Ina Gills Beef Tenderloin in Casted Iron Skillet

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How to cook a steak in a cast iron skillet

There's no "correct" way but... this is the correct way.

Lodge cast iron skillet

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While your cast iron skillet can be used to cook just about anything, there may not be any single food more associated with the heavy metal pans than steak. If the very thought of a thick cut of beef sizzling on a well-oiled cast iron pan gets you drooling, here's how to whip up a perfect steak yourself.

Why you should cook your steak in a cast iron skillet

There's no correct way to cook a steak; plenty of high-end restaurants get great results with sous-vide, grilling, or baking in the oven. But basically any steak cooking method can be enhanced with a cast iron skillet.

Due to its weight, cast iron absorbs and transfers a ton of heat, and can withstand higher temperatures than other types of pans. This is important because we want the outside of our steak to be crispy and browned, but without overcooking the inside. You can cook a steak entirely on the stovetop in a hot cast iron skillet, but it's perhaps best used for finishing a steak that you cooked at a lower temperature in a sous-vide water bath or in the oven because it'll be able to brown the outside of your beef fast enough to not dry out the inside.

Lodge cast iron skillet

How to choose the right steak for a cast iron pan

Different cuts of beef will have different properties. Some, like the filet mignon, are leaner and more tender. Others, like a strip steak, are fattier and can be more flavorful. And within each cut, most steaks will be USDA-rated Select (cheaper and leaner), Choice (more marbling, but more expensive), or Prime (the most marbling, but very expensive). There are a lot of politics surrounding this system that are beyond the scope of this article, and you can learn more from this piece at Serious Eats, but the upshot is that you should probably buy a Choice steak, which in some cases will actually be better than a Prime steak at a much lower cost. If you're unsure about anything, ask your butcher for advice.

The single most important thing to remember if you're cooking with cast iron is to get a boneless steak. No, you won't be able to workshop your Salt Bae impression by doing tricks with the bones, but bones can reduce the amount of meat that stays in contact with your hot pan, which is the opposite of what we want.

How to reverse sear a steak in a cast iron skillet

One of the trendiest and easiest ways to cook a steak is called a reverse sear. Devised in 2007 by J. Kenji Lopez Alt of The Food Lab fame, reverse searing calls for cooking your steak on a wire rack in the oven at a low temperature until the center of your steak is about 10-15 degrees below your desired doneness. Needless to say, an accurate instant-read thermometer or even a probe thermometer is a must for this method.

As the steak approaches your desired temperature, you'll want to put your cast iron skillet over a scorching hot burner, and heat up a high-temperature cooking oil like vegetable or avocado oil until it just barely starts smoking. Then, add a pat of butter (and also open your windows, take the batteries out of your smoke alarms, and consider sending your family to safer secondary location), and sear your steak on both sides for about 45-60 seconds each. As long as your pan is hot enough, that'll be enough time to achieve a crispy crust without overcooking your meat.

This exact same process also applies to steak cooked sous-vide, which is essentially just a fancier and more accurate way to reverse sear. You'll cook your steak to your desired temperature (or just a degree or two below) in a water bath, and then sear it on your cast iron pan at the highest possible temperature. The hotter the pan, the better the results, and nothing does high heat as well as cast iron.

DOT simple alarm thermometer

How to cook a steak in a cast iron skillet

While it will give you less precise temperature control than reverse searing or sous-vide, it is possible to make a very good steak with nothing but a cast iron skillet and a stove. As this New York Times recipe emphasizes, it'll be important to pat your steak dry for a better crust, and let it come to room temperature before you start cooking. If you were to cook a cold steak in a hot pan, the outside would be blackened and crisp (and not in a good way) long before the interior of the cut came up to temperature.

You'll want to flip the steak every 30 seconds or so to cook it evenly from both directions, and monitor its internal temperature with an instant read thermometer. Once again, you'll want to take it off when it's about 10 degrees cooler than your desired doneness, and then let it rest under a tent of aluminum foil for five minutes to allow the juices (which will have migrated towards the outside of the steak) to settle back into the meat for a more tender bite. Just don't forget to clean your pan!

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Source: https://www.sfgate.com/shopping/article/How-to-cook-a-steak-in-a-cast-iron-skillet-16088572.php

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