Cooking a steak is easy, but cooking it well can be a challenge.
The issue lies in the fact that a deliciously cooked steak requires two components; a juicy red interior, cooked to medium rare, and a caramelise crust on the exterior, courtesy of the Maillard reaction. Seems simple enough, but to achieve this, you can easily find yourself in a paradoxical situation. Cook at a high heat, you’ll get the nice crust, but the interior will be too rare, and you’ll have a large grey brand from the high heat. Not the end of the world, but not great.
Alternatively, you can cook it low and slow, and allow the meat to come up to temperature. Great medium rare, but the flavor from the caramelised crust is missing, and the texture is off.
It seems like you can’t win, but you can, if you split the process in half. Introducing the Reverse Sear.
Preheat the oven to 120c/250f, and put your steaks in. For a 0.5lb steak, 30 minutes should be good. You’re aiming for 110-115 internal.
Once they have reached it, pull them from the oven and get your pan hot. I use cast iron, and so should you, but stainless steel works as well. Get it to a cracking heat, put down some oil (people recommend a high smoke point but I just use OO), and sear them for 1 minute each side.
Once you flip once, turn off the heat (the pan will have plenty of residual) and chuck in two garlic cloves and some butter. Once the butter melts, spoon it over the steak and baste it. The garlicky, buttery, nutty addition is well worth it.
After that, you’re done! Pull them, let them rest for 5 minutes (you don’t need as long as you would for other methods) and enjoy.
This evening we paired it with mash and steamed veg, and it was great to get back to date night.