If you ask people a question about their favorite dish, many will call a steak. Flavored, seasoned and well-cooked meat is a ritual. For homemade amateur chefs, making the perfect steak is truly the pinnacle of achievement. Some people find this a very complicated process - yes, basic knowledge is needed to make the “right” steak. So how to fry a steak in a pan?
Which piece to choose?
Regardless of whether you are grilling a steak for an ordinary dinner or a special occasion, the cooking process should begin with choosing the right piece of meat.
The most popular carcass parts for this are flank, ribs, back, fillet and brisket. Make sure that the piece of meat you bought has a thickness of at least 2.5-3 cm, contains a little white fat at the edges and a large fat layer in the inside. This is the only way you can successfully fry beef steak in a pan.
Season with salt
Dry steak cooks better than juicy. Salt crystals absorb extra moisture from beef and create a smooth surface. Salt also denatures the protein found in meat and makes the pulp more tender. What does this mean? How to deliciously fry a steak in a pan by adding salt to it?
Immediately after the addition, the salt remains undissolved on the surface of the meat. All steak juices are inside the muscle fibers. Cooking at this stage leads to a well-fried, but harsh meat.
If you leave the salt for 3-4 minutes, it will begin to draw liquid from the beef, which is released on the surface of the meat. If you start to grill a steak at this stage, you will lose valuable juiciness by simply evaporating it in a pan. The oil temperature drops, the crust becomes soft, and inside the piece of meat will become dry.
Starting from about 10 to 15 minutes, the brine formed by the salt, which dissolves in the juices of meat, will begin to destroy the muscle structure of beef, causing it to become much more tender. The brine at the same time begins to slowly return back to the meat. After 40 minutes, most of the liquid will be absorbed back into the meat. If you leave the salt on the steak longer, it will gradually penetrate deeper and deeper into the structure of the muscles, softening them and adding taste.
This suggests that salt is required in advance, preferably several hours before the intended preparation. This is one of the professional rules of how to fry steak in a pan.
Bring the steak to room temperature.
Have you ever tried fried meat, hot and crunchy on the outside, but cold on the inside? What a score! Non-observance of storage rules before cooking leads to sad consequences. The basic rule is to bring the meat to room temperature before putting it in a hot pan.
How can seasonings be used?
Before making the steak, apply your favorite rubbing seasoning mixture to it. This will allow herbs and spices to penetrate deep into the meat when frying and soak it through the aroma. How to fry a steak in a pan so that it is fragrant? The best seasonings for tender beef are the following:
- Basil. He will give the steak a pleasant "Italian" taste. Use it alone or with oregano, rosemary and thyme for an even greater flavor.
- Black pepper. You will never go wrong with adding a mixture of salt and black pepper. Use this seasoning as your main product when you cook beef.
- Cayenne pepper. If you like a little spiciness, then the spice can be used instead of black pepper.
- Chili Powder. This is another great way to add spicy meat.
- Garlic. Fits absolutely everything. You will never go wrong with fried or minced raw garlic or garlic powder.
- Mustard. If you like a light aroma, mustard or dry mustard powder, this is what you need.
Choose the best pan
If you prefer to fry in a pan, choose a heavy-duty cast-iron non-stick pan with a thick bottom. Frying will not burn the outside of the meat, it will give a slightly sweet and toasty aftertaste. Cook steaks in batches if the pan is small.
How to fry?
How to fry steak in a pan? During turning, do not pierce tender meat with a fork or knife. Instead, use grilling tongs to preserve the juices in the meat.
In addition, rapid frying over high heat not only affects the juiciness of the meat, but rather serves as a means of adding color, flavor and texture.
The best way to fry meat is to turn it over often so that it cooks evenly on both sides and fries faster. This will help to avoid the appearance of gray, completely fried areas on a piece, which are obtained with long cooking on one side - this is one of the basic rules on how to fry a juicy steak in a pan.
For cooking, it is better to take such types of vegetable oil that do not give an odor. Refined rapeseed, sunflower or corn oil are ideal. The pan should be warmed up as much as possible before adding meat.
Remember the types of frying
Before you fry the steak in a pan, you should remember the main degrees of roasting meat:
- Blue Rare: Cook 1 minute on each side. The meat will be roasted on the outside and red throughout the cut.
- Rare: cook one and a half minutes on each side. The finished steak will be rosy on the outside and red inside at 75% (center).
- Medium Rare: Cook 2 minutes on each side. A piece of meat will be well-fried on the outside, and will be half red in the middle.
- Medium: fries for three minutes on each side. It will be very well cooked around the edges, and only 25% of the meat in the middle of the piece will be red.
- Medium Well: 4 minutes on each side. The steak at this stage of frying is slightly pink inside.
- Well Done: It is fried for 5 minutes on each side. A piece of meat will be 100% brown, well-fried in color.
Touch the cooked steak with your fingers to check how cooked it is. It will be very soft in case of light roasting, slightly elastic in medium and fairly dense in deep.
Leave the meat to settle
Let the steak “rest” for 10 minutes, and then cut into pieces to get a juicy and tender dish. If the meat is too hard, cut it into very thin slices to make it easier to chew.
Add the sauce for more juice.
If you want to give the finished meat more juiciness, just mix ketchup and any sauces and pour the mixture with the finished dish. Serve a hot steak with any side dish, french fries, salad, fresh or baked vegetables or a light bruschetta.
Is it possible to cook pork like that?
Many people wonder if it is possible to fry pork steak in a pan. Theoretically, this can be done in exactly the same way as beef. The only difference is that the roasting must be deep, since it is dangerous to eat pork raw, even with pink juice, but this dish can no longer be called a steak, from the classical point of view.