[Closed] Can you cook a tender ,tasty steak without spending a lot ?

Lookup the reverse sear method.

Since I stopped oiling the steak or the pan and cooking them dry things seemed to have improved. Getting a thick steak to start with helps for me but I do like them rare.

Actually, stick it in a plastic freezer bag, fill a coolbox with water at 55 and drop the bag in for an hour. Top the water up with hot water now and then so it stays around 55

Take it out and shove it in a hot pan for a minute each side

Sounds way more faff than it actually is and it's a great way to 'cook' steaks without spending a fortune.

If you can't be arsed with that then at least let the steaks come up to room temp first. I would take them out of the fridge for an hour or two in advance

Edit:and as scruff9252 says below, let it rest after cooking

A couple of general rules I use;
Cook from room temperature, not straight from fridge
Cook with a good dollop of butter
use a really hot griddle
rest for as long as you cooked it for post cooking.

Whilst the steak is resting I use the same griddle, with more butter to fry off the onions. This should get you a pretty good steak

I'm not keen on pink so I seem to go for well done-medium - closer to well done than medium - if I go well done then it tends to be tougher as there is less juice left, but I find medium still a bit pink and juicy...

Medium heat and regular turning seems to do the trick for me.

Morrison’s butcher counter often has great deals on rump, ribeye or sirloin, you can also get the steak cut to the thickness you prefer.

I bought 2 huge steaks fro Sainsburys yesterday. £5 each. Cooked on a very hot griddle. Didn't think they would be any good because they were cheap but I was pleasantly surprised.

One of these does the trick for me:

https://business.currys.co.uk/catalogue/kitchen-domestic-appliances/small-kitchen-appliances/small-cooking-appliances/tefal-optigrill-xl-gc722d40-grill-stainless-steel-black/N198042W?cidp=Froogle&gclid=CjwKCAjwn6GGBhADEiwAruUcKvyd-6AiboUw3qS_5txg4CRS-_nvOwUIEC0U8MeE-549YVU7Hei2_hoCkPUQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Bring the meat up to room temp before cooking, good covering of salt & pepper then stick it on the grill dry until it tells you it's done how you like it.

I love a steak, was never very good at cooking them. We used to have a griddle pan that would fill the kitchen with smoke and still not do the steaks how we like them. The Optigrill pings as soon as it's done (based on type of food and thickness of it) and works like magic.

I never have steak in a restaurant. Learned that lesson a while ago after so many dissapointments. Just can't cook it right. I always order rare in the hope I'll get a decent medium rare and it almost always comes out medium at best, but mostly well done. That includes the more pricy chain places too and some posh gastro pubs.

The best steaks I've ever had are in Texas and Aussie. Always bob on, but they tend to be much larger too and I find it is much easier to cook a large steak than a small one, and they tend to be pretty small in the UK. Even can be hit and miss in France unless you spend big money in a posh restauraunt. Had an awesome one in Luxembourg on a work trip, but that was a very expensive high end restaurant so you'd expect whatever they cook to be top notch and certainly out of my price range so not something I'd be indulging in myself.

I think Aldi do half decent steaks if you get their higher end ones that are 32 day matured or whatever...far better than anything I've had from the more mainstream supermarkets. For me the most important thing is to let the meat come upto room temp before cooking, never cook out of the fridge. Always put into a hot pan and not into a cold pan and heat up. Oil the meat not the pan, salt and pepper during cooking. If a thicker cut sear outside in a hot pan and finish in the oven. For a thinner cut pan fry for a short period of time on a medium heat. Always baste with butter. Always come out pretty decent in my experinence. Its a rare treat so don't hold back on the unhealthy stuff like butter. No margarine crap, proper butter and loads of it. Once in a blue moon never did anyone any harm.

Also I salt the meat too prior to cooking, for as long as I can before cooking. Dries out the meat in terms of any water - not the fat...you want the moisture to come form the fat not any water that is in the meat, so salting removes that, prevents it boiling in the pan and gives you a much cleaner caramelised crust and the inside is rich and juicy, not watery. More important with cheaper cuts maybe, but I think any cut benefits.

Also as important as the steak is a decent accompanying wine. Again Aldi do some great wines at reasonable prices so no need to break the budget. A decent steak without a decent red wine is only half the package.

Depends on your idea of a lot! I'd rather eat steak less frequently but buy it from the local butchers as it's generally better quality and much tastier than supermarket meat. Depends what cut/size you go for but we usually spend about £8 per steak for sirloin, the whole family likes rare and I've never had a chewy one yet from the butchers.

Marks and Spencer do a thick sirloin for £11 which easily does 2 folk. I like mine rare so highest heat 3 minutes each side.

Firstly, you can get tasty steak from a supermarket but predominantly it’ll be wide rather than thick, and thickness is key for most cuts apart from Flat Iron or Onglet (my favourites), so suggest going to a butcher. If you don’t want to spend a lot of money buy an aged rump. You can only effectively reverse sear thick meat. You do this by cooking in an oven or bbq at a lower temperature till the meat reaches about 45degrees, rest, then finishing to your liking in a really hot pan, flipping often.

Never oil the pan. If cooking inside you need to get the pan red hot. Ideally sprinkle some salt on the meat the night before. If reverse searing then you don’t need to bother getting it out the fridge but smaller cuts it helps - what is room temperature anyway?

Finish in butter if you like. Never bother putting pepper on before it goes into the pan as it burns. I’d always say buy the best meat you can and have it as a treat.

Do you want tenderness or taste? Fillet is the most tender cut, rump has a stronger taste, sirloin somewhere in the middle.

My method, which works for me, is remarkable simple.

Lets assume it's sirloin we're cooking (I cook fillet different to this):

Pick up a nice piece if steak, I prefer to buy from my butchers but it's perfectly possible to cook supermarket steak well.

Get it out the fridge a couple of hours before you want to cook it, you want it at room temperature and not below.

Get a griddle pan (heavy frying pan if you don't have a griddle) smoking hot.

Rub a small amount of rapeseed oil (not olive oil as it'll burn) and season well. Don't be shy on this.

Put steak in the pan with a sprig or 2 of rosemary and a few cloves of garlic.

Cook for around 2.3 minutes either side.

Take out and put on a warm plate, put the garlic and the rosemary on top, and leave it to rest for at least 5 minutes.

Serve.

With a big piece of steak ill sear it then put it in an oven on a low heat for a bit before resting, i sometimes find with a big bit its easy to overcook it in the pan and then its a bit tough, a slower low cook in the oven seems to get it a bit more tender.

Aldi Aberdeen Angus fillet Steaks (around a fiver each) George Foreman type grill. Let steak get to room temperature and cook for 2.5mins (rest if you want). Delicious!

Yesterday I thought for a treat I would buy some Deluxe aged fillet steak from Lidl at £10 for 2 small pieces. I cooked it as per the instructions and was most disappointed as it came out rather chewy and tough , although the flavour was ok.

That's a bit odd as fillet by definition is all about being tender at the expense of it not really tasting of much.

I suspect the "cooking per the instructions" might be an issue - packaging is going to tell you to cook it waaaaaaay longer than needed I suspect.

You could write essays on steak cooking but a couple of key ones for me are;
- Get the steak up to room temp before you cook it. Straight from the fridge is never going to work. For medium you need to get the centre of the steak to ~55. If you start with fridge cold steak at 4 deg, then that's a 14-fold increase in temp required. If your steak is room temp at ~21, then you are looking at ~2.5 fold increase needed. Given you want to cook at a very high heat for a very short time, you can see which of these two scenarios is more likely to work.
- Rest the bugger. It's not going to go cold if you leave it for 10 mins, but it is going to give it a chance for the internal temperature to even out a bit.

My favourite supermarket cut is probably Tesco Finest Cote de boeuf. So that's a 2-3" thick ribeye on the bone. Or to put it an other way it's a Tomahawk steak without paying more money for them to leave 8" of bone on there so you can be an Instagram W**ker. Steak that thick really needs some kind of sous vide approach, but the ghetto approach as described by leffeboy above works perfectly OK.

The Optigrill pings as soon as it’s done (based on type of food and thickness of it) and works like magic

I'm surprised. When I was very young and very stupid I used one of those George Foreman grill things to cook a steak. It was terrible. As soon as it came out I could see the issue - it had essentially been steamed by being enclosed in the grill. I can't imagine how it would be possible to leave anything in one of those long enough to get the outside seared without the centre getting steamed to death.

I don't use foil, just stack them up on plate for few minutes. while you're waiting to serve you can use the residual heat in the pan to wash it up, pour some water in and a spot of detergent and it'll clean up really easily.

I wouldn't have contributed but then I saw "3 minutes a side". If you leave it to stand a few minutes after cooking it won't bleed (much).

I have one of those tefal optigrill things. We got it as an Xmas gift from family.

We did use it a lot while we had no kitchen but mostly it’s just used for toasties and sausages.

It has an unacanny ability to cook things perfectly but to also dry them out massively.

Not a great way to cook a good steak

Thermodynamics pedant here

steak to ~55. If you start with fridge cold steak at 4 deg, then that’s a 14-fold increase in temp required. If your steak is room temp at ~21, then you are looking at ~2.5 fold increase needed

Temperatures should be in Kelvin for this sort of comparison so

steak to ~328. If you start with fridge cold steak at 277 deg, then that’s a 1.18-fold increase in temp required. If your steak is room temp at ~294, then you are looking at ~1.06 fold increase needed

I can only applaud the nerdery - excellent work!

My current method is out of the fridge 2hrs before cooking, a good rubbing of salt, pepper, paprika and oil on both sides then leave to rest on a plate to bring to room temp.
Griddle pan up to heat with a tiny drizzle of oil in (just for giggles - the oil on the steaks does the work, I'm just not comfortable with heating a dry pan). Then 2.5mins on each side with no touching in between so you get the nice griddle lines. Then on it's side briefly to sear the fatty edges. Rest for a few mins while I serve the rest of the plates up.
Did it this weekend with a pair of the Aldi "Big Daddy" rump steaks at $4.50 each for a full 1lb steak. I was very happy with them. Would maybe have done slighly less time as they were more medium-well than medium.
(black pudding was included as I forgot it was in the fridge when doing breakfast and I really wanted it).
Also, not sure why the photo is so rubbish - must have had a dirty phone camera lens.

What a fantastic response ...loads of great ideas thank you all. Actually the fillet steak flavour was a little disappointing ..perhaps for the reasons given above.
Regarding following the instructions...being a hopeless cook that's just what I did but even with my knowledge I was surprised they recommended 1 min on high heat both sides then 12 minutes on medium high or up to 15 for well done. Did seem a long time but I naively presumed they'd give you ballpark advice. I did use butter as well as a little oil.
It's obviously a favourite subject looking at how quickly you all responded. Such a great site ...much better than Google for many things!

We find rib-eye the tastiest & easiest to cook.

The costco Aberdeen Angus ones are fairly expensive for a pack of 4 steaks (c. £40), but one steak will do two people easily. It's cut about 1.5-2 cm thick.

Salt & pepper both sides - no oil, into a HOT pan, leave it alone until blood appears on top surface (but keep track of time).
Once blood appears, turn it, cook for same period again.

Rest on warm plate for cooking time.

And don't forget the finger technique to check how cooked your steak is

Linkity link

I just chuck the plastic bag / packet (what the steak comes in) into a large bowl of warm-hot water for a few minutes (15-30?) before salting then cooking in a frying pan. I seem to always get good results, but maybe I'm not enough of an expert. I never realised I had been 'reverse searing' it all this time.

Ribeye is nice if done in the oven, but it needs to be about 1" thick, which is about 3/4lb. Trim as much fat off as you can. As with all, overcook it and its ruined. MUST be pink to some degree.
It's my choice for a Christmas dinner type setting. Usually my treat to the family and guests, and would usually become the topic of conversation at the table, especially from Dad, who had Mums cooking to contend with 😆 (sorry mum) I'd select a 5 rib of beef off the side of beef I thought best, the best marbled after splitting down the animal, hang it for 8-10 weeks in the chill, then bone it out, trim it completely and roll it in the French kitchen style.
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I cook a fair bit of fillet, and avoid supermarket usually, apart from M&S better range or morrisons as its a short horn breed and has enough flavour for me, especially as i always make a blue cheese cream sauce to go with it.(or a tomato based jus)
Something I always get if we eat in a good restaurant(judgemental judgemental) look down and go, yeah thats normally what my Friday dinner looks like 😆
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Theres usually 2 cuts on fillet. Chateaubriand, which is the head of the fillet, which starts behind the rump, and Tournedos which starts to extend into the back, finishing in Mignon, with isnt really a cut you should be paying top dollar for.
tournedos is usually better marbled that the Chateaubriand.
The real trick is having it pink, medium rare to medium. If its brown inside you've overcooked it. Even very slightly pink is well done, but beyond that the fibers toughen, and its devoid of moisture.
The other thing is to make sure the outer edges are devoid of fat, or especially the silver skin, which is a sinew that anchors the muscle to behind the rump on the Aitch bone. You will chew that for weeks, it must be removed wholly before cooking

It's not blood, its water you see on the plate for medium to medium rare or even rare beef. As you cook the water is expelled from the cells, and boils off,go too far, you've dried it out. And keep in mind the inside of the meat is sterile, so you need only cook the outside for it to be safe to eat, even if its cooked blue.

I cook with a little butter, a little oil, this help it caramelize and adds to the flavour. A medium hot heat(if the smallest burner on a gas cooker, that full. TURN OFTEN. I dont salt prior to cooking, but i do afterwards- Smoked salt is my choice. UNLESS its a blue cheese sauce, given Stilton or Agur is often salty, you really dont want to over season.
I place a pan lid over the top of the pan, as that keeps the steam/smoke from filling up the kitchen, and helps cook it by heating it from the top somewhat.

I'd say always buy from a butcher, but thats not the best option in many cases. Most shops, and keep in mind theres only 4lb of fillet per side of beef, and some shops only go through a single side a week, which means theres only 4lbs of dry aged to go around their regular customers, so to help out they buy in vac beef, which is aged in a plastic bag. This isnt the same as off the bone in a butchers shop. Usually it was taken off...actually Ill not go into this...its not really the subject for around the dinner table 😆 OK then. Its known as hot boned, ie its removed from the animal while the bones are still hot, then bagged then chilled and its not really matured at all. More the mass production and nothing I'd have by choice, though sometimes unavoidable.

I'm no steak expert / steakbore, but I have found Lidl's recommended cooking times to be ludicrously overdone.

To answer the OP - yes, but it seems to be pot luck. Had some really nice cheap "frying steak" and plenty of disappointing sirloin, ribeye etc.

Not had steak for about a year but I found the 30 day aged Irish ones in tesco to be good... About a tenner for 2 decent sized ones.

Cooking time depends on thickness and preference, but as above try to get it room temperature first and a good sprinkling of chunky salt crystals.

That's it.

Best method I've used is Heston's, searing hot pan, turn the steak over every 15-20 seconds for 3-8 minutes depending on how thick your steak is and how done you want it.

Depends on your idea of a lot! I’d rather eat steak less frequently but buy it from the local butchers as it’s generally better quality and much tastier than supermarket meat

This. I'd rather eat it less often and have better quality when I do. It's important to learn how well-cooked the steak is, the "finger doneness" method linked upthread is what I do. I get the pan really hot and brush some rapeseed oil and seasoning onto the steak. Leave it to rest before eating.

As others have said, supermarket instructions will result in over-cooked steak. The Lidl and Aldi stuff isn't too bad IME.

Morrisons Bavette cut - £3.75 for two. Lots of salt and pepper. Barbecue for a while (lowish heat). Rest for a while. Slice and serve with mustard/lemon juice/olive oil and parsley mix.

As I said, if you want tasty and cheap, flat iron or onglet - I think M&S do flat irons.

If you are reverse searing a big steak you don’t have to worry about cooking from the fridge as it’ll help bring up to temp slowly and help give that uniform colour inside.

I generally stick to ribeye these days (bog-standard Tesco 2 for £7 is pretty good IME), occasionally sirloin when it's on offer in the local supermarket. A good hot cast iron griddle pan, 2 mins first side and 1:30 second. Though it depends on thickness and how you like it. Sometimes render a bit of fat off the meat to start with if I'm feeling fancy.

I always think a good steak should be expensive and preferably from a local butcher/farm. You want a prime cut that's nice and thick and has been aged well. You want the cows to have been grass fed and treated well. That gives you the best chance of cooking a nice steak. Then pretty much any of the above methods should be ok for cooking up to medium. Anything further than that and you might as well have a thinner cheaper steak and use the money you spend on a nicer wine to wash it down with.

Lidl's times are well over - but their Deluxe rib eye is great. At the moment they also have nice thick griddle pans in stock - great for cooking steak. Had mine years.
And for taste - I find garlic pepper instead of pepper (or in addition to!) makes em loverly.

Sous Vide for me every time. Cooked to perfection exactly the way you like it all the way through. Reverse sear by whatever means; I use a quality blowlamp to the desired finish. Redneck method is to do the steaks in the dishwasher then reverse sear. Titter ye not, this works a treat :o)

Okay, this approach does involve spending lots but here I go anyway...

Get a 'Steakstone' and cook it at the table (I season with salt, pepper and a little oil and cook from room temperature) so it's always cooked exactly as you want it. It's our family special occasion treat - salmon, prawns, steak (I prefer rib-eye, my wife likes fillet), tomatoes, mushrooms etc mmmmmmmm

I never have steak in a restaurant.

unless they cook over charcoal.

If you can't get a decent steakn in a restaurant, you probably just need better restaurants 😉

Temper, no salt too soon before cooking (it suck the moisture out).
Cook with flame, on a gas (if you have to), charcoal, or dirty direct on the lumpwood if you can.
Cook a steak with some fat in, fat renders and keeps meat tasty.
Cook lightly, rest for as long as you cook (foiled and wrapped)
Dress lightly, keep the meat flavour present.

I cooked a pichana a couple of weeks ago, a whole rump cap, you sear it, cut steaks then cook the steaks. Was good but could have been more tender I *think* I cut with the grain but I might have messed that bit up.

Cooking steak depends as much on the qaulity of the meat as it does the cook, and wood cooked is always tastier.

It is a learning process to get it cooked how you like too.. You might do a few that are too rare or too well done for your personal taste but eventually you'll 'get your eye in' according to your pan and the thickness of the steak.

30 seconds or a minute out and it won't be right so use a timer on your phone.

Personally I like it medium rare and for my set up, a steak about 3cm thick ill do 2mins and then flip it for another 2 mins. Boom done.

Regarding following the instructions…being a hopeless cook that’s just what I did but even with my knowledge I was surprised they recommended 1 min on high heat both sides then 12 minutes on medium high or up to 15 for well done

For any thick cut of steak (which a fillet likely is) I'd pan then oven or reverse sear (oven then pan), frying for 10+ minutes always toughens the steak up too much IME.

The thick-cut sirloin from M&S is really good IMO (although pricey), decent amount of flavour but still tender (I do 1 minute or so each side in the pan then in the oven for 13-14 minutes).

Most other supermarket sirloin is cut too thin IMO and just toughens up when pan fried (I don't have a butcher's close to me 🙁 )

I have a Tefal Optigrill thing to, works well for tuna steaks but not beef IME, squishes and steams it as much as grills it. Also takes ages to pre-heat and more of a pain to clean than a frying pan...

Any tips on smoke control? I get good resultsbut my pan always ends up at flash point and pumps out enough smoke to kill a small animal.. Maybe I'm using the wrong oil or shouldn't oil the pan?

recommended 1 min on high heat both sides then 12 minutes on medium high or up to 15

Wow.. That will totally ruin a steak.. That's the kind of steak Donald Trump likes, with ketchup and a side of fries :O

Thermodynamics pedant here

steak to ~55. If you start with fridge cold steak at 4 deg, then that’s a 14-fold increase in temp required. If your steak is room temp at ~21, then you are looking at ~2.5 fold increase needed

Temperatures should be in Kelvin for this sort of comparison so

steak to ~328. If you start with fridge cold steak at 277 deg, then that’s a 1.18-fold increase in temp required. If your steak is room temp at ~294, then you are looking at ~1.06 fold increase needed

In this case, you need an interval scale (Celsius, not a ratio scale (Kelvin) because you are talking about the change (i.e. subtraction, not division). From 4 degrees to 55 is 51 degrees change. From 21 degrees to 55 is 34 degrees change. 51/34 = 1.5. You need to heat the steak 50% more if you take it out of the fridge. You'll get the same result if you use Kelvin because that's also an interval scale.