How best to cook a steak? Apart from when I'm camping, at which times the barbecue comes into its own, I cook steak perhaps two or three times a year, but I'd rather eat snags than poorly cooked steak. So when I fire up the barbie at home I'll admit I'm confronted by uncertainty.
In my column today about the resurgence of butcher shops, and butchers' claims that they have sex much more often than everyone else, I ask an old friend and retired butcher, Bob Lyons, how to cook a steak. On the barbecue grill, he says, until the juice comes to the top of one side, then turn the steak over for one third of the time it spent on the first side. Taking the guesswork out of the process appeals to me. And Bob's favourite steak is oyster blade about two centimetres thick - steak is often too thin, he says.
I'm rich with friends who swear they have the secret to a good steak. There's Ralph Spring, who cooks his steak on one side only, and on a moderately hot plate rather than the grill. When the juice is well risen, or to your liking, Ralph turns the steak for five seconds to clean it up. I must say that when it works it works very well, and when it doesn't work give it to the dog. What is probably the most memorable steak I've had was a rump cooked by Ralph on a campfire plate using this method.
There's Len Blacklow, who insists on having the barbecue plate as blisteringly hot as possible. He then pours oil on the plate and cooks both sides, with the flame on full bore and re-oiling as necessary. This produces a great result too, when Len's in charge, but when I'm holding the grippers the combination of oil and high heat often burns and dries the surface of the meat.
Then there's John Agnew, a professional chef, who tells me to marinate a 2.5cm-thick steak in red wine for an hour, get the barbecue grill as hot as possible, cook on one side for one minute then turn 90 degrees to give a crosshatch pattern and cook for another minute. Repeat on the other side for a medium to rare result. But one thing is at least as important as the cooking, John says, and that's resting the steak in a warm place for 10 minutes. I haven't tried John's method because I don't have a grill on my barbecue, but I do try to rest the cooked meat.
Your turn now. Which cut? Marinade? Grill or plate? How hot? And does it matter how often we turn it?
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