Being a modern man, tonight I will be cooking tea for me and the wife. I bought 2 chunky sirloin steaks from the butchers.

Whats the best way to cook them, the butcher said grill them for 2 mins each side for medium-well.

He didn’t tell me how far from the grill to put them or how hot it should be

Looking for help here, dont want to ruin £15 worth of steak

You’ve opened up a whole can of worms!

don’t grill unless you’ve got a gas flame grill that gets very hot indeed. fry, oil the steaks not the pan, very hot pan, depending on thickness 3/4 mins each sides. salt after cooking, last 2 mins of cooking add butter to the pan and baste.

thread closed, no ifs or buts.

EDIT: for a quick sauce, after cooking steaks place on plate. pour off excess fat from the pan, add a spalsh of brandy, stir, geting all the bits off the pan add a bit of beef stock. reduce quite a bit, add some double cream and herbs if you want, season to taste.

Grill??? Fry it.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/videos/1044/cooking-steak

Warton mostly right, take steaks out fridge 30 mins before cooking, oil steaks, rub salt and pepper into them, Pan as hot as possible, throw in butter then place steaks on pan 3-4 mins per side, leave to rest for 5-10 mins after cooking. Serve.

Yep, its an electric grill so will go for the pan method

What oil, I think we have olive oil only, can get different stuff on way home if required

I use a skillet, heated until smoking hot, 2 mins either side (maybe a little more if they are very thick), rest for 5 mins, that will cook them medium rare.

I think 2 mins under the grill, even up close and on high, will be a good bit less than well medium well, medium rare at best I would think unless they are very thin steaks.

Comments for good steak that is cut at around 9oz in weight.

olive oil is fine – as above, oil the steaks, not the pan.

Skillet, is that like a griddle – we have one of those somewhere

Warton mostly right, take steaks out fridge 30 mins before cooking, oil steaks, rub salt and pepper into them, Pan as hot as possible, throw in butter then place steaks on pan 3-4 mins per side, leave to rest for 5-10 mins after cooking. Serve.

salt draws moisture out of food, always salt meat after cooking.

throwing butter in so early will burn the butter.

OP – olive oil is perfect

one last thing and I thionk I’m sorted – how much salt and pepper do i rub in?

I use a skillet and like my steaks blue. So minimum of oil rubbed onto steak, skillet heated till smoking, steaks on for maybe a minute or two a side depending on thickness – I season afterwards, leave to rest is V important. if you like rare steak if you put your tip of your thumb and index finger together and press the heel of your palm a rare steak will feel like that when it’s ready, middle finger = medium and so on….

Decision made – I’ll be following the Warton method to the letter….will report back tomorrow

Grill! 😯

Many methods work well to fry it – there’s no ‘right’ way.

The method I find works for me:

– Leave the steaks out a while to reach room temp (particularly if you like a rarer steak – you don’t want the middle to be ice cold)
-grind a bit of salt/pepper over the steaks.
-heat a pan as hot as you can using something like groundnut oil that can take high heat.
– once the oil is smoking a bit, put the steak on and turn the heat down to medium/high.
– Cook for 2 mins each side unless you want it properly rare in which case 1 min each side
– Cook for a further 1 minute each side per 2cm thickness for á point(not rare, not cooked through – medium I’d call it)
– Take the steak off the pan and leave to sit for a few minutes (don’t let it get cold though!) during which time, if you want, add some red wine to the pan, scrape and pour off as it’s getting thick – perfect for tartinage (soaking up with french bread 🙂 )

3 to 4 minutes each side!!!! are you crazy??? You’ve got good steak and you’re going to cook it for 8 minutes?

Remember it continues to cook once you take it out of the pan as well!

Oh dear, oh dear.

It’s like scones and tea, there’s different ways people argue about but they all give the same result :p
Contradictions I’ve noted (between top chefs etc.):
Some say salt the steak before cooking, others say don’t (as it draws out moisture)
Some say rest after cooking, some say serve straight away
Some say a little oil in the pan, others oil the steak

I’ve tried it all and the only real difference I’ve noticed (assuming the same quality of steak…) is how long you cook it for – which is entirely a personal choice. I don’t even really agree with the ‘the pan must be red hot’ thing either, I get why you wouldn’t want to put it in a cold pan and gradually heat it but seems to make little difference to me if the pan is just ‘hot’ vs ‘hotter than hell’.

CharlieMungus – Member
3 to 4 minutes each side!!!! are you crazy??? You’ve got good steak and you’re going to cook it for 8 minutes?

I’d tend to agree but then I like mine proper rare. Mrs Clubber likes it á point and that’s 5 to 6 mins cooking time in total for most normal thickness steaks IME. Still different people like different things. My inlaws like well done so I’ve tried to get it timed just right that it’s cooked through (eg not red) but not dried out.

make little difference to me if the pan is just ‘hot’ vs ‘hotter than hell’.

That may well be the case if you’re going to cook it for 8 minutes. If you are cooking it properly, then you want the outside to brown up / sear without too much cooking going on in the middle

3 to 4 minutes each side!!!! are you crazy??? You’ve got good steak and you’re going to cook it for 8 minutes?

so how thick are the steaks then? you don’t know? neither do I, hence the estimation.

Missed the live web chat with Huw Gott

If properly cooked, somewhere between bloody as hell or burnt to a crisp, resting makes the most difference imo

but seems to make little difference to me if the pan is just ‘hot’ vs ‘hotter than hell’.

Makes a big difference if you like it rare, probably less the longer you cook it. Since chefs consider overcooking steak a bit of a sin, I suspect that’s where it comes from.

just over an inch thick I reckon

after initially putting them pre-oiled in a very hot pan, do I turn the heat down?

I would turn it down just enough to maintain the temperature (and avoid incincerating everything) – normally medium-high.

yoshimi, have a look on you tube, there’s loads of really good cooking vids on there.

what i’d do is take one cool box, fill it full of water at 52 degrees c, put the room temp steak in a zip lock bag with a bit of rosemary and garlic. seal the zip lock bag while squeezing as much air as possible out of the bag. pop the steak in the bag in the cooler. put the lid on. leave for an hour (you’d be surprised that my cooler lost only 0.5 degrees c over this time). 10 mins before you want to eat it put a griddle on the stove as hot as it will go, wait 9 mins, take steak out, flash it on the griddle for 30 secs a side. leave to rest for about 2 minutes then eat.

I think you all missed something here… the BUTCHER said to grill them! What a k**b!
And at £15 for 2 sirloins they must be VERY special….

Name and shame me thinks 😀

Right – thanks for all the advice – know what i’m doing now – I’ll just try not to ruin another one of the (wedding present) pans like I did last time I cooked

Sirloin? How common…

Do them ‘blue’ or at worst ‘rare’ if you don’t want to ruin them.

Take them out of the fridge long enough that they are room temp throughout before cooking them.

Look for Heston’s Tagliata recipe on the Waitrose website.

If you cook them medium you might as well have bought Tesco Value!

what it is about cooking steak that gets you all in a lather?

It’s like all of a sudden you all become a bit “Me, man must make fire, cook steak”

LOLing at all the caps and multiple !!!!

pjt201 – Member
what i’d do is take one cool box, fill it full of water at 52 degrees c, put the room temp steak in a zip lock bag with a bit of rosemary and garlic. seal the zip lock bag while squeezing as much air as possible out of the bag. pop the steak in the bag in the cooler. put the lid on. leave for an hour (you’d be surprised that my cooler lost only 0.5 degrees c over this time). 10 mins before you want to eat it put a griddle on the stove as hot as it will go, wait 9 mins, take steak out, flash it on the griddle for 30 secs a side. leave to rest for about 2 minutes then eat.

Or just sousvide it if you’re going all fancy 🙂

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/03/how-to-sous-vide-steak.html

– once the oil is smoking a bit, put the steak on and turn the heat down to medium/high.

Turn your hob down to high, jeffin’ hell. What’s the next setting up from high? Fission?

clubber – Member

Or just sousvide it if you’re going all fancy

Well, that’s pretty much what it is – just without the need for posh kitchen equipment! only really works for steak though as your average cool box looses too much heat from warmer water.

LOL – medium/high = between medium and high – not medium OR high 🙂

I do like the idea of a Spinal Tap ’11’ setting on the cooker though

The best way to cook steak is to braise it in Barolo IMHO. A bit of a faff though and triples the price of your dinner 🙁

Being a modern man, tonight I will be cooking tea for me and the wife

And you don’t know how to cook steak? 😯 🙄

Doesn’t salt draw the moisture out of it?

You could always just stick them in a George Foreman:

Do it or he’ll punch you!

Salt/pepper/garlic allow to sit, heat pan to Mt Vesuvious levels, add a dash of peanut oil, 2-3 minutes a side and DO NOT reflip your meat! turn it only once, allow to rest for a few minutes et voila. Pucka steak DONE!!!!!

Doesn’t salt draw the moisture out of it?

That’s why you season it just before it hits the pan.

There is a simple Gino D’Acampo recipe with homemade potato wedges and a red wine gravy knocking around that is really nice.