A Guideline About How To Make a Perfect Steak

Steak is a dish made from red meat and has become very famous in modern days. A red meat contains about 20 gram of protein for every 100 gram, thus become one of greatest protein source. Many people arguing about How to make a perfect steak. In fact, there is many factor to make a perfect steak. From meat cut to the doneness. Sometimes it's considered a bad way to cook your steak until well done. So how do you make a perfect steak? I will explain it in easiest way as possible.

First, you have to determine what cut do you want to use. Each cut has different characteristic from other cut. For example, the chuck cut is tend to tougher than any other cut because it is an active muscle (to move cow body). Basically, the more active a meat cut is, it will be tougher and contain less fat. So you cannot cook it in long time, or the meat will turn into stone. Against the active one, the dormant one usually contain high fat and you have to cook it longer to breakdown the fat. I belief most perfect cut is coming from tenderloin, T - Bone, Short loin. Those muscle is in medium terms, mean those muscle are not exercising very much yet still have enough activity to keep adequate fat. As you can see in image above those meat are coming from top back of the body, and usually those meat are expensive. Here is a peek between tenderloin and T - Bone.

• Tenderloin is located right in the middle, between sirloin, short loin and round cut. Be sure to look for a good network of fat rolling through it. You can roast it or grilled it.

• T-Bone is located in the front end of short loin. Make sure to check the meat, the good meat come with bright red color. One of the prized cut, and contain many strips. 

Second, choose what oil do you want to use. As Gordon Ramsay suggest to use groundnut oil because it has mild flavor and high tolerance of heat, it can stand very high temperature without getting burned. Never use butter for grilling, for butter doesn't tolerate a high temperature thus take longer time to cook the steak. You can use a knob of butter if you want to have a creamy finish. Before put the meat in, make sure the oil is hot enough. Cold oil will make your steak turn out greasy and under browned.

Third, pick your doneness. Meat doneness is classified in:

• Blue, the rarest. Meat is still dark and just warm.
• Rare, Dark red and has some juicy flowing, has spongy texture with little resistance 
• Medium Rare, Pink in color, Juicy and soft in textures
• Medium, Pink in the middle and brown in the outside. Feel firm.
• Well Done, All is brown, has no juice and has hard textures.

Here is the guide on how to achieve the level of doneness for 2cm thick of steak.

• Blue, 1 min of each sides
• Rare, 1.5 min of each sides.
• Medium Rare, 2 min of each sides.
• Medium, 2.5 min of each sides.
• Well Done, 4-5 min of each side

You can search infoghrapic about steak doneness in google and the images will tell you well.

Last, pair it with sauce or wine. And let's roll.