No, I don’t mean a battle where the combatants use steak for weapons, as cool as that would be.
Rather, I’m referring to what sounds like an exhaustive study of steak preparation technique, carried out by a lovely and compelling food blogger named Helen. She and her S.O. Jason face off against each other, against rib-eyes and NY Strips, and hanger steaks, and against Alton Brown, trying to come up with the most reliable method for preparing a Great Steak. This whole saga runs two long posts at Beyond Salmon: The battle of the steaks (and the sexes), and Perfect steak at last.
It’s great writing! Very entertaining, and also quite admirably methodical. But what struck me most was the method Helen arrived at. See her goal was to develop a formula, so that, as infrequently as she prepared Great Steak, it would always turn out Perfect. And by perfect she means seared and slightly crusted on the very outside, and evenly tender and juicy on the inside. It’s tricky! The bistro method gets it close, and Helen starts here too: Quick sear at very high heat, and then finish in the oven.
But here’s the amazing part: she rests the steak for ten minutes … before finishing it in the oven at a very low heat for 12 to 15 minutes!!
I’m gonna try it. Even though I think it’s still a matter of much variation to get a steak perfect, there’s something really interesting to me about her strategy of temperature and minimizing “heat disturbance”.