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Myths about cooking steak that need to go away (2013)

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Re: Myths about cooking steak that need to go away (2013)

#221

Post by tptacek »

burntsushi wrote: post #205
gruez wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see how a circulator is more convenient or effortless. For starters you need to prep a bag and a pot of water if you're using a circulator. On the other hand with reverse sear all you need to do is stick a thermometer in, throw it on a pan/rack and put it in an oven. After you're done with the circulator you have to wrangle with a wet bag full of beef liquid and dry off the steak (otherwise your sear will b…

I don't really understand how you can "fail" to see the convenience. The convenience comes from the ease of getting it right. I consistently over-cooked steaks with the reverse sear method. Maybe half the time. With sous vide, I never---literally never---overcook a steak. That's the convenience. I don't have to worry about the temperature. I drop it in the bath and I take it out at my convenience.

I'm interested in what tended to go wrong for you with the reverse sear. One tricky thing is that the temperature increases nonlinearly, so if you take a couple readings and get a mental trajectory of when it's going to hit 115, you're likely to be wrong. The flip side though is that cooking at 250 (or, sheesh, 200, as they're doing across the thread) gives you a _real big bulls-eye_ to hit.

Nobody's gonna say that a circulator steak is bad. It's the second-best way to cook a steak. :)

Re: Myths about cooking steak that need to go away (2013)

#222

Post by tptacek »

jeff18 wrote: post #199
tptacek wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assume a Whole Foods ribeye as the reference steak here. They should not take anything close to 2 hours (you'll note that Kenji's guide agrees). Turn your oven up!

I will give it a shot! Always excited to up my steak game.

If you have a toaster oven, I strongly recommend the toaster oven. They come up to temp fast, and they have a much tighter band of temperatures than an oven, which is always +15/-15 from your set temperature. Holding a tight, low temperature is all you're asking from the oven, and toaster ovens are built to do that (ironically, they fucking blow at making toast).

Re: Myths about cooking steak that need to go away (2013)

#223

Post by tptacek »

phlipski wrote: post #213
giraffe_lady wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a professional chef for many years before I got into coding and I very rarely use a sous vide at home. The practical advantages of it have a lot more to do with timing, prep dynamics, and consistency than they do with final quality. There are some things that it makes possible or easy that are otherwise nearly inaccessible to home cooks and that is cool if you want to play around with it. Or if I'm cooking 6 st…

Non-chef but fairly advanced home cook here. When it comes to steaks I agree about the sous vide use. I have yet to be wowed by a sous vide steak I've made versus non sous vide. However when it comes to pork - sous vide is AMAZING. Pork chops come out better than non sous vide. You want a simple/easy/magical enternaining dish? Sous vide a pork tenderloin - your serving windows is 1-4 hours. You can't mess it up. Just…

Weirdly, while I totally get what people love about circulator steak, I have never had a good circulator pork chop experience. The two tricks to pork chops I've discovered are to dust them with sugar and salt as far ahead of time as possible, and then to treat them precisely as you would a mid-rare steak. There's something about sugar and pork, I don't pretend to understand what it is, but it's pretty miraculous.

The one routine thing I make that the circulator is unimpeachably excellent for is sausage. Bring sausage up to 145-150 or so, and then toaster oven on the broiler setting for like 7 minutes.

Re: Myths about cooking steak that need to go away (2013)

#224

Post by tptacek »

tzs wrote: post #200

I have a steak-adjacent question. Why are steak knives usually pointy? I've never had the need to stab my steak with a steak knife. I have on occasion accidentally stabbed my finger with one.

This question, as I just learned from Google, has an interesting answer: modern steak knives have their current shape because they're derived a specific letter opener.

Re: Myths about cooking steak that need to go away (2013)

#225

Post by gruez »

tptacek wrote: post #221
burntsushi wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand how you can "fail" to see the convenience. The convenience comes from the ease of getting it right. I consistently over-cooked steaks with the reverse sear method. Maybe half the time. With sous vide, I never---literally never---overcook a steak. That's the convenience. I don't have to worry about the temperature. I drop it in the bath and I take it out at my convenience.

I'm interested in what tended to go wrong for you with the reverse sear. One tricky thing is that the temperature increases nonlinearly, so if you take a couple readings and get a mental trajectory of when it's going to hit 115, you're likely to be wrong. The flip side though is that cooking at 250 (or, sheesh, 200, as they're doing across the thread) gives you a _real big bulls-eye_ to hit. Nobody's gonna say that a…

>so if you take a couple readings and get a mental trajectory of when it's going to hit 115, you're likely to be wrong

I just keep a thermometer in for the entire duration of the bake time. Someone in this thread posted a screenshot of them doing the same thing with some sort of bluetooth thermometer.

Re: Myths about cooking steak that need to go away (2013)

#226

Post by screye »

iqanq wrote: post #47
tedunangst wrote: post #4

Doesn't matter how it's cooked as long you put enough ketchup on it.

Why buy an expensive and tasty meat and put some sugary sauce on it? No offence intended, it's just that this baffles me. The only thing I would put on a steak besides salt is black pepper if I feel feisty.

I am tired of people acting like their bang average pub steak has any semblance of an exquisite culinary experience. Yeah, don't sauce your A5 Wagyu or beauty marbled meat from a cow that lived like a queen. But, the 20$ filled mignon that grew up without getting shoulder massages is as mundane as any other 'decent cut of an animal'.

That's not to say that I don't like a good simple steak, but there is nothing extraordinary about a grocery store cut of meat to warrant eating it with just salt and pepper all the time. Hell, at least goat, elk or salt water fish are gamey enough to have enough complex flavors going on by themselves. Steak is honestly, a little one dimensional.

IMO, a medium rare, dry brined and cast iron seared fatty steak with some chimichurri on top is admittedly excellent. Also, complaining about a welldone steak not being as juicy as a medium rare steak is ridiculous. But if thats what they like, then making fun of people's culinary tastes because you have a specific classist hangup about your food is snooty and stupid.

Re: Myths about cooking steak that need to go away (2013)

#227

Post by fisherjeff »

tptacek wrote: post #44
fisherjeff wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree on convenience: Timing hot steaks with hot sides is virtually effortless with a circulator

Not really. You have the same problem either way, because you've gotta sear both steaks. If you're going to need to hold the cooked reverse-sear steaks, bring them up to 120-124 (your final target temp is 128-132) instead of 115. I get what you're saying (I've got like 4 different circulators here, I'm not against them!) but the reverse sear is forgiving and flexible enough that I don't really even get a convenience…

Likewise, I’m 100% not against a pure reverse sear. I just prefer to focus on getting the sides prepped and done, knowing that whenever they’re ready, the meat’s only a few minutes out.

Re: Myths about cooking steak that need to go away (2013)

#229

Post by fisherjeff »

gruez wrote: post #100
fisherjeff wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree on convenience: Timing hot steaks with hot sides is virtually effortless with a circulator

I fail to see how a circulator is more convenient or effortless. For starters you need to prep a bag and a pot of water if you're using a circulator. On the other hand with reverse sear all you need to do is stick a thermometer in, throw it on a pan/rack and put it in an oven. After you're done with the circulator you have to wrangle with a wet bag full of beef liquid and dry off the steak (otherwise your sear will b…

For me, the convenience is that you can prep the bag and pot long before doing anything else. It’s not necessarily less work, just better distributed IMO

Re: Myths about cooking steak that need to go away (2013)

#230

Post by steak2 »

tptacek wrote: post #131
iqanq wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why buy an expensive and tasty meat and put some sugary sauce on it? No offence intended, it's just that this baffles me. The only thing I would put on a steak besides salt is black pepper if I feel feisty.

Bearnaise, hollandaise, red wine reduction, roquefort cream, lemon + olive oil, salsa verde, green peppercorn, garlic butter, bordelaise, au poivre --- not saucing a steak is a wasted opportunity for deploying some of the world's great sauces.

What's beautiful about a steak is that it transcends the collective human culinary craft. It's like this pure thing that prove god exists. All of those sauces, those creations of men, are more for making poorer quality steaks more palatable than elevating the best steaks. There is a reason restaurants that specialize in serving high quality steaks generally forgo the sauce.
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