Steak Tips and Tricks
Cooking tip #1. Math.
No matter what you might have been told about cooking anything from Flannery Beef, math is everything. Because as we all know, there is no better way we all do math than with — duh — fingers. Armed with good math and several working fingers, you can add, subtract and remember nearly all the numbers you need to perfectly prepare anything you order from Flannery Beef — on a grill or in an oven. I promise.
The most critical two numbers you will need to know are:
- 1) Thickness.
- 2) Weight
Excellent. Let’s take a time out now to review what we just learned, this time using our fingers:
If you’re repeating “THICKNESS and then “WEIGHT” — while holding up (count ‘em) two fingers, awesome.
Let’s cook.
On the grill
I have personally prepared a few steaks in my day, dating back I believe, to having grilled a bone-in rib-eye for Moses prior to his setting off to part the Pacific Ocean. Not really, totally made that up. But just know that meat, fire and me go way back.
More recently I’ve become completely sold on the “Two-Thirds, One-Third” School of Grilling. That is to say, if your total cooking time is 10 minutes, go 6 minutes on the first side and 4 minutes on the second. This program will give you a really nice, evenly cooked steak and works like a charm for most other things as well.
There is one possible red flag to this plan, however. If you’re using one of those new nuclear-powered grills that produce enough heat to melt glass, or a sufficient number of BTU’s to launch a rocket, you’ll probably want to back off a bit from the numbers listed below.
Otherwise, grill on:
- 1″ – 8 minutes total
- 1.25″ – 9 minutes total
- 1.5″ – 14 minutes total
- 2″ – 18 minutes total
- 2.5″ – 20 minutes total
- 3″ – 25 minutes total
In the Oven
Throwing your steaks in the oven is probably your easiest route, and will let you focus on getting other parts of dinner handled or give you a few extra minutes to comb your hair. The only caveat here is that you’ll need a good thickness on your steaks — roasting works best with steaks that are 2” and up. You can cheat things a bit if you’ve got a 1.5” steak, but it’s your best bet to roast thicker pieces.
To prepare the steaks for cooking in an oven is absolutely exhausting. You drop them on a rack on top of a sheet pan and that’s pretty much it. I am not kidding. Done. Well almost. You may want to add just a bit of salt and pepper. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees first, and simply place the rack in the center of the oven for the suggested time*. Don’t worry about flipping the steak halfway through, just set the timer and go do your nails. If you’re using a thermometer, bear in mind that after you pull the steak from the oven, the temperature will continue to climb for an additional 5 degrees.
The joy of ovens. By the numbers:
- 1.5″ – 14 minutes total
- 2″ – 18 minutes total
- 2.5″ – 20 minutes total
- 3″ – 25 minutes total