Tips for Making a Great Steak
By Chef Tony Street
Here are some insider tips on making a great Y.O. style steak at home.
The Grade
Selecting a good cut of beef is just as important as the way you prepare it. The best steakhouses and restaurants in the United States serve up the most expensive grade of beef known as USDA prime beef. Prime grade beef accounts for about 3% of all beef production in the U.S., and most of our beef at the Y.O. The demand for this high quality beef makes it hard for you and I to just pick up at the corner grocery store. If you can’t find Prime grade, look for Choice grade – the next best thing.
The Aging
Ever heard the terms dry-aged, wet-aged? Have any idea what they mean? Most fine restaurants age their beef to intensify the flavor and improve the tenderness of the cut. Wet aging is done by vacuum packing the meat and letting it age in its own juices. Wet aging is done by more than 90% of fine steakhouses.
Dry aging is done by letting the meat sit (in very controlled conditions) for several days or weeks. This is a difficult process to perform because the risk of spoilage and food poisoning can be very high. You can however, check with your local meat markets to try and find a source for dry aged beef. If you can’t find it, don’t worry because very few palates could tell the difference between the two.
The Seasoning
Great steaks need little seasoning. This goes back to our first rule: If you start with high quality ingredients, you won’t need much else.
However, every great steakhouse seasons the steaks they cook. Typically a steak is seasoned with coarse ground black pepper, sea or kosher salt, garlic, and some type of signature spice. In addition to the seasoning most steakhouse’s use a marinade, butter, or some type of baste or finishing liquid.
Here at the Y.O., we finish the steak as soon as it’s done with a liquid mixture of red wine, red wine vinegar and soy sauce. This helps to lock in all the flavor and moisture, giving your cut the succulent flavor you love.
Cooking method
Most big steakhouses broil their steaks, using overhead, infrared broilers that produce incredibly hot temperatures to cook steaks. Don’t worry though, you don’t need to go out and invest in one, but the principle is the same. You need incredibly high heat in direct contact with the meat.
A basic, inexpensive cast iron pan or griddle is the steak’s best friend. Heavy, dense and able to hold a lot of heat, cast iron pans make the perfect steak. Only by having contact with that intense heat can you cook the steak hot enough and fast enough to make it perfect.
The basic process is to preheat the pan as hot as you can get it. Drop in the steak for two minutes. Flip, add and cook for 3-4 more minutes depending on how you want your steak done. When the steak is at the temperature you like it add your butter or finishing liquid. Be prepared – this is a smoke-filled process, but it can be done on your side burner on your grill without flooding the house with smoke.
Bon Appetite Y’all
Tony Street
Texas native Tony Street brings his Lone Star upbringing to downtown Dallas with Y.O. Ranch Steakhouse. Tony honed his skills in the heart of cattle country before opening his acclaimed steakhouse in 1996. Y.O. Ranch Steakhouse earned “Best Steakhouse in DFW” from the Dallas Morning News year after year, as well as national recognition from Food Network as one of the best steakhouses in America. Tony handpicks premium, locally-sourced Texas beef from the Y.O. Ranch and infuses southern cuisine influences into the menu, creating an authentic dining experience found nowhere else in downtown Dallas.
Make your Dallas restaurant reservations now and be wowed by my perfected dry-aged steaks, seared on a hot grill to lock in the juices and flavor. A cut above the rest!
