First thing: need to get some steak. For this we go to the most amazing butcher ever. Double DD meats (about 15/20 minutes north of Seattle). They have a huge selection of all sorts of meats, and more sauces than I've ever seen combined in my life. And with the amazing yelp reviews that they have, you better believe they are awesome. Result of step one: two Porterhouse steaks (first mistake, should have picked a simpler steak).
Step two: How to make steak? Well I've made steak before but my method has been to cook until when I cut the steak open, it is not completely bloody. So instead.... following the wise advice of Alton Brown in 'Steak your claim' (first episode ever!)
Step three: Buy a cast iron pan as directed by Alton Brown. Another mistake was going to Fred Meyer and getting their simplest 'pre seasoned' pan. Not trusting that the pan was pre-seasoned, we went through the process of seasoning the pan ourselves just in case.
Step four: STEAK! Instructions are to season the steak with a kosher salt, some ground pepper and a bit of safflower oil. Done. Heat up the pan at in 500 degree oven, and then 5 more minutes on the stove.
And the chaos begins.... Smoke starts going up from the stove. Ryan is opening up all the windows and doors. About 3 minutes into the process... FIRE. Well not a lot of fire, but fire on the burner. I was the one standing next to the pan and knew that water was the wrong thing to do, but ashamed to say my reaction speed could do nothing... instead I started chanting 'fire!'. Ryan had good reaction to tell me to throw some salt at it. Not sure if that is what helped but it went off. Cause of fire.... still not sure. Old burner? Some soap from when we washed the pan? No idea. But panic mode begins. Fire is not what I like seeing in the kitchen.
After the adrenaline dies down a little... have to continue the process. Re-heat pan, check burner for not catching fire again. Check. Now... the steak goes on the pan. Instructions are 2.5 minutes per side. This is a picture of about 30 seconds into the process.
Not so good. A minute or so later the apartment is full of smoke, all the windows open, fans out of the window. Smoke detector has been taken out so that it stops screaming. Ahhh... nothing is helping! Panic mode stuffs the steak into the oven early. At least source of smoke eliminated. Must run outside to breathe properly.
After apartment is livable again, we take the steak out and wash off the pan. (another mistake... not checking temperature of steak before taking it out).
Well... another steak is left. We have made mistakes... but can there be recovery? New plan: only warm up the pan in the oven. No oil on the steak. No pepper. 2 minutes a side, and then into the oven.
While the second steak is cooking we start on dinner... cut open the first steak. First bite.... smoke. Tastes like smoke. Where is the meat? Cutting further in.... it is raw. Um.... instruction following fail?
Phew.... less smoke. After eight minutes in the oven (what we put the first steak in for) we take it out and this time actually measure the temperature. 95 degrees. A rare steak is 110+. This means that the first steak could not have gone over 100. Food poisoning possibility anyone? At least we got the steak from a very credible butcher. Eating of the first steak ends. Not even desire to heat it up more. Back in the oven the steak #2 goes.
Check #2: Steak is at 105. Still not good. Raise the temperature. Back in.
Check #3: 145! YES! Wait.... left the thermometer in a bit longer... now it is 165. Crap.... definitely done. Finally a functional steak... but way overcooked. And another problem... there is no hunger. Adrenaline makes one not hungry anymore.... body has gone into survival mode and all food is rejected. Solution: switch to wine.
Lessons learned: Alton Brown has a crazy industrial fan in his kitchen. Good butchers are amazing if you fail at cooking steak. Smoke smell staying in hair very well. Measuring temperature of steak before consumption is advisable. Cast iron pans are terrifying. And... most memorable for me is that I do not mind paying large amounts of money for my steak in a restaurant anymore. The pain... the horror.... I like my simple joyful piece of meat properly cooked and right before me.
Adventure complete. No casualties. Many lessons.
Quite the adventure, all without leaving the house, who knew that was possible!
ReplyDeleteHrm, that 500 degree pan was too hot for that oil. Refined Safflower oil has a smoke point of 450.
If your steak wasn't done after 2 minutes per side and 8 minutes in the oven, must have been a very thick cut of steak.
Try it again, but with a more basic steak, no thicker than 2". Have either an instant read or an oven safe thermometer and leave it in the whole cook time. Even after you pull the steak out of the oven, its going to cook to raise in temperature about 5-10 degreees.
Crazy. Reminds me of one time I flambéed some shrimp and forgot to turn off the exhaust fan. Ceiling-high flames less than a foot from your face are quite startling!
ReplyDeleteI may be misreading, but did you use soap in the cast iron pan when washing it? You definitely don't want to do that; it'll ruin the seasoning (just meaning you'll have to redo it, not that the pan is shot). That could explain some of the smoke. I don't usually even wash mine in water unless it has some really stubborn stuff cooked on it. A little oil and kosher salt or a crumpled wad of aluminum oil works well. Just scrub until you can wipe it with paper towel and it comes away reasonably clean.
Hope this doesn't scare you guys off of cast iron. I was skeptical of it at first ("A pan you don't wash? Gross!"), but it's a great pan for certain things. Bacon! <3
@Matt - Yeah we rewatched some of the episode about where we went wrong and it doesn't make sense that he even states that the smoke point is lower yet tells you to preheat the oven to such a high temperature. And it was very thick steak... not sure if the cast iron pan will be tried for a while.... too much pain.
ReplyDelete@Angel - Woah! Okay, foot high flames make me feel a little better. I might have mistyped... I don't think we used soap? Or did we? Ryan did the washing. Yeah I know you don't ever use soap on it. Did the non-soap washing after the fiasco.