Grilled meat is a pretty basic dish. However, not all experienced chefs can prepare the perfect grill steak according to the wishes of the customer, having in the arsenal professional equipment and all necessary accessories. And what about ordinary grilled meat lovers? That’s how we are. How do you cook a steak on a grill that’s no worse than a restaurant? First of all, find fresh, high-quality meat, that’s the basis of everything. And secondly, read our five tips, which will describe step by step the correct process of grilling meat at home.
Step 1
First, dry the meat using paper towels or any clean dish towel without a pile. This will help remove the extra moisture, which only harms the cooking. If you grill the meat still wet, it will boil in this water instead of roasting and caramelizing as required by the recipe.
Step 2
Marinate the meat with spices. The basic ingredient is salt and pepper. Many chefs do not recommend that the steak be sprinkled with salt beforehand, as it causes too much moisture to come out. But on the other hand, if you poured 30 minutes before the roast, you’d get a little moisture that would dissolve the salt easily and leak into the steak. If the salt does not absorb into the meat in time, it will simply remain on the surface of the grill, and therefore the meat will be undersized.
But you don’t have to salt a steak long before it’s hot. In a few hours, it will draw too much moisture onto the surface, so the meat will become dry and hard.
Step 3
Put a piece of meat on a clean grill. Pfff. Sure, you always have a clean grill, but make sure you do. If the meat is roasted on a contaminated grille or pan, there is a risk that the steak will stick to the surface.
As soon as you put the meat on the grill – forget about it for at least two minutes. Don’t turn it over a few times a minute and see if it’s ready. The steak is prepared on a precise timeout. It is usually determined by the type of meat and the thickness of the steak itself. Find out how long it takes each side of your piece and follow a clear plan. The meat thermometer also helps to make the steak. If you have one, use it.
Step 4
As soon as you remove the meat from the grill, consider that for a few more minutes the temperature of the steak will rise around 10 degrees. This process is called by the British «carryover cooking» (the Ukrainian analog to this term does not yet exist). So you don’t overcook the meat, consider the difference and take the steak out a little earlier.
Next. Remember, when the meat is hot, its structure weakens, making it harder and harder to hold moisture. To hold as much juice as possible inside the steak, just give him a few minutes to rest. As soon as the meat cools off a bit, the fibers will become elastic again and they will retain all the juices and flavour – only then you can start cutting a piece. For an average steak size, 10 min is enough, for a large piece of meat it is better to wait 20 min.
Step 5
The last stage is no less important than the previous. You have to cut the steak right, too. You can see fibers on the meat that form longitudinal lines. If you cut the meat with slices on the fiber line, you’re not going to be able to chew this piece easily. But if you cut it perpendicular to where the fibers are placed, your piece will have short muscle joints, and therefore chewing it will be much easier and more pleasant.
Of course, to cook a marbled beef or a Ribay steak, there won’t be enough of those tips. However, if you make classic grilled meat – these 5 steps will make your dish ideal for a family dinner.
