More often than not we class steak as a luxury in life, especially the good quality stuff that tends to come at a price. That price though is well worth it if you can cook the steak to perfection which unfortunately a lot of people tend to struggle with.
Now, there are a number of different ways that you can go about cooking steak but the one way that comes out on top is to use a griddle pan. Again, the way you go about cooking steak really depends on whether you like rare, medium-rare, medium, medium-well-done, or well-done. The heat settings and time that you need to cook the steak all vary with each of these methods.
If you are cooking for a dinner party who all want a different cooked steak then it can be confusing to know when to take it off the heat and serve it up. Hopefully over the next few minutes you are going to learn a little bit more about cooking steak, so take a seat and listen to what we have to say.
Note: There is literally a few minutes in-between a rare and well-done steak so timing really is of the essence when it comes to cooking the perfect steak.
Firstly you will need to take out your griddle pan and get your oil at the ready; also you may want to season your steak if you prefer to add some subtle flavours to the mix. The real key to steak is that everything happens quickly so preparation is must.
Get your pepper and sea salt ready by the side of you, your honey and mustard dressing, or your spice mix if you want to give the steak a nice kick.
The idea here is to add the oil to the griddle first and soon as the oil begins to separate its hot enough to add the steak to. Don’t be caught out by adding the steak to early as you could end up with a greasy steak that doesn’t taste as good as it should.
Once the oil is hot and ready, you can then press your steak into the seasonings that you have chosen and then add them right onto the griddle pan.
Blue steak is the first type of steak which hardly see’s the heat at all. The steak should be dark and look almost blue or purple to you, and will be warm (not piping hot).
Rare is the next steak type and is popular on the European continent. This steak will be dark red and the juices will have been created from its short time on the griddle.
Medium-Rare will look a lot more pink when you cut the steak open.
Medium is probably the most popular type of steak and this will be a pale pink colour but wont have many juices flowing from the outside. Instead the steak will be firm and the juices will have been soaked up by the heat.
Well-Done types of steak are generally for those who don’t want to risk a bad stomach off the other types of steak. You shouldn’t see a whole lot of pink in this steak, instead it will mostly brown in colour but shouldn’t be overcooked to the stage where it has completely dried out.
So now you know what steak types should look like we will tell you the times that you need to keep them on the griddle. This is a rough guide as it depends on the type of steak and the thickness of the steak so we are going to provide you with a general average here.
For Blue steaks you are looking to cook a Sirloin steak for 60 seconds on either side.
For Rare steaks you are looking for increase that time to around 90 seconds on either side.
Medium Rare you just need to add another 30 seconds to each side, making this type of steak a 2 minute job on either side.
For Medium steaks you can add around 10-15 seconds on each side.
Finally, the well-done steaks can take almost double the time a medium steak can take. You should be looking in between the 4 and 5 minute mark on either side of the steak to classify it as a well-done type.
Like any meat that has just been cooked you should always leave it to rest properly on the side for about 5 – 10 minutes. What this does to any meat is allows the juices to be absorbed back into the meat and what you will then get is a moist and tender piece of steak that is still warm/hot (depending on the type of steak).