My my have I been busy the past coupla days (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, knowwhatImean, knowwhatImean)...Apologies for the delayed response.

The avoidance of confusing, contradictory and subjective descriptions is of utmost importance in the proper cooking of steaks, as is the proper use of the proper cooking equipment. That is why we take extra care in verifying the exact desire of the guest both in internal degree of doneness and external degree of char, in terms that are more absolute than interpretive. In order to do so, we have to reject the surprisingly subjective, varying and inconsistent terms of "Pittsburgh" and "Black and Blue" and translate them into the more universal, less subject-to-contadictory-definitions of "Extra Rare/Extra Char", at the same time explaining to the guest that XR/XChar is also the only one of these three similar but intrinsically distinct styles that is possible on our cooking equipment with our well-aged beef. It is the extra measure of due diligence that would make a lawyer proud, if lawyers had human feelings.

"PittsburgH" is a style of cooking that, properly, requires the steak to be seared directly on a white-hot flat-top range until burnt (carbonized) on the outside, but still cold-raw on the inside. (Difference between burnt and charred? The controlled charring of beef allows the natural sugars, proteins, juices and seasonings to combine, develop, intensify and caramelize into a heightened, deepened deliciousness. Burnt is, well, just burnt. The reason I prefer our style of aging to dry-aging for today's modern beef and ultra-high cooking temperatures? One, no one really does it correctly any more (sort of like the semi-colon) or is truthful about their aging process; and two, the release and synthesis of sugars, proteins and juices crucial to high-temperature charring is actually retarded by dry-aging beef. When is dry-aging optimal? Ask me in another question and I, blind Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs, will perceive the scene and foretell all).

Apocryphally, the term "PittsburgH" derives from the practice of steelworkers of bringing raw meat in their lunch pails and slapping it against the sides of the cauldrons--When we three shall meet again--filled with molten ore.

"Black and Blue" is, properly, a steak cooked in a glowingly red-hot cast iron pan or griddle until somewhat thickly charred with a slight top layer of carbon and a cold-rare (blue-tinged) center. Properly aged beef can never have a "blue" center due to oxygen penetration and other morbid causes. So we can't do "Black and Blue" even though we do have a steak called, in hommage to Louis Armstrong (My only sin is the color of my skin/What did I do to be so Black and so Blue?), The Black and Blue New Yorker, which is a NY Strip with a black-peppercorn crust topped with blue cheese.

Extra Rare/Extra Char is accomplished only on an open flame grill, not possible in the big steakhouse closed broilers--they can only approximate, and our method of achieving the optimal combination of pleasing, intense char with the special succulence and buttery texture of an uncooked center. It is not available on all steaks, depending on thickness and fat content (one way to "cheat" extra char out of a broiler or an improperly aged steak is to dip the steak repeatedly in oil).

By the way, Michal was the biblical David's first wife whose father demanded of David the foreskins of 160 (I think) Philistines as dowry. I may count the metaphorical collection of foreskins from philistine bloggers and others as among my few pleasures, but I am no David. However--Ani l'dodi v-dodi li, baby, and all that--I will certainly tend to any lamb brought my way. She shall not want.

Try as I might, I just don't understand the merits of ordering these kinds of steaks well done. Aged steaks don't bleed, so what was she afraid of? A juicy, delicious steak versus a dried out cooked-to-death steak is crazy.

She's afraid of anything even remotely pink -- doesn't matter whether it bleeds or not. She actually squirms when I eat my steaks (almost all of which I eat rare) and it's awfully fun to chase her around the table with a forkful of red/blue meat...

At the risk of straying off topic, my fiancee and I have standing permission to leave the other in the event that one of us orders our steak medium or warmer.

THIS is what a steak is SUPPOSED to look like.

I've decided to stop hating on people who order steak well done.

Sure, it's an odd habit, one that we don't fully understand, but so are certain major religions and watching American Idol on TV. In a society that tolerates alleged adults who believe in the power of crystals; download "My Humps" for their cellphone ring and walk three abreast on crowded city streets, eating overcooked beef is a minor eccentricity, not a moral failing.

From now on, I will only act smugly superior to people who tip poorly or who patronize Potbelly Sandwich Works, and allow the WDs to gnaw their carbon in peace.

Eh. Let them eat it however they like. There are far worse failings.

I lost my taste for rare steak after not being allowed to eat it while pregnant. Getting used to medium was not such a hardship.

SS, did you let the little one have a taste?

Customer: I'll have the strip steak well done.
Waiter: Sir, it's dead already.

To me, that is a strip steak "medium," not "medium rare." Medium rare will look a lot more red in the center. That picture appears to have a "warm, pink" center which evidences medium whereas a medium rare steak will have a cool red center.

Must be your monitor settings Or maybe I need to up the saturation in Photoshop...

That picture does not look like what you get at RTS when you order "medium rare." A little more "saturation" will bring it up to RTS standards.

I'm with JG here. The meat fibers in the middle look too constricted for MR.

Well, bear in mind that I took this picture the day AFTER. This is cold steak that's been in the fridge overnight (something I failed to mention).

Don - maybe move all these to a "steak doneness" thread?

Is that after you reheated it, or is it still cold? If it was still cold, it should remain fairly represtentative of what it steak looked like when it arrived on your platter. If you reheated it, you might have cooked it little more, beyond the original medium rare that you ordered.

I should have specified... this is NOT a Ray's steak. This was cooked on my own grill. I would never want to misrepresent, even unintentionally, my own pieces of burnt leather for a Master St. Michael original.

And yes, it was reheated. But even before being reheated, the cooling/resting/drying of the steak in the tupperware DID pinken it.

A good visual guide:

http://et.sdsu.edu/radair/world_wide_weber...ak_doneness.htm

Perhaps a better visual guide?

Buried in the magnum opus that is the OP is:Has this been answered?

Agreed.

My favorite way to achieve that look is Julia Child's recipe (I saw it in a video), steak at room temperature, a little butter, a little oil (I like olive), melted in a hot cast iron pan, sprinkle some salt in the pan, saute the steak 3-4 minutes on one side, salt the upper side and flip, cook the other side 3-4 minutes, eat. (It's even nicer if you render a little steak fat in the pan first.)

Sauce is superfluous.

Did anyone see the very interesting article in Cook's Illustrated about using an oven at a very low temperature for an hour or so to "flash dry age" a steak? This seems to have two effects:

1) It removes moisture from the steak, concentrating the beef flavor.
2) It raises the internal temperature of the steak to about 95-100 degrees so that you get a much more evenly medium rare center with a nicely charred crust.

Has anyone tried this? Does it work? What cuts respond well to it?

On a meta-related subject... how do you achieve char (caramelization, flavor development, flavor melding) without burning?

-Dan "Ever on a Quest for the Perfect Steak" Cole

I tried it. It does produce a more gelatinous texture, which some people don't like.

Which issue of Cook's Illustrated is this in? I"d like to read the article. Sounds interesting yet very unorthodox.

I achieve char by salting the steak liberally and letting it stand at least 15 mins prior to hitting the grill and also spraying with a light coat of oil. Then I use natural hardwood charcoal (a whole chimney starter's worth) and pile it up high so that it's very close to the grate. I try to make sure I've pegged the thermometer on lid of the Weber (so I'm guessing that I've got the grate itself is somewhere around 800F) before I throw the steak on.

I admit to having taken a kitchen torch to my steak once or twice, too. Just for touchups. Honestly.

The most recent one... probably May or April.

See, I cook directly on the chimney starter, too. But doesn't this lead to burning rather than charing?

Gelatinous?

HAMMERHEAD! w00t!

Gelatinous? Not sure I understand, but that doesn't sound good. The third thing they said the 'flash dry aging' was supposed to do is produce a more tender steak due to longer enzymatic action. I haven't tried this myself yet.

What types of cuts would benefit most from this method?

Large, thick, triple-cut rib steaks.

What cuts of meat did the article try this approach on?

Big, thick steaks, ribs and strips, I think.

I admit, I liked it (I did it on my offset smoker, which allowed me to put some smoke flavor into the meat). But some reports on other boards have been less sanguine.

On a side note (perhaps this should be in the grilling thread)...

Anyone tried the Kingswood brand natural hardwood charcoal? I tried it for the first time yesterday and noted the following:

• takes longer to light
• LOTS of sparking during lighting
• unusual smoke smell
• burns VERY hot (my thermometer went all the way around to the starting position, and that was with about 3/4 of a chimney's worth of coals
• burned longer than Whole Foods/Cowboy brand coals (thermometer still registered 250F after an hour)

I'm thinking that a combination of Kingswood charcoal and mesquite chips might get you a darn fine charred steak. I was cooking pork souvlaki the other night but I might try again tonite with a steak.

Unless I'm grilling them, I like to pan-roast my steaks. I use a nice thick filet or strip about 1 and 1/4" thick, sear it in very hot oil on both sides, add any dry flavorings, such as chopped garlic, rosemary, shitakes, etc., and salt and pepper, then put the pan in a 350-degree oven for about 10-12 minutes for medium rare. For the sauce I skim the fat off the pan juices, reduce them with white wine, adding reduced veal stock, monter au beurre, then serve. My dad, who barely knows how to boil water, saw me do this recipe when he and my mom were visiting a few months ago, and ever since then he's begun to cook this for their friends. Their 50-year marriage has been transformed!

I'm with Banco, although I'll often use animal fat as the searing mechanism. If it's a strip steak, I'll just render the gristly edge to start, which serves the dual purpose of making the gristlish stuff tender enough to eat (and it's yummy) and providing a bit of fat for the roasting/searing.

I had never thought of doing that. Do you trim it off first before you render it, or do you just mean that you give that side of the steak a really good sear to melt the rind?

The latter. Not all of the rind melts--it's not all fat. But there's some.

Now this doesn't give as clean a browning as clarified butter...you may not be happy with the fond, for your taste. But it does seem more natural .

I did this last Wed for our 20th Anniversary. It came out better than any steak I've ever done in my life.

It didn't hurt that I used a nice Prime RibEye from Wegman's, but I felt like this method is much more controllable than others.

The butcher was great, I said I couldn't decide between a RibEye or Strip (Strip was used in the CI article). "Do you like fatty foods, ma'am?" "Yes!" "You want the RibEye."

Sides were roasted asparagus, and roasted French fingerlings in a coating of flour and Parmesan. Whee!

For those who've read the article, are the details important? Time in oven, thickness of steak, etc.?

As long as you've got a thermometer inserted into the steak, you should be fine.

A word of caution, though... with the steaks already brought up to this temperature before going on the grill/fry pan... they will cook FAST. Don't walk away.

You know, the more I ponder this the more I think it must be bullshit. I mean, how much moisture are you going to get out of a double-cut ribeye steak by warming for an hour at temperatures low enough that the meat doesn't cook? And how much much additional enzymatic action is encouraged in this brief time?

Sure, slapping an already-warm steak on a high heat might have some beneficial effect, but as far as mimicking the effects of dry-aging, I am unconvinced.

For what it's worth, we mimicked the effect of dry aging once by forgetting to put the steaks in the refrigerator for about 18 hours and then leaving them on the counter for about two hours (after they had been chilled) to come up to room temperature. This is probably not recommended, but the steaks were spectacular -- and there was no way we were going to throw away $120 worth of prime beef without giving it a shot.

I agree that the technique of fast aging seems BS.

On the other hand, bringing meats to rrom temp before grilling is highly recomended.

You're obviously not going to get any good enzymatic action out of this approach. However, I can see that you might lose moisture without rendering out any fat. That could lead to a more rich beef flavour without adversely affecting moisture. It's worth a try. But not with a $120 hunk of beef. Nor with a lean cut.

By the way, I checked the latest Cook's Illustrated and couldn't find the article so any further detail would be nice. Specifically, what temp the oven should be at.

I don't remember the article being primarily about mimicking dry aging. I remember it being about having more rare/MR meat through the thickness of a thick steak, rather than charred exterior/well done layer/medium layer.

275.

That makes sense.

Really? Wouldn't the enzymes present that contribute to dry aging work a bit faster at higher temps or am I completely forgetting my biology? Hmmmm, anyone with access to a lab care to house a study?

I would never challenge you on a chemistry question, Michael, man of science that you are. But I suspect that an hour at a temperature of less than 100 degrees would have little effect in comparison with, say, two weeks in meat locker or injection with an el-Bulli like beef-testicle product. Perhaps there's an enzymeologist or enzymetrician in the house that can illuminate the subject with greater wattage than I.

Someone with access to this journal please summarize the findings of this study for us The abstract says "Ageing rate increased exponentially up to 40°C", so there might be some support for this 'flash-ageing' theory. Jake is right, though-- enzymatic action was not the primary focus of the CI article.

Edit: fixed the link

I was wondering what you were going to do next, to top head cheese. Now am scared.

That's the impression I got too, I remember they emphasized patting the meat dry before cooking or it wouldn't brown the proper way.

If this is the article that Dan is talking about, I posted it here

I tried this new CI technique last night. Used dry-aged strip steaks from Whole Foods for the first time, so not having tasted these before I can't really speak to whether the extended low-oven time added any 'ageing'. That said, this was the best steak I've ever cooked. The meat was uniformly pink throughout, without the unappealing well done layer... great texture (not sure how much this was due to the quality of the meat) and crust too.

Evolution of my home steak cooking methods:
1. Cooking a bland, gray steak in a pan (no clue)
2. Sear in super-hot cast iron pan, finish in oven (got tired of all the smoke this produces)
3. Jeffrey Steingarten method of pan-cooking at medium heat in butter
4. CI low-oven then sear method

You think this could be adapted for the grill e.g. low-temp oven followed by direct grilling over very hot coals piled high (or in DanCole42's case, a chimney starter)? Probably only one way to find out, eh?

So my last experiment with the Cook's Illustrated low-temp oven technique was an abysmal failure because I left the steaks on the grill for far too long.

This time, though, the result was the best steak I have ever cooked. If I had access to the same quality of meat as Michael Landrum, I would not have been ashamed serving this steak at Ray's.

After coming out of the oven, I tossed the steaks on the grill, directly over my chimney starter. The grate itself was, according to my infrared thermometer, between 1005-1020 degrees, with spikes to just the word "HI" on the readout. I only left them on for about 45 seconds on each side. There were no flareups because I'd like the coals burn down (height-wise) to about halfway up the chimney, and I trimmed the fat cap/gristle part off (which I saved to render onto my griddle for making cheesesteaks!).

The steak was seasoned with salt, liberal amounts of pepper, and topped with some crumbly, veiny, cow/goat blue cheese.

The result was perfect char, and the most amazingly cooked, juicy, tender, medium rare steak I've ever had. It tasted BEEFY.

I will never cook a steak another way again.