How to cook beef steak in a pan: a classic recipe

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Classic steak is a piece of portioned beef meat, about three centimeters thick, fried on all sides. Let's talk about how to cook beef steak in a pan. There are different recipes. Let's understand the nuances of cooking.

Varieties of steak

Before talking about how to cook a beef steak in a pan, you need to understand what types of steak are.

Steaks are distinguished by the degree of doneness. Let's name the most basic of them:

1. Steak with blood. When ready, the temperature inside it is from forty-five to fifty degrees.
2. Medium rare meat at 55 to 60 degrees.
3. Deep rare steak - sixty-five to seventy-degree interior temperature.

Of course, ideally, the degree of readiness of the steak should be determined using a cooking thermometer. However, in everyday life this is not very convenient and hardly anyone willdo this. As a rule, the readiness of a dish is determined by eye.

When choosing which roast you want, remember that overcooking will cause the meat to lose its juices and become tough and dry. Only rare lovers consume meat with blood, but the majority of people prefer a stack with uniform roasting, when pressed, pink juice is released.

Steak is also served with side dishes. As a rule, these are grilled vegetables or salads with fresh vegetables.

Preparing food

When talking about how to cook a beef steak in a pan, you first need to find out which meat is suitable for this dish. So, for a real steak, you need to take only the flesh of beef without bones and veins, ideally it should be paired, this is the only way you can get a fragrant and juicy dish.

The meat is cut into pieces three centimeters thick. If you still cook from frozen meat, then it is better to defrost it in the main compartment, of course, this is a long time, but the meat will retain its beneficial properties. To speed up the process, you can put the packaged meat in cold water. Under no circumstances should it be defrosted in the microwave, even when using the special setting, or in warm water.

And one more piece of advice. Never beat a steak before cooking, it will lose all of its juices and structure.

In addition to meat, we need a set of spices and vegetable oil (olive or sunflower). Remember that the steak is not s alted beforecooking, this is done just before serving.

Preparing dishes

To cook meat, we need a steak pan. It can be ordinary cast iron cookware, but ideally it is good to use a grill pan. In addition, you will need a special steak knife. This is what masters use in this business. If you do not have such a tool, then use an ordinary sharp knife with which you can cut the meat well. The pieces should turn out beautiful and even. Homemade beef steak is not that hard to make.

Butter steak

Let's cook a beef steak in a pan. There are many recipes, let's look at some of them. If you choose the right meat, butcher and fry well, you will get the most delicious steak in the world.

Ingredients:

1. Butter - ¼ pack.
2. Ground pepper.
3. Beef - 0.8 kg.
4. S alt.

The beef tenderloin should be washed, then dried with towels, and cut into pieces three centimeters thick. Next, we need a steak pan. We put it on the fire and melt the butter.

Pepper only one side of the meat and put a piece on the pan with it. Next, pepper the other side and flip the steak. Cooking time is determined, first of all, by your preferences, what degree of roasting meat you like.

If you want the steak to be just a little fried, then it is enough to fry it for three minutes from eachsides. If you want to get a good crust on the outside and pink flesh on the inside, the time will have to be increased to four minutes on each side.

Well, if you want to eat well-done meat, then you need to cook it for five minutes on each side. And don't forget to s alt before serving.

Cooking a steak in the oven

If you want the beef to be soft, you can cook it in the oven. First, the meat is fried in a pan, as the resulting crust does not allow juice to flow out of it. That is why such a steak turns out juicy, tender and fragrant, especially when using spice mixtures.

Ingredients:

1. Beef - 1 kg.
2. Olive oil - 4 tbsp. l.
3. Collecting herbs (thyme, rosemary).
4. S alt.
5. Pepper.

Sliced steak marinate in oil with herbs for an hour. Next, we send the meat to a hot pan, frying for two minutes on each side. It should be crusty.

Then put the lightly fried steaks in the oven and cook for another fifteen minutes.

Steak with red sauce

If you have not yet decided how to cook beef steak in a pan, then you might like the recipe for meat with red sauce. This dish is for true gourmets. It is served with grape juice, pepper, red wine. The result will exceed all your expectations.

Ingredients:

1. Meat (beef) - 1 kg.
2. Butter - 2 tbsp. l.
3. Flour - 3 tbsp. l.
4. Wine red – 70g.
5. Bouillon – 300g
6. Currant juice – 70g

Carefully rub the steaks with pepper and lightly fry them for three minutes on each side. Then bake in the oven for another fifteen minutes.

In the meantime, start preparing the sauce. We melt butter in a frying pan. Then fry the flour on it until golden brown, add the broth, stirring constantly, bring to a boil and boil for ten minutes. Next, pour currant juice and red pepper and wine, bring to a boil again and immediately turn off. Such a delicious steak served with potatoes and sauce.

Useful tips for beginner cooks

While talking about how to cook a steak in a pan, I would like to mention the little nuances that will help you prepare an unforgettable dish.

So, the meat needs to be cut across the grain, this makes it easier for heat to penetrate into the middle of the piece.

If you want to experiment, try grilling a steak over charcoal. To do this, first fry the meat to get a crust that will not allow the juice to flow out, and then continue cooking on the coals, turning the pieces one by one.

Before cooking, the frying pan is heated over high heat, but without allowing the oil to smoke. Otherwise, the steak may burn and not cook properly. Cooks consider a pan to be ready for cooking if it sizzles when meat is placed on it.

After cooking, the steak should just lie down for ten minutes. Then the meat will become softer.

To determine the readiness of the steak, press it with your finger. Meat with blood should be soft. A well-done steak has a firm texture. And medium-rare meat is somewhere in the golden mean between two border states.

What kind of meat should I take for cooking a steak?

To cook the right beef steak, you need to choose good meat.

We have already said that steak is best cooked from fresh meat. Take only beef. Pieces are cut into pieces, the thickness of which is not less than two and a half centimeters, but not more than four.

The marbled steak is considered the best. It is made from Australian marbled beef. You can search for domestic analogues if you wish.

Japanese steak

We want to share another recipe for a steak cooked in the oven. The meat is very tender and tasty. It's called Teriyaki Beef Steak. Meat is marinated.

Ingredients:

1. Beef - 0.6 kg.
2. A tablespoon of honey.
3. Onion - 2 pcs
4. Wine (preferably dry white) - 90 ml.
5. Grated fresh ginger.
6. Two cloves of garlic.
7. Soy sauce.

Grate the ginger, chop the garlic and onion. Next we make the marinade. Mix the following ingredients: onion, sauce, honey, garlic, ginger, wine. We place the prepared pieces of steak in the mixture and leave to marinate for several hours. The meat needs to be turned over periodically.

Next, preheat the oven to a temperature of one hundred and eighty degrees. If you have a grill function, then you can use it and fry each steak for five to seven minutes on each side, not forgetting to pour the marinade.

The rest of the mixture should be brought to a boil, and then boiled for ten minutes to make it thick enough. Ready steaks are laid out on a plate and poured with teriyaki sauce made from marinade.

In principle, you can cook a steak in a more traditional way. To do this, the meat is marinated for several hours in olive oil with a mixture of Provence herbs. Then they fry a little in a completely dry frying pan, and only then bring it to readiness in the oven for another ten to fifteen minutes.

Interesting facts

Why do you think in almost all recipes the meat is first fried over high heat, and only then brought to readiness? Everything is very simple. During the heat treatment of meat, the protein coagulates immediately on the surface of the piece. Thus, it blocks the exit of liquid. It is for this reason that the meat is first processed at a high temperature, and only then cooked at a more gentle temperature. This technique makes the steak very juicy.

As soon as the meat reaches a temperature of forty degrees, proteins are destroyed, and after fifty degrees, collagen shrinks. And already at seventy degrees, the steak does not retain oxygen and acquires a gray tint. Therefore, it is better to cut the steak across the fibers, this will ensure the passage of hot streams through the meat.

Relative to how quickly you need to start eating the finished dish,even eminent chefs disagree. Some believe that the meat needs to lie down for ten minutes and reach the correct state, while others recommend eating it right away. Of course, it's all a matter of taste. So experiment and decide which option suits you best.