Although the classic steak is whole beef meat fried over a fire in a short time, there are numerous recipes for oven-baked steaks, pork steaks, and even steaks from salmon and other fish. In the cuisine of some countries, even ground beef steak, which is closer to a cutlet, is considered a steak.
What is a steak?
In essence, a steak is a thick piece of quality grass-fed beef (in some cases with a bone – the so-called “ribeye”), cut across the muscle fibers and fried in a special pan or on a grill at a high temperature. Steak meat can be either drier (filet mignon) or streaked with noble fat (marble steak).
What meat is a steak made from?
A delicious steak is not just a piece of grilled meat. Unfortunately, it is simply impossible to cook the right steak from ordinary “store-bought” beef – the reason lies both in the type of meat itself and in the choice of the part of the carcass, used for steak.
The main thing is that steak beef should not contain gels to increase the volume of the product – and such fillers are extremely widely used in cheap meat. When frying at a high temperature, a large amount of liquid will simply start to flow out of such a steak – as a result, the meat will begin to stew, and the degree of roasting simply cannot be regulated.
What part of beef is steak made from?
For classic beef steaks, only the meat of those parts of the carcass of the animal, the muscles of which are not involved in motor activity, are suitable – primarily the chest, sides, and back. Since no more than 10% of the bull carcass can be used in the end, this is one of the key reasons for the high cost of quality meat for a delicious steak.
The finished steak gets its name depending on what part of the carcass it was cooked from. In different countries, both the carcass cutting scheme and preferences for the choice of meat and roasting method differ. The American steak is a thick piece of meat with noble streaks of fat (marbled beef), while in Europe smaller and thinner sirloin steaks are preferred.
What is grass-fed?
Under natural conditions, cows feed on grass – however, in industrial production, the grass is replaced by corn, compound feed, and other additives. As a result, the animal gains weight much faster, but at the expense of fat rather than muscle mass. The taste of beef is also fundamentally different since eating herbs directly affects the aromatic qualities of meat.
Among other things, not every type of cow is suitable for making steaks – in addition to the division of beef into meat and dairy (as the name implies, dairy cows are raised for milk), there are a number of specially selected types of animals intended exclusively for cutting into meat for steaks.
Australian and Argentine beef
For the right steak, the meat of young gobies of the Angus and Hereford breeds, aged 1-1.5 years, is suitable. The main producing countries of such meat are Argentina, Uruguay, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Ireland. The role is played not only by the weather conditions of the above countries but also by the types of nutrition available for growing beef.
Depending on the direct nutrition, the meat can have both more fat inclusions (grain-fed with wheat and corn), or less (exclusively grass-fed). In the US and Australia, grain-fed “marble” meats (thicker, fatter steaks) are preferred, while grass-fed lean meats are valued in Europe, Argentina, and South Africa.
How to cook a steak?
Once again, we note that beef for a delicious steak implies natural grazing throughout the entire process of raising an animal – in countries with snowy winters, this is extremely, extremely difficult. That is why from an ordinary piece of beef bought in the nearest store, you can only cook meat stewed in its own juice, but not a steak at all.
- Buy the right meat. Preference should be given to either chilled steak meat in vacuum packs or deep-frozen. Frozen meat for cooking a steak must first be thawed slowly – leave it in the main chamber of the refrigerator for several hours.
- Cut the meat into thick pieces. The meat for the steak is cut into fairly thick slices – about 5 cm for fatty marbled meat, or 4-5 cm for an almost dry filet mignon beef. After cutting, the meat should rest at room temperature for at least 30-45 minutes.
- Prepare a frying pan. Thin sirloin steaks are best fried in olive oil, non-stick pans, and on a gas (or induction) stove, and thicker and fatty ones (including marbled steaks) in special ribbed pans or on a grill. In this case, a minimum of oil is required.
- Don’t spoil the meat! In no case do not wash the meat immediately before frying – it should be as dry as possible. Before frying the steak, add a little rock salt, black pepper, or a pinch of aromatic herbs on both sides of the steak, but be moderate and do not overdo it.
- Keep the skin on the steak while frying. To form a golden crust that retains all the juices inside the steak, it is important to fry it at a high temperature. Do not put several pieces of meat on the pan at the same time – this will lower its temperature and the steak will begin to stew in its own juice.
- Be sure to keep time. As with soft-boiled eggs, the best result is obtained by fixing the cooking time. The frying time depends on the thickness of the piece of meat and its type – ranging from 1.5-2 minutes for filet mignon, ending with 6-7 minutes for each side of well-done marbled beef.
- Let the steak rest before serving. Before the steak is almost done, it is removed from the heat and placed on a plate for 5-7 minutes – the heat on the surface redistributes the juices inside the piece of meat, causing it to soak more evenly and become tastier.
The degree of doneness for steaks
In accordance with the American system of classification of classes of roasting, six degrees of readiness of steaks are divided – very rare (almost raw meat), rare (meat with blood), medium rare (low-rare steak), medium (medium-rare), medium well (almost fried), well done (fried). The best way to cook a steak depends solely on the tastes of a particular person.
For thick, fatty steaks (including bone-in rib-eye steaks) preferred by Americans, medium rare to medium well is optimal, while thinner, low-fat European and South American steaks (such as the classic filet mignon) are best-served light and fast frying – from rare to medium.
On the one hand, cooking a steak is easy – you just need to fry a piece of meat. However, both the meat for the steak itself and the pan must be of high quality – otherwise, you will end up with either beef braised in its own juice or overly tight meat that will even be difficult to cut, let alone enjoy its taste.