Revealed: Secrets to best steak
Chefs including Gaucho’s head of grills Fernando Larroude and JW Steakhouse’s head chef Simon Conboy, claimed to have the secrets to cooking the best steak.
Steak should be respected, said Larroude, who urged other chefs to remember that a lot of time and care goes into producing meat.
“You need to respect the steak,” he told the PMA at last night’s World Steak Challenge in London. “The meat has taken a long time to create and to get to your kitchen and you need to remember that.
“But, when it’s time to cook, I would say you need to take the steak from the fridge at least five minutes to half an hour before you cook it.
‘About six minutes’
Supplier:
I also don’t mind a little bit of a green edge on the steak before it’s cooked. The green comes from the ageing process and means the steak has more flavour, but you’d never know about it after cooking
- Source: Peerdeman
“It needs to be cooked for about six minutes for medium rare – four minutes on one side and then two on the other.”
Keeping things simple was a sure way to steak success, Conboy advised. Cooking the steak for just a few minutes on each side so it was juicy and tender couldn’t be beaten.
“On the side, it has to be triple-cooked chips and béarnaise sauce. But, the most important thing to remember is not to overcook the steak,” he added.
There wasn’t one factor that would result in the best steak, argued Franck Ribière, director of the film Steak (R)evolution.
“The combination of three very interesting jobs goes into creating the perfect steak: it’s about what the farmer, the butcher and the chef do,” he said.
“If you have the three of them working together, then you can have the best steak – it’s not down to one person.
“Then, after getting that right, you add other elements, such as breed, and cut. No fat should be added to the pan, because a good steak doesn’t need any additional fat, but salt and maybe some black pepper.”
‘The perfect steak’
World Steak Challenge winner Frank Albers, who is the owner of meat supplier Albers, agreed with Ribière. He said: “The perfect steak has a whole load of things going into it before it’s on the plate. You have to have a good animal and a good butcher before a good chef gets to it.”
Marco Peerdeman, a meat specialist at supplier Classic Fine Foods, believed marbling was one of the most important contributors to the perfect steak.
“I also don’t mind a little bit of a green edge on the steak before it’s cooked,” he said. “The green comes from the ageing process and means the steak has more flavour, but you’d never know about it after cooking.”
