I use logic in everything I do, and sometimes things just don't make sense. So a lot of misinformation out there, myths, personal anecdotal evidence on something, a lot of outdated knowledge. So let's kind of break this down with the help of science and food writer Kenji Lopez. Alt, who's been on the show also wrote the book Food Lab, which is a master work when it comes to the science and food. This is all about really cooking the best
steak possible. All these you know, tips and things that we're going to go over right now are debunking myths apply to pan sered steaks, roasts as well, you know, cooking on a grill, all of it. So myth number one, this is probably the most dangerous and confusing. You should let a fixed steak rest at room temperature before you cook it. Room temperature. Ambient room temperature is between seventy and seventy one degrees. That's when people say room temperature.
That's what's going on. The belief in the theory comes from a legitimate one, and that is to be able to cook your steak evenly from edge to center, because when you cook at five hundred degrees with a steak, it's got to push that heat that five hundred degrees into the center, because it's only done when it reaches the center, the thickest part of whatever animal protein you're cooking. So it's got to push its way into that and make the inside medium rare. But the steak itself is
gradients of doneness. The outside is not medium rare. I guarantee it's been up against that five hundred degree heat, so it's only that center. So the desire of any good cook is to want to cook it as much of the steak at medium rare as possible. That's where SOOUV cooking comes in with is cooking in a sealed bag under poached water to a very precise degree, which doesn't allow you even to overcook. So you want it to be as close to the eating or the cooking
or the final temperature as possible. Right, So you want that steak coming out of the thirty eight degree refrigerator to be warmer, to be closer to the cooking temperature or the final temperature of one thirty.
If you're doing mediumare not going to happen.
You're not going to get a one inch fifteen ounce steak or whatever to come up to that degree in any length of time that's safe. Keep in mind you can only have raw meat outside for less than two hours.
The minute it is.
You let it go past two hours, you have issues of bacteria growing and multiplying big time to where it becomes problematic and it would make you sick. The reality is the internal temperature is never going to get close. You put a thirty eight degree steak on your kitchen counter at seventy you know, seventy degrees seventy one degree temperature after thirty minutes, and most chefs will tell you thirty to forty five minutes to leave it out there.
It goes up about a degree and a half.
A degree and a half in the time most chefs tell you to leave it out. That's not going to make any difference. The only difference that makes sense is drying the outside. Why because when there's water, the heat has to do two things.
It's not just heating up anymore.
Now, it's essentially expending enerture energy to turn the water in the steak to steam, which takes five times more energy than it does to heat the steak just to heat the water in the top of the steak to make it turn to steam, so it could caramelize the outside or sear the outside the mayard reaction of browning. Because it won't do that, it will steam the steak, which doesn't make it taste good. So that is a legitimate reason to want to have it dry on the outside.
But you know what you do. You either salt the steak the night before and leave it uncovered in the fridge, not touching anything, and it will release that into the air. It'll evaporate even in the refrigerator, or you pat it with a paper towel that you're gonna throw away.
That's it.
So after an hour and fifty minutes in a study that they did, the steak only got up to forty nine point six degrees. So the best you could get is thirteen percent closer, which is not enough scientifically to make a noticeable difference on that steak. But since a lot of chefs are men, and men like to make everything look harder than it actually is, we tend to do that talking about steaks for Technique of the week.
Cooking steaks. A lot of miss out there. And I know, you know it was once taught to me a long time ago when I got into the discipline of apologetics, defending ideas. I don't defend people. Typically, I do defend ideas. It often confuses people because I'll say something, you know, Trump will do something and I'll go I'll say something about the idea, and people think I'm defending the man.
I'm not.
I almost never defend an individual per se, but I defend an idea.
And I was.
Told, if you tell people something that they think makes them think, they love you, but if you actually tell somebody something that makes them have to think, they will hate you. And you know, everybody's like, oh, this is great, you're teaching all these things. But the minute you go against something that they believe in their heart, like that you see in the juices when you cook a steak or you're to leave it out, I guarantee people will hate my guts or that marinades do almost nothing on
a thick steak. So anyways, so sorry, We'll go through all these one at a time, these myths, and I'm sure you will hate me all the more for it. I'm always humored by people that hate people. On the radio, you hear three hours of their entire week and they go, you know, or four hours. If you're listening to Gary and Shannon, they got a long show.
Okay.
Myth number two, you sear. You sear your meat over high heat. That locks in the juices. It does not. You would have to have to hermetically seal. Now it doesn't lock and some juices. No, it doesn't even do that. No, there's nothing that's happening. The reason why you want to see a steak is for the browning of the steak to add flavor.
That's it. Otherwise you wouldn't need to see a steak at all. You just need to cook a steak. You're not searing in the juices.
There is no actual liquid bear or barrier that liquid can't pass through when you're searing it.
It is a muscle.
It is designed for blood and very important fluids to get in and out of it to do its job. So you can dry out the layers. As we talked about. That's important because that actually helps the seer get grill marks all on that bone in steak more flavor than boneless. No, another myth. So there is no transfer. Again, these are things that people say. Another thing I was taught a long time ago. There's a difference between good sound reasoning and reasons that sound good.
We like reasons that sound good.
We go that sounds pretty, that makes sense, And if you want to know the difference, the internet is mostly reasons that sound good. They're things that they tell you and you go, well, I guess that sort of makes sense, but they don't. Really, it's not good sound reasoning. So good sound reasoning says that a bone is solid and has stuff on the inside that's supposed to stay on the inside, and yes, things can pass backwards and forwards, but there is no transfer of flavor from the bone
to the meat anymore. There is transfer of meat to the bone when you're cooking at The difference is that the bone accesses as an insulator, and therefore the meat closest to the bone usually is cooked a little more rare than the rest, And no matter what people tell you, more rare is better flavor, they will you know. That may have been what started this whole myth, is that people would eat near the bone and they'd go, oh, that's super flavorful, yeah, because it was insulated and wasn't
overcooked with the rest of your crap food. So that's another one flip only once is another one that I used to believe too. I mean, don't think I'm above this. I ain't better than you. I'll tell you that right now. Flip only once.
Now.
The reason you don't want to be flipping your proteins, your meat proteins.
The only reason is if you want.
That really good hashmark, you know, like in a Sizzler commercial where you go how they do that? Well, I'll tell you, not just a Sizzler, but any food commercial. They're usually using a curling iron. Sorry, or they paint them on there. Sorry, that's the way they make it look like it's got those seer marks. I like a
good hashmark. There's some point of pride artistically, but flipping it back and forth actually cooks it more evenly, and we'll keep over cooking one particular side to where it curls. You ever see a steak curl up because somebody only left it on there on one side and then flipped it over and it curled up because it tightened on one side. So you can flip multiple times, it's actually going to give you better flavor and cook about thirty percent more quickly.
If you do that, it won't.
Cause any problems let's see, bu bu buh. Don't use a fork to turn your steak. That's wrong. You can. You can even cut it open to check its doneness. The problem with doing that later and then it oozing out all the juices has to do with the different temperature of the outside and the inside pushing it out. You want it to drop to one hundred and twenty degrees in the center after you've cooked it, and that
it won't constrict anymore. And the last thing is don't poke your thumb into the either pad of your hand or anything like that. To tell when the steak is done, use a thermometer. It is the only way to tell exactly the temperature on the inside period