Learn How To Pan Fry Steak Like A Restaurant Chef

Delish

Learn how to pan fry steak with some key tips and simple ingredients! All you need is steak, fat, and seasoning, plus a solid skillet like cast-iron.

Transcript

00:00Hey everybody, I'm Brooke Kasin, food editor here at Delish, and I think it's about time I show you

00:05how to make the most perfect pan-fried steak. Today is the day that we cook the perfect pan-fried

00:11steak. No more fear, no more crying, we're gonna do it. I like to use a steak that's about one inch

00:17thick because one, that's the most common thing you're gonna find in a grocery store, and two,

00:21it cooks really quickly. Second step, we're gonna pat that baby bone dry. We're not working with

00:28any wet steaks here because that is how you get a really disappointing crust. A thin steak is one

00:34inch and under, and a thick steak is anything thicker than about one and a quarter inch. So

00:39when you start to get to one and a quarter, one and a half, two inch thick steaks, that's how you

00:44know it's gonna be a long cook time. The steak we're working with is a boneless ribeye. This is

00:49your quintessential everyman steak. You're gonna find it in most grocery stores, and it's also my

00:54personal favorite. We've also got things like skirt steak, or filet mignon, or hanger steak, or

00:59round eye steak, but I think a ribeye is the perfect combination of flavor and texture. I like

01:06using the medium grind kosher salt just because of how much easier it spreads over the surface of

01:11the meat, so you get a lot more even coverage. With the coarse grind, it kind of is like a little

01:17tiny pebble, so it doesn't really coat the meat. A lot of the salt sits above the surface of the

01:22meat just because of how big the grains are. And then we have finishing salt over here. This is

01:28exactly what it sounds like. This is going to be what we use to finish the meal. It's going to add

01:33a little bit of flavor, but it's also going to give us a little bit of texture. The salt that

01:36I'm using is kosher salt, but it is not coarse kosher salt. If you're going to reach for coarse

01:41kosher salt, you're going to use a little bit less than you would use for the kind of salt that I have,

01:45which is not coarse, but it's not fine. It's somewhere in the middle. I've measured how big

01:50my salt pinch is so I know about how much I'm putting on here, but a good rule of thumb is about

01:54one teaspoon per pound of steak. So each of these are about a half pound, so they need about a half

02:00teaspoon. Don't be afraid of salting your steak, guys. It's one of those things where if you

02:04under salt it and you feed it to somebody, they're going to think you can't cook, and that's not what

02:09you want. Seasoning your food is not the enemy, especially if you're cooking at home. I left

02:15pepper as optional because honestly, you don't totally need it, especially if you're a steak

02:19connoisseur and a steak lover like myself, but sometimes people like a little bit of extra heat,

02:24so black pepper is not frowned upon in my household. We need two kinds of heat for our steak.

02:30You're going to start the pan on medium high. That's going to be to get it as hot as you can.

02:35It should be smoking just a tiny bit, and then we're going to drop it to medium after we flip

02:40the steak. The kind of oil that's best for cooking a steak is going to be a neutral oil, so that's

02:45your vegetable oil, your canola oil, your safflower oil, things that can stand up to a high heat.

02:51You don't want something that's going to start smoking as soon as you put a little bit of heat

02:54on it. My favorite, favorite, favorite thing to cook a pan-fried steak in is a trusty, dusty,

03:00heavy-duty cast iron skillet. If you're lucky enough, you could be like me and get one passed

03:04down from your mom. You're only going to be in the pan for about six minutes at the most.

03:09On the first side, we're going to cook it for about two to three minutes, then we're going to

03:13flip it and cook it for about two to three minutes more. That variance is really just going to depend

03:17on how well you like your steak cooked. This will get us somewhere between medium-rare and medium.

03:23I'm going to drop the heat to medium and go ahead and flip these. That's exactly what I wanted to

03:30see. We've got that beautiful golden brown, but I do have a couple of bald spots on both steaks,

03:36but that's where the butter is going to come in. What kind of butter do we use to base this steak?

03:41When you're just getting started in the kitchen, I recommend reaching for unsalted butter. It's

03:45going to give you the most room to play, you'll have the most control, and you can always control

03:50the seasoning a little bit at the end if you want a little bit more salt. If you're a little bit of

03:53a pro like me, you can step up to flavored butters. You can use compound butters, butters with herbs

03:59and garlic and alliums in them. I'm just going to spoon the butter over top of the steak.

04:09You can see that butter is starting to help the surface of the steak even out a little bit.

04:13I think this is just about ready. It's at 124 and 125. All right, I'm going to go ahead and

04:20pull these off the heat. 125 is rare. It's not medium-rare. It's going to get higher,

04:26okay? I promise once you have it rested, the temperature is going to raise itself.

04:29Because of carryover cooking! This is where she gets her beauty rest, she gets some time to nap,

04:35she won't have any bags under her eyes, and she's going to be absolutely perfect. I'm going to let

04:39these rest for about five minutes. I know I said you only have to go half the time that it cooks,

04:43which would be about three minutes. So this steak, I took it out of the pan when it was about 125.

04:48You can see as it's rested, it's gone up to 129, which is that carryover cooking I was talking

04:53about. As you can see, I'm looking at the steak and it looks like our grain is running along the

04:58length of the steak, which is pretty common for a ribeye. So that means I'm going to be

05:02cutting it in this direction. Now we're starting to see where our patience paid off. And we've got

05:09it to about a medium in the middle. Don't let those first couple slices scare you. The thinner

05:14parts of the steak are going to be a little bit more cooked than the center. So as you can see,

05:19these slices that are falling off, you can see they're short and they're clustered together,

05:24which means that we're slicing across the grain instead of with the grain. So you don't have any

05:29super, super long fibers there. Steak is all sliced up and looking just so incredibly appetizing.

05:36Before we dig in, I'm going to do a little something extra, just because I'm feeling

05:40kind of extra today. I'm going to take some of that melted butter from the pan,

05:45just spoon a little bit over top. Not that it needs it, but you know what? I'm grown and I do

05:50what I want. And today I wanted a little melted butter on my steak. So that's what we're going to

05:55do. Let's do a little bit of salt. Finishing salt not only adds a little bit of extra seasoning,

06:00but it also gives you a nice crispity crunchity texture to contrast with the meaty bits of the

06:05steak. I'm going to try this. Oh my gosh. That's so good. Oh my gosh. That was so incredibly

06:15pleasing. And it only took me about 15 minutes. This is so easy. It's absolutely something you

06:21need to work into your weeknight meal, and it's going to make you feel like an iron chef.

06:26This is such an easy base recipe to build all of your culinary skills on top of.

06:30So I really hope you try it out.

Category

Transcript

Recommended