The Steak Cookbook

Congratulations! If you clicked on this, it’s because you are interested in nature’s most perfect food – Steak! 

Nothing is as good as steak, at least nothing that I can show you on my PG-13 web site. When we talk about steak here at Petesmeats.com, we are talking about beef. Give thanks for the noble bovine with the extra gene for deliciousness. We are not opposed to pork chops, venison, lamb chops, swordfish, even bison (though we are not Ted Turner fans – you can email pete@petesmeats.com and I will explain why) but what we really like is steak. From a steer. Or a heifer, we are OK with that.

Not all steak is created equal, though, and none of it is cheap so you want to know what you are doing when selecting and preparing your steak. With a little knowledge and practice you can achieve steak greatness and get excellent value for your money.

Basic knowledge - Understanding steak

The five steaks you need to meet in person and how to cook them

Basic Steak Knowledge

Understanding steak. First, some basic biology. To pick the right cut of steak, you need to understand the animal just a bit. There are two characteristics that will determine your happiness with a steak: taste and tenderness. 

Taste is largely determined by how much fat is in a steak. All beef has great flavor but fat from marbling (the little flecks of fat you see within the muscle) adds more to the flavor that you expect from beef, especially with high heat preparation like grilling or broiling. External fat, the stuff most of us trim off, does not add much flavor, marbling is the key. Marbling is related to outside fat but more fat does not necessarily mean more marbling, and vice versa. Some cattle are genetically able to create a lot of marbling without a lot of external fat. These are some of God’s most wonderful creatures.  They  are  tasty  and  efficient.    They should be celebrated.  With  red wine.

More marbling means more flavor so beef with the most marbling gets the highest grade from the government – more on that later. Marbling has other benefits, too. Marbling melts while cooking, adding juiciness to cooked beef, for more of your eating enjoyment. The juiciness from melted marbling creates the rich, buttery mouthfeel that a great steak provides. 

BTW, mouthfeel is a real food sciency word! It sounds kinda dirty but actually is OK to say in polite company. Some food scientists think that the juiciness from marbling actually serves as a lubricant on your teeth as you bite into steak, making highly marbled beef seem even more tender. 

Marbling also has another, very practical benefit. High levels of marbling provide insulation while cooking making highly marbled steaks easier to cook properly and harder to wreck. That explains why some steakhouses can buy a steak for $20 and sell it for $55, even though some $9 per hour kid might have cooked it. You will find fewer cooking errors if you start with highly marbled beef.

But marbling is not a perfect predictor of eating enjoyment. While marbling is highly correlated to flavor and juiciness, it is only modestly correlated to tenderness and tenderness is critical to a good eating experience. Nothing derails a meal worse than high hopes and a tough steak. While some well marbled beef is tough (bad), there is also very tender beef that does not have much marbling (nice).

Tenderness is pretty complex but there are a few things we know. The biggest cause of tough beef is connective tissue. You can think of tendons and ligaments but there are lots of types of connective tissue in any animal’s body. More connective tissue will generally result in tough meat. Some types of connective tissue are no problem in young cattle, but increase toughness as the cattle get older.

Some differences in tenderness are predictable, based on the function of the muscle in the live animal. Muscles can be divided into two groups based on function: locomotive and postural. Locomotive muscles are responsible for moving the animal. Since cattle walk on all fours, both shoulder and leg muscles are involved every time they take a step, get up, lie down or do most anything. Locomotive muscles are found in brisket, round steak and other cuts that require slow and moist cooking to become tender.

But there are two wonderful muscles that do not have to work very hard in cattle and they are friends of steak lovers everywhere. The longissmus dorsi (LD), commonly called the ribeye, is a large tube-shaped muscle that runs along the backbone (one on each side) from the shoulder all the way to the rump. The LD is a big muscle, about three feet long and about 14 square inches in cross section at its widest point. The LD on each side weighs about 30 lb giving us about 60 lb of grillable treats from each steer or heifer that we are blessed to enjoy.

You have probably never heard of a longissmus dorsi but you are likely very familiar with the steaks that come from the LD. The LD is the big muscle on the larger side of a T-bone or Porterhouse steak. It is the large round muscle that makes up most of a ribeye steak and the large oblong muscle in a KC Strip steak. 

The LD is a postural muscle, basically just holding the back of the animal straight. Since it never really flexes, very little connective tissue develops in the LD because it does not need that structural support. That absence of connective tissue means that the LD is almost always tender. It also usually has a lot of marbling so it makes for tender and tasty steak. 

And then there is the psoas major, also called the tenderloin. If you have ever had a filet, or filet mignon, you know it is the most tender steak you can find. The psoas major lies on the underside of the backbone, running from the mid-section of the steer to the hip or so. The tenderloin is not as long as the LD and not as big around, with a peak cross sectional area of 6 or 7 square inches so there is only about 25 lb per animal, counting both sides. This rationing is God’s way of making us appreciate how good beef can be.

The psoas major muscle has absolutely nothing to do all day. Because of this, virtually no connective tissue at all develops in it and it is remarkably tender. Even in old cows or bulls, the tenderloin muscle is aptly named. Also, because it is so lazy, the tenderloin does not need to store much energy and has very little marbling. No connective tissue, no fat, nothing except beautiful tender beefy protein (and all the iron and other nutrients that beef is known for). 

Enjoy your filets now. Because the psoas major does nothing all day, it will eventually evolve away. Just like your appendix, the psoas major will be gone in about million years or so don’t wait to get some.

The first  photo below shows how these two wonderful muscles conspire to make the steak of kings and CEO’s, the T-Bone steak. On the left is a strip steak, on the right is a filet. Between them is a T-Bone, which contains an LD muscle on the left, just like a strip, and a PM on the right, which would be a filet if removed. The T-shaped bone is one half of a bovine vertebra. In the next  photo you can see how all of this is positioned in a steer. The two T-bones intersect to form an entire vertebra with the LD muscle nearest the back and the tender PM sheltered from any harm, protected by the transverse  process of the vertebra. If you are wondering, the two halves of a beef carcass are expertly split down the middle by the highest-paid guy in the disassembly plant that turns cattle into meat. He runs a vertical band saw all day, splitting whole carcasses into sides (halves). These dedicated and skilled band saw surgeons never mess up because messing up would destroy some valuable property. They are among the many wonderful people that work hard to get steak on your table.

If you understand these two muscles, the longissmus dorsi (ribeye) and psoas major (tenderloin), you are well on your way to understanding how to pick out the right steaks at the grocery store and make the most out of them.

There are five steaks you need to meet in person: Ribeye, KC Strip, T-Bone, Filet and Sirloin. Each type of steak has its own unique charms and considerations for selection and preparation and each is discussed in detail so start reading and then and get to work.

The table below is a quick reference of basic steak knowledge that will keep you on the right track. Review that a bit, then click on your favorite cut of steak for more specific instructions and recipes.

The Ribeye Steak. A ribeye includes the smaller end of the LD muscle from the front half of the animal, plus some small muscles that surround it. These are called tail muscles and are really important. 

Ribeye steaks have more fat than any of the other five steaks that you need to meet in person. Because of this, they are reliably tender and flavorful so it is easy to select a great steak at your grocery store or butcher shop. Get a USDA Choice grade ribeye, or USDA Prime if you got a bigger bonus than last year. Look for bright cherry red color and white fat like those in the photos below. Then, pick a steak that is at least ¾” thick and preferably 1” or a little thicker. 

Don’t worry if a ribeye that is 1 ¼” thick is more than one person can eat. Once grilled, ribeyes can be cut into chunks and served in fractions, maybe three big steaks for four people. After color and thickness, look for a large longissmus dorsi muscle and a high amount of lean and less fat. Delicious as they are, ribeyes sometimes get too fat and you will have to trim a lot of waste (and pay for it) so pick a lean one. Make sure that there are some substantial tail muscles because they are really flavorful. 

Occasionally ribeyes will be sold with all the external fat and tail muscle trimmed off. That is OK, too because you get a great steak with very little waste. 

Because of the fat and tenderness, the best way to prepare a ribeye is with dry, high heat, preferably on a charcoal grill. 

To grill ribeyes like a pro, start with good steaks cut an inch or more thick. Trim off any large areas of external fat but leave the tail muscles on. Place the steaks on a wire rack, pat them dry with a paper towel and season them with kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper on both sides. Use ¼ teaspoon of each per side, maybe a little more for steaks thicker than 1“. 

You can use any steak seasoning that you like but I recommend starting with just salt and pepper to really taste the steak. Use kosher salt instead of table salt. The larger crystals dissolve more slowly and it has better flavor. Because ribeyes are so flavorful, they do not really need marinades or fancy seasoning. 

Once you are a pro you can experiment a little with other seasonings. Montreal Steak and Chicago Steak are both great flavors which are available as commercial spice blends, or you can make your own. But don’t get too carried away. With a ribeye you are dealing with the most flavorful steak in God’s favorite creature, so it does not need much help. 

Once you have salt and pepper on the steaks, cover them loosely with foil and allow them to come to room temperature. Don’t cook steaks that are straight out of the refrigerator. Cooking steaks when they are cold can cause uneven doneness and may impair tenderness.

When grilling over charcoal, start coals and let them get fully ashed over. Place an even layer of hot coals with briquettes touching or nearly so and spaced evenly to avoid hot spots. You want to use high heat for ribeyes so that means that the right distance for your grate to be above the coals is the distance at which you can hold your hand for about two seconds before you have to pull it away. 

Clean your cooking grate and brush it with grapeseed or olive oil, then set it in place and allow it to heat for a couple minutes so that it is good and hot when you set the steaks on it. That is what gives you those great grill marks. Place the steaks on the grill diagonal to the lines in the grate so that you get diagonal grill marks. Steaks can be close together but should not be touching. Try to space them evenly and have each steak entirely above coals to get even cooking. 

Close the grill cover to keep heat and smoke inside the grill and open any air vents to allow air to get to the coals. Fat will drip from a ribeye and land on the coals creating a wonderful fragrance and smoking your steak just a bit while it cooks. You may want to keep a spray bottle with water nearby to douse any flare-ups due to fat on the coals (or heat dispersers on a gas grill) but be careful about too much water, you don’t want to cool off the charcoal.

Ribeyes should be cooked to medium rare (warm red center) or a little less depending on your taste. Timing depends on heat and is a little tricky to describe but you will figure it out with a couple of tries. For inch-thick ribeyes with what I call high heat, turn them after four or five minutes and cook for three or four minutes on the second side. Then remove the steaks from heat and place on a cutting board, covering them loosely with foil. Leave the steaks alone for 5-10 minutes so that they can rest, otherwise you will lose juice when you cut into them.

Learn to use the finger poke hack to test for doneness. Lightly touch the tip of your left thumb with the tip of your left index finger. With your right index finger, poke the pad of muscle at the base of your left thumb. That is what poking a rare steak would feel like. Now touch the tip of your left middle finger to your left thumb and poke the muscle pad gain. That is what poking a medium steak would feel like. A medium rare steak would be somewhere in between. Now touch the tip of your left ring finger to your left thumb and poke the muscle pad again. This is a well done steak. Never do that. No, no, never do that.

Ribeyes can be up to 1 ½” thick. At that thickness they will require an additional 1-2 minutes per side and resting is even more critical because they will continue to cook for a few minutes after they are removed from the heat. Resting helps to create more even doneness. 

A ribeye that is 1 ½” thick is a very big serving and more than some people will want to eat. A great way to serve them is to cook two for three people or three for four, etc. then slice them into chunks an inch or so wide and serve them all on a platter, allowing your guests to take however much they want.

If you insist on medium-well or well done steaks, thanks for supporting the beef industry but you are really missing out on a great eating experience. Nonetheless, a ribeye is your best choice for cooking to that level of doneness. The marbling and fat content will keep it tender and you will still get decent flavor. 

If you can’t grill, broiling is nearly the same thing, just upside down because the heating unit (broiler) is on the top of the oven, looking down at your prize possessions. To broil ribeyes, prepare them as you would for grilling. Place them on a wire rack and set it in a foil-lined, rimmed baking sheet. The foil is not necessary for cooking but makes cleanup much easier. Use the high setting for your broiler and place your steaks on the high rack setting to get close to the broiler. Leave the oven door slightly open while broiling. 

Time required and turning instructions for broiled steaks are about the same as for grilling but broiling is a bit trickier because it is done inside your house. When you broil stuff you can overcook it easily or get some really high heat on drippings in the baking sheet. That can make the drippings smoke, which will set off both your smoke detector, and your sweetie. Once the smoke clears, both will be silent for a long time. You don’t want that.

The small muscles around the LD in a ribeye steak are called tail muscles. They are very tender and incredibly flavorful, especially with a little char from the grilling. If you don't mind some calories, this is the best thing in all of nature.  You will probably want to trim excess fat but make sure you get a bite or two of those little fellas.

Ribeyes are usually boneless but can be cut bone-in with a portion of the rib attached. Bone-in ribeyes are usually cut very thick and expensive. The bone can add some flavor and a cool visual. Bone-in ribeyes will take an extra minute or two of cooking time.  They will fill up a plate but the showmanship can be worth the inefficiency.

Ribeyes (or strip steaks) can also be pan fried so take a look at that section too.

The Kansas City Strip Steak. That is what your old pal Pete calls them because he has lived most of his life in Kansas. Many less-enlightened souls will call it a New York Strip or you can just call it a strip. In some old traditional steakhouses it is occasionally called a sirloin.  I don't really know why.

The strip is no-nonsense. One great big muscle surrounded by a little fat but not too much. The big muscle in a strip is the LD, the same muscle as in the ribeye steak but a little farther back on the animal. At this point the LD is larger and more oblong or oval shaped than round like in a ribeye. A strip will be leaner than a ribeye and sometimes not quite as tender. 

While ribeyes are nearly always tender, strip steaks are a bit more variable. Occasionally strip steaks sometimes have a narrow stripe of tough, gristly connective tissue across the middle. 

Take a look at the three strips below. All have great color of both lean and fat. All are approximately the same size. The steak in the middle of the photo has a stripe of connective tissue running diagonally across the middle portion. That stripe will be chewy and you will probably spit it out (discreetly of course). The rest of the steak is likely fine so there will not be much waste but that chunk of gristle could interrupt an otherwise rapturous meal so try to avoid that when selecting strip steaks.

Instructions for cooking strips are the same as ribeyes. Grilling is best and broiling works fine, too but does not impart the charcoal flavor.

Coming  soon!  Everything  you  need  to  know  about  filets.