with the Hawksmoor at home experience. Purchased in July 2020 as a treat to celebrate Andrew’s birthday as eating out was impossible. The kit included bone marrow gravy, potatoes and beef dripping (for chips), tenderstem broccoli, and booze.
The steak was PERFECTLY COOKED (for our tastes) by me, which was frankly a miracle considering the box also came with pre-made martinis and I am not sure I have ever got so drunk so quickly in my entire life. No one told me that a martini is basically just hard booze with no mixer! I am surprised my boozy breath didn’t catch fire over the hot pan.
My friend Joe had bought the same box the week before, and I asked his advice – he gave me the 15 minutes cook recommendation, and it hasn’t failed me since.
Enjoy the photos of the box, excuse the lockdown hair disasters, and Andrew’s dodgy stubble. Note that despite the kit including bone marrow gravy, I still made bearnaise to have with it BECAUSE IT’S THE LAW.
By the way, I bought the Hawksmoor at home box a year later and the fillet steak part of the t-bone was non-existent, so I contacted them and complained, and they sent me a big box of free cocktails as compensation, which alleviated the pain by getting me very drunk yet again.
Other restaurant at home kits
We ended up sampling several during lockdown and beyond, and in my next post I’ll be sharing some examples of them with you.