So I’m going to try something different since this is my first real post since migrating servers. I’ll actually provide some content and not just a picture of my dinner.
Being my usual exciting Friday night, I pop into Whole Foods after work to see what I can scrounge up. I remembered that I recently bought a subscription to Bon Appetit magazine and there was a recipe for a pan-roasted rib eye. That sounded pretty good after a long week of sitting in front of a computer so that became my current mission. I ended up with a 1.77 lb bone-in rib eye (about 1-1.5 inches thick), a couple of heads of garlic and some other items (which may find themselves in a later post). Alright, time to make like a convict and escape. After paying, of course.
Back at the ranch, I get started. I loosely followed this recipe: [Pan Roasted Rib Eyes] and my recipe will follow. For those of you who are unfamiliar with pan-roasting, it starts with searing the meat in a skillet on your stove and then finishing the cooking process in the oven. In addition to beef, you can use this technique to cook chicken, fish, etc. It’s good if you have a thick cut of meat and just cooking on the stove will leave you with a well done outside and a rare center. Otherwise, when you do it right, you’ll end up with this:
pan-roasted rib eye
What you’ll need:
- A heavy skillet (preferably cast iron)
- A cast iron skillet has poor thermal conductivity and will retain heat better. It’s also resilient to rapid changes in temperature and is good to use if you want to have a pretty steady temperature when cooking. Or if you’re making some good ol’ fried chicken.
- Oven that goes up to 400 degrees Fahrenheit
- An meat thermometer (instant read or something equivalent)
Ingredients:
- Bone-in Rib Eye
- Kosher salt and pepper
- 1 Tablespoon of grapeseed oil
- 3 Tablespoons of unsalted butter
- About 5-6 sprigs of thyme
- 4-5 garlic cloves
- Generously season your steak with salt and pepper on all sides. Allow your steak to come to room temperature for about 30 minutes.
- Pro Tip: The higher you have your hand when sprinkling the salt, the more even your salt coverage on the meats.
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit with your skillet in the oven.
- Once your meat is at room temperature and your oven is up to temp, take the skillet out and heat it on the stove at medium-high heat for about 5-10 minutes.
- Add your grapeseed oil
- I like using grapeseed oil because it has a high smoking point. When oils heat past the smoking point, free radicals are released which have been known to be carcinogenic (causes cancer). Olive oil has a lower smoking point and should generally not be used for searing, even though many recipes call for it.
- Slap your meat on the skillet. It should be sizzling. If not, take it out cuz it’s not hot enough. If it is, carry on. Sear each side for about 3-4 minutes. Make sure you sear the edges as well, because this is a pretty thick cut of steak.
- I pressed down on the steak for a few minutes so that it gets a good sear.
- Science lesson: browning meats causes a [Maillard reaction] to occur; influencing the flavor.
- It’s time to stick the skillet in the oven. This part will take some judging and measuring with the meat thermometer. I would say leave it in for about 4 minutes and then flip it and cook for another 4 minutes.
- If you’re not sure, use a meat thermometer. It should read at about 125 degrees for medium-rare (there is a resting period when the meat will continue to cook)
- Take the skillet out when your steak is up to temp and add the butter, garlic, and thyme. These should be cooking with the residual heat. After a few minutes, spoon the herb butter sauce on the steak to flavor it.
- Take the steak off the skillet and let it rest for about 10 minutes
- Resting the steak will redistribute the juices in the meat. The internal temperature will also continue to rise. A 5-10 degree increase is not uncommon while resting.
- If you cut the steak before it rests properly, all the juices will spill out and your steak will be dry.
- You can now slice to present or just leave it as a big hunking piece of meat. Be sure to spoon the sauce over the plated steak.
This is what my steak looked like after cooking/spooning the pan sauce:
straight out of the oven
Close up:
closeup
And there you have it. Stayed tuned for more posts. Hopefully my kitchen will be set up next time so that I can get shots of each step.
