The recipe is no more than a steak, salt, and pepper. Actually, that is not true. — Armie
Get the following ready
- A couple cloves of garlic that have been peeled
- A couple sprigs of rosemary
- Butter
- Olive oil
- Preferably a cast iron skillet
- A heavily marbled ribeye. At least an inch and a half, preferable two inches thick.
Leave your steak in the fridge. I don’t believe in pulling meat out and letting it come to room temperature. I would rather give the outside of the meat a good sear, like a char, which is easier when the center of the meat is cool. If it’s warm from sitting out, then you can’t heat the outside as much before you raise the internal temperature beyond what you would want to cook it to.
For a really nice ribeye, I like a medium-rare-plus. For New York strip, medium-rare. And for a filet, rare-plus.
Get your pan hot, like smoking hot. Like really, really hot. It’s crucial.
While the pan is heating up, I take my steak out of the fridge. I put a piece of either cling wrap or saran wrap or wax paper, something like that, down on the cutting board and then I put the raw meat on top of that. It saves me from having to clean the cutting board before serving the meat on it—to prevent cross-contamination.
While the pan is heating up, I liberally apply salt and pepper.
When the pan is just about ready, I add a 50/50 mixture of olive oil and butter. The butter prevents the olive oil from burning too badly. I let it get hot, and sometimes it may even start to smoke.
I take that steak and put it right down on the cast iron. I let it sit. When I see the heat creeping up the side of the steak, into the center of the steak, I let it go even longer. You’ll want to let it go for a long while, till you get a really good sear on one side.
After I get the sear on one side, I flip the steak. That’s when I toss in a handful of 3, 4, 5 cloves of garlic, as well as some rosemary. (Make sure that, after you have rinsed your rosemary, you get all the water off before putting it in the pan because it’ll pop up and sizzle.)
If you’re basting, brush melted butter with garlic crush in it onto the steak with springs of rosemary.
Let that side start to get a really good sear before you start spooning the oil over it. Because the process of actually spooning the juice in the pan onto the steak does as much to cook the steak as the steak actually being in the pan itself because you’re basically pouring hot boiling oil over a case of meat, which will cook it; so you want to let it get a good sear before you start doing that because you want that side to get a good sear as well.
Once that side has a good sear, you’re going to take a spoon and you’re going to flip that juice up on the steak, that hot oil, which will also have salt and pepper in it and also be infused with the garlic and rosemary. Spoon that over it for a little bit until you start to see a really nice brown color, then flip the steak, spoon the other sides, and get that side also pre-soaked in oil and butter.
You can tell when the steak is done by touching it.
Here’s the trick:
- Place your thumb against your index finger, the muscle in your thumb feels like a rare steak.
- Thumb against middle finger feels medium-rare.
- Thumb against ring finger feels medium.
- Thumb against pinky feels well done.
- So that is how you want to gauge, and the more you practice the easier it gets to tell.
When you take the steak out of the pan, you do not want to put it straight onto the cutting board because juice will be coming out of the steak, and if it is sitting in its own juice it will make the sear kinda soggy. So you can use either a wire rack or anything that places the steak in a way that the juice can fall off of it and it’s still cooling down.
You do not want to touch the steak for a minimum of 7 minutes, 8 to 10 would be preferable. Always salt to taste after the steak has rested.
Then once that is ready slice your steak, salt to taste, and serve.
FAVORITE GRILL GEAR
“Any Kamado grill will work. Just make sure it’s nice and hot. Or any cast iron skillet.”
Blaze 20-Inch Cast Aluminum Kamado Grill With Stainless Steel Cart & Round Shelf
Primo All In One Ceramic Kamado Grill With Shelves
FINEX 10″ Cast Iron Grill Pan, Modern Heirloom
Le Creuset Square Skillet Grill Pan
TOOLS
“You will want grill utensils with long handles to sear so you don’t burn your fingers.”
Alpha Grillers Heavy Duty BBQ Grilling Tools Set
Grilljoy 30 Piece BBQ Grill Tools Set
FAVORITE BUTCHER
McCall’s Meat & Fish Co.
2117 Hillhurst Ave. Los Angeles, CA (323) 667-0674
CHECK OUT ARMIE
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