Cooking a Great Steak For Quick Meals

Who doesn’t love a good slab of steak. It tastes great, looks amazing, and of course, melts in your mouth when cooked the right way.

Nevertheless, cooking steak remains to be a little intimidating for all of us. All is good and well when we simply dine out and leave it to experienced chefs, but there will be times when we want to make quick, cheap, healthy meals at home.

In which case, you are in for a treat because you can cook a great steak at home. In fact, it will only take you 15 minutes and few ingredients you can count on one hand.

What you need for your quick and simple steak recipe

Before you start, you have to check whether you have the necessary equipment in your kitchen. Don’t be alarmed since they’re pretty much basic kitchen utensils and equipment: a frying pan, tongs, a cutting board, and a meat thermometer.

Remember that you are going to place your frying pan in a very hot oven, which means you need a cast iron or stainless steel pan. The meat thermometer, while optional, is actually quite helpful. It makes for a good investment in the kitchen so you no longer have to worry about under or overcooking your meals.

For your ingredients, you will need:

• half a pound of steak,
• half a tablespoon of butter or ghee,
• coarse sea salt, and
• freshly ground coarse black pepper.

If you are cooking steak for the first time at home, I recommend getting a ribeye. Ribeyes are tender pieces of meat and are quite affordable. It is purely preferential whether you get a bone-in or boneless ribeye, but if you can find an inch thick of it, I would recommend that.

If you are not sure if you should get butter or ghee to sear your meat, here are some tips: ghee has a higher smoke point while butter is popular among the chefs and have been used by them for a long time now.

How to prepare your 15-minute steak at home

1. Make sure your steak is at room temperature to help cook the steak quickly and evenly.
   
2. Heat your frying pan on medium-high flames (or heat when using an induction cooker) and your oven to high.
3. Pat your steak dry with paper towels to minimize moisture on the meat and maximize contact between the steak and the pan;
4. Sprinkle some salt and grind pepper onto both sides of your steak. Another option is to marinate your steak overnight;
   
   
5. Put butter or ghee into the pan. For those who prefer using oil to sear your meat, you can use truffle oil instead of olive oil as it is a good source of antioxidants needed by the body. Don’t forget that it makes your steak taste more delicious.
6. Wait 30 seconds before you flip the meat and wait another 30 seconds. Both sides will have a caramelized brown color by then, although the middle part will still be raw.
   
   
7. Stick the pan in the oven for two minutes if you want your steak to be medium-rare or adjust the time according to your preference. If you have a meat thermometer in your kitchen, now is the time to use it.
8. After two minutes, pull the steak out of the oven, cover it with foil, and let it sit for 10 minutes.  

Here’s a tip that I learned from restaurants with great steak options. While allowing the steak to rest, tilt the plate by placing a half-inch tall object, like a saucer, under the steak plate, and let the juice roll down to the wider part.

This lets the steak absorb the juice fully, rather than letting it rolls across the plate in different directions. I recommend using an oval serving plate for this type of task.

Are you ready for your home-cooked steak?

Anything done for the first time is going to be scary, but if you made sure to read and understand this quick and simple recipe, you should be able to get through it quite easily.  

Bio: Sarah loves a mean steak, which is why she started Simmer and Zest. She loves all types of food and likes discovering new ways to enjoy it.