How to cook the perfect steak

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This article titled “How to cook the perfect steak” was written by Interview by Killian Fox, for The Observer on Saturday 14th July 2012 23.08 UTC

Not long ago, people used to complain about the steak scene in Britain. If you wanted to visit a proper steak restaurant you needed to cross the Atlantic. Six years ago, when Will Beckett and Huw Gott opened Hawksmoor in Spitalfields, people abruptly stopped complaining. Now, Hawksmoor, which sources its meat from British farms, has two more branches in London. “I don’t think there’s a steak in New York that compares to the Hawksmoor steak,” says Richard Turner flatly.

Turner was thinking of opening his own steakhouse until he started eating at Hawksmoor. “I asked to throw my lot in with them.” Now he’s the executive chef across all three kitchens. In his spare time he runs the East London Steak Company and is a co-owner of barbecue restaurant Pitt Cue Co. “Meat is my forte,” he admits. “You don’t need a massive charcoal grill. You can cook a great steak on a grill pan but you need a few tricks up your sleeve.”

The perfect steak

Serves 2
rib-eye steak 600-900g
smoked Maldon sea salt and black pepper
butter 250g, diced
garlic 1 head, cut in half horizontally

Source the steak
Before you buy the steak, ask your butcher a few questions: where is the animal from and what’s the breed? How old was it and how long has it been hung? If he can’t answer those questions, I’d go somewhere else. Ideally, you want the animal to be from a traditional British breed: at Hawksmoor we use Longhorns and Galloways. Two years is a good age and I like my beef hung for about 30 to 35 days – any longer and you get a gamey flavour. Buy a good-sized steak, at least 4cm thick. Look for a layer of fat on the steak and nice marbling, but not too much. Good British beef should have fat in the meat, a thin lacing of fat rather than big globules. The steak should have a nice sweet smell.

Prepare
Take the steak out of the fridge 20 minutes before to get it up to room temperature. Season well on both sides.

Cook
Get the pan very hot but don’t add oil. Lay the steak down on the pan and let it seal on one side. After 2 or 3 minutes turn it over and put half the butter and half the head of garlic on top. Let the butter drip around the steak on to the pan: frying in butter speeds up the cooking and gives the steak colour. Turn every couple of minutes. When the butter stops foaming, drain it off and add the rest of the butter and garlic. Rib-eye steaks are best eaten medium-rare. This may take around 7 minutes for a 4cm steak, but there’s no foolproof way of telling when it’s done, you learn through practice. It should be golden brown on both sides.

And relax…
Leave to rest for at least 10 minutes in a warm place. Serve with chips and creamed spinach.

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