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How do you prep your steaks?

Kobie

Kobie

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I was grilling up a couple of strip steaks tonight when the idea came to see what DP had come up with.

How do you turn that cow flesh into something magnificent? Is it a spice rub, a marinade, or something else? Do you serve them with any garnish or other accoutrements? How do you make your steaks YOUR STEAKS?

Tonight, for example, I went with my go-to seasoning combo of black pepper, seasoned salt, onion powder and garlic powder, then popped those bad boys on the grill for about 5 minutes a side on high heat. Got me the perfect mid-rare to medium I shoot for (I prefer my steaks on the rare side; The Future Mrs. Kobie prefers hers a little more done). Served them up with some strips of grilled green, yellow and red pepper (seasoned with pepper and minced garlic and tossed in olive oil) that I did up while the steaks were finishing, and I broke out the gourmet horseradish I purchased a few months ago for a little added flavor on my steak (TFMK doesn't touch the stuff).

So what say you, grillmasters and grillmistresses of DP? How do you make it so nobody can beat your meat?
 
Kobie said:
I was grilling up a couple of strip steaks tonight when the idea came to see what DP had come up with.

How do you turn that cow flesh into something magnificent? Is it a spice rub, a marinade, or something else? Do you serve them with any garnish or other accoutrements? How do you make your steaks YOUR STEAKS?

Tonight, for example, I went with my go-to seasoning combo of black pepper, seasoned salt, onion powder and garlic powder, then popped those bad boys on the grill for about 5 minutes a side on high heat. Got me the perfect mid-rare to medium I shoot for (I prefer my steaks on the rare side; The Future Mrs. Kobie prefers hers a little more done). Served them up with some strips of grilled green, yellow and red pepper (seasoned with pepper and minced garlic and tossed in olive oil) that I did up while the steaks were finishing, and I broke out the gourmet horseradish I purchased a few months ago for a little added flavor on my steak (TFMK doesn't touch the stuff).

So what say you, grillmasters and grillmistresses of DP? How do you make it so nobody can beat your meat?
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Minimal seasoning and smoked it a smoker made from an old filing cabinet. I live under the belief heavy seasoning and marinade is just a substitute for good meat and proper cooking.
 
beerftw said:
Minimal seasoning and smoked it a smoker made from an old filing cabinet.
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Smoked steak ... interesting. How does that turn out? I don't have much experience with smokers.

I live under the belief heavy seasoning and marinade is just a substitute for good meat and proper cooking.
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While overseasoning can kill the intrinsic properties of anything, the right mix can really make the flavors pop. Garlic and steak go together very well.
 
Kobie said:
Smoked steak ... interesting. How does that turn out? I don't have much experience with smokers.



While overseasoning can kill the intrinsic properties of anything, the right mix can really make the flavors pop. Garlic and steak go together very well.
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Smoked everything goes together well, but I prefer tri tip or brisket to steak anyways.

For seasoning I tend to use salt pepper and garlic, too much and you are trying to hide the flavor of the meat, too little the meat tastes good but never reaches it's full potential.
 
beerftw said:
Smoked everything goes together well, but I prefer tri tip or brisket to steak anyways.

For seasoning I tend to use salt pepper and garlic, too much and you are trying to hide the flavor of the meat, too little the meat tastes good but never reaches it's full potential.
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Onion powder adds a nice dimension, but you have to be judicious with it.

I asked TFMK for a smoker for my birthday, which not coincidentally is a few weeks before Thanksgiving. I'm thinking about smoking a turkey this year.
 
Simple salt and pepper seasoning (maybe a bit of Worcestershire?). Drizzle with olive oil and start in a very hot cast iron pan. Turn, top with a generous pat of butter and a sprig of thyme, and finish in the oven. Wonderful.

(As always - rinse and pat dry before seasoning, allow to sit at room temp for 30 min prior to cooking, and rest for 5 min after cooking)
 
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60% of the time I do good steaks with some kind of salt and some kind of pepper and some kind of garlic. My dad btw swore all along that MSG is the trick but I never really did that.

Most of the rest of the time my lovely wife has purchased the wrong thing (That case of frozen no-roll 30% injected water must have been some ancient cows was fun) I will use a marinade or pulverize it with a fork. When I was at the DFAC at Ft Huachuca we every Friday did steaks on portable massive grills. Feeding near 1000 per meal....anyway these thin but large steaks we had were incredibly bad, but at exactly 3pm the day before we sunk em all into a teriyaki sauce we made with cheap salad oil and GD they were always nice and tender and delish well done the way we had to serve them. The soldiers, AIT'ers in HUMIT, did some serious loving on them.
 
Kobie said:
Onion powder adds a nice dimension, but you have to be judicious with it.

I asked TFMK for a smoker for my birthday, which not coincidentally is a few weeks before Thanksgiving. I'm thinking about smoking a turkey this year.
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Try a filing cabinet smoker if you can catch someone throwing out a steel filing cabinet. The glory of them is the drawers act like heat barriers between the food and the fire, allowing the food to cook just from the heat of the smoke, and it makes the food extra smokey tasting, good thing unless you do not like things that smokey.
 
Kobie said:
I was grilling up a couple of strip steaks tonight when the idea came to see what DP had come up with.

How do you turn that cow flesh into something magnificent? Is it a spice rub, a marinade, or something else? Do you serve them with any garnish or other accoutrements? How do you make your steaks YOUR STEAKS?

Tonight, for example, I went with my go-to seasoning combo of black pepper, seasoned salt, onion powder and garlic powder, then popped those bad boys on the grill for about 5 minutes a side on high heat. Got me the perfect mid-rare to medium I shoot for (I prefer my steaks on the rare side; The Future Mrs. Kobie prefers hers a little more done). Served them up with some strips of grilled green, yellow and red pepper (seasoned with pepper and minced garlic and tossed in olive oil) that I did up while the steaks were finishing, and I broke out the gourmet horseradish I purchased a few months ago for a little added flavor on my steak (TFMK doesn't touch the stuff).

So what say you, grillmasters and grillmistresses of DP? How do you make it so nobody can beat your meat?
Click to expand...

Let your meat reach room temperature before you grill. make sure you use enough oil and salt, pepper, and granulated garlic.

I've seen chefs do a coriander seasoning on steak specials before.
 
beerftw said:
Try a filing cabinet smoker if you can catch someone throwing out a steel filing cabinet. The glory of them is the drawers act like heat barriers between the food and the fire, allowing the food to cook just from the heat of the smoke, and it makes the food extra smokey tasting, good thing unless you do not like things that smokey.
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Gotta burn the paint off first, right? Saw a huge one at the curb the other day, shoulda grabbed it. They make good tool boxes too.
 
Slingshot Bob said:
Gotta burn the paint off first, right? Saw a huge one at the curb the other day, shoulda grabbed it. They make good tool boxes too.
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A good fire burns off everything, bacteria, paint etc.

It is like a bbq made from 55 gallon oil drums, you need to run a fire through it a few times to burn out the oil, but in the cabinets case the paint.
 
Salt, pepper, brown sugar, cayenne, paprika rub. Olive oil in a pan get it piping hot. Cook on one side for 3-4 minutes, flip, then add butter and chopped garlic. Spoon the butter and garlic over the steak while it finishes cooking.
 
The best success is knowing your cuts of steaks. What is perfectly marbleized to produce the perfect tenderness.

I don't think it takes a grillmaster or countless marinated meat options. It takes a good cut of meat.

For me it is simple. With a good cut of meat you rub it with sea salt, fresh cracked black pepper and garlic. That's it. If you desire caramelized onions or sautéed mushrooms to go with it then go for it.

With a good cut of meat and season it as I stated above, you can sear it in a cast iron skillet to perfection without a grill or a smoker.

Cheers!
 
Your Star said:
Salt, pepper, brown sugar, cayenne, paprika rub. Olive oil in a pan get it piping hot. Cook on one side for 3-4 minutes, flip, then add butter and chopped garlic. Spoon the butter and garlic over the steak while it finishes cooking.
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That is excessive for a steak unless it is poor quality meat, but you are in georgia, which is near the carolinas, which believes bbq's need excessive vineger on everything which makes texans wonder what yall are trying to cover up.

If you want a real steak go to texas, if you don't like texas just come here for the steak and go back, no one here will blame you, we do it world class here, and bbq and red meats are our thing here.
 
vesper said:
The best success is knowing your cuts of steaks. What is perfectly marbleized to produce the perfect tenderness.

I don't think it takes a grillmaster or countless marinated meat options. It takes a good cut of meat.

For me it is simple. With a good cut of meat you rub it with sea salt, fresh cracked black pepper and garlic. That's it. If you desire caramelized onions or sautéed mushrooms to go with it then go for it.

With a good cut of meat and season it as I stated above, you can sear it in a cast iron skillet to perfection without a grill or a smoker.

Cheers!
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On the bolded, that is an issue with people and steaks, many want the most tender and I do not know why, the most tender cuts of beef are the most flavorless, while the tougher cuts have way better flavor.

In texas it is brisket, the toughest cut sold from a cow, they learned it because it was throwaway meat for years, and poor ranchers sold the expensive cuts for profit, and ate the unwanted cuts, they learned to make brisket very edible and prized.

In cali it was tri tip which was bottom sirloin, it was like top sirloin but tougher and much better flavor. In all truthfullness if you offered me bottom sirloin vs ribeye I would take the bottom sirloin, much more flavor and the toughness I can deal with.
 
Slingshot Bob said:
Stoke a good oak fire and get a bed of coals, open steak, put over coals. Just after the mooing stops, eat!
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Bah, I'd kill for a great charcoal grill. Right now, I'm Hank Hilling it until I can convince TFMK to just shut up and let me get a charcoal grill.
 
Kobie said:
Bah, I'd kill for a great charcoal grill. Right now, I'm Hank Hilling it until I can convince TFMK to just shut up and let me get a charcoal grill.
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I have a big round one, I got from a property clean up(last tenants left it) I use a steel garbage can for a base. I melted 10 pounds of lead in a cast iron pot to do ant mound castings, recently. Not sure if I want to cook on it again.

I need to get some bricks, want to build a good outdoor fire place. Lead and grills, not good, not good!
 
Slingshot Bob said:
I have a big round one, I got from a property clean up(last tenants left it) I use a steel garbage can for a base. I melted 10 pounds of lead in a cast iron pot to do ant mound castings, recently. Not sure if I want to cook on it again.

I need to get some bricks, want to build a good outdoor fire place. Lead and grills, not good, not good!
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I wouldn't advise it lol
 
T-bones.
marinated in cream sherry , Worcestershire sauce, onion, garlic, and black pepper for a few hours.

Grilled over a hot fire and use the sauce to keep the steaks moist. I like them med rare.
 
beerftw said:
That is excessive for a steak unless it is poor quality meat, but you are in georgia, which is near the carolinas, which believes bbq's need excessive vineger on everything which makes texans wonder what yall are trying to cover up.

If you want a real steak go to texas, if you don't like texas just come here for the steak and go back, no one here will blame you, we do it world class here, and bbq and red meats are our thing here.
Click to expand...

Seasoning adds to good meat, not detract. It's an art.
 
Your Star said:
Seasoning adds to good meat, not detract. It's an art.
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seasoning can add to meat, but that is the extent to where we agree. In texas if you needed that much seasoning, you would be told to feed it to the dogs and buy a real cut of meat. The real flavor of meat is complimented by seasoning, but really brought out by how it is cooked.

If such seasoning methods are needed it is not a good cut of meat, or you are just using the ultra tender flavorless cuts and trying to add flavor to them, texas may not be number one in fried chicken or in seafood but we beat the rest of the country in red meats whether bbq'ed fried baked whatever.
 
beerftw said:
On the bolded, that is an issue with people and steaks, many want the most tender and I do not know why, the most tender cuts of beef are the most flavorless, while the tougher cuts have way better flavor.

In texas it is brisket, the toughest cut sold from a cow, they learned it because it was throwaway meat for years, and poor ranchers sold the expensive cuts for profit, and ate the unwanted cuts, they learned to make brisket very edible and prized.

In cali it was tri tip which was bottom sirloin, it was like top sirloin but tougher and much better flavor. In all truthfullness if you offered me bottom sirloin vs ribeye I would take the bottom sirloin, much more flavor and the toughness I can deal with.
Click to expand...

A lot of times tougher cuts need to be pounded to tenderize or they need to cook significantly longer than prime cuts.
I have a special recipe for every cut of beef. And it is what you slow cook many of those tougher cuts that makes them so flavorful.

I love sirloin. It is basically tender but the levels of flavor you can add to it in the way you cook it wonderful.

I have recipes for chuck steak where I season it, sear it on both sides then throw it into the crockpot add celery,onion,carrots and potatoes and in 6 hours you have a wonderful, flavorful meal on the cheap.

Round steak is tough but cheap. You can pound the heck out of it, dredge in seasoned flour brown it and place it into a baking dish and mound on top of it onions and mushrooms bake it and it makes it's own gravy for mashed potatoes.

Brisket as you mention is tough. I fix it about twice a year. It takes a long time to become tender. I fix brisket as a boiled meal with cabbage, carrots and potatoes. But the next day I turn it into some awesome corn beef hash served with eggs that would knock your socks off..
 
beerftw said:
On the bolded, that is an issue with people and steaks, many want the most tender and I do not know why, the most tender cuts of beef are the most flavorless, while the tougher cuts have way better flavor.

In texas it is brisket, the toughest cut sold from a cow, they learned it because it was throwaway meat for years, and poor ranchers sold the expensive cuts for profit, and ate the unwanted cuts, they learned to make brisket very edible and prized.

In cali it was tri tip which was bottom sirloin, it was like top sirloin but tougher and much better flavor. In all truthfullness if you offered me bottom sirloin vs ribeye I would take the bottom sirloin, much more flavor and the toughness I can deal with.
Click to expand...

Tri tip ain't tough, that's the 3rd most tender cut you can get. It comes from the bottom flap, and has great marbling, so great flavor.

As for brisket, it's good....AFTER drowning it in dry rub and labor intensive over it for 12 hours, lol.

Best cheap steak? A properly cared for London broil/inside round. Good flavor, not too tough, and usually less than 5 bucks per pound.
 
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