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Pan-Broiled Steak
While broiling over coals is supposed to be, par excellence, the method for cooking a steak, very nearly the same result may be obtained by broiling in a hot frying-pan or on a gridiron, but the pan must be heated to a blue heat before putting in the steak.
Lay the steak in the pan without butter or grease of any kind. Let it sear just long enough to prevent the escape of juice, then turn at once and sear the other side. Keep turning it often. The outside being all quickly seared, there will be very little chance for the loss of the juices, and if the pan is as hot as it should be, very little more time, if any, will be required than to cook over hot coals. Serve the same as before.
Should there be sufficient juice in the pan for a little gravy, pour in 2 or 3 spoonfuls of boiling water; stir it around to dissolve the coagulated juice, add a little salt, and pour around the steak.
A dry-pan searing method that predates nonstick cookware and still works, provided the pan is genuinely hot and heavy.
- "Blue heat"Probably a bare cast-iron or steel pan heated until it just begins to smoke and gives off a faint bluish haze; in modern terms a very hot dry pan, somewhere around 450-500F. A thin aluminium or coated pan will not hold that heat and should not be used; nonstick coatings begin to break down above about 500F.
- GridironA barred iron grate; the recipe has it used over the range rather than over open coals. A modern cast-iron grill pan is the nearest working equivalent.
- No fat in the panThe instruction is deliberate. Fat in a pan that hot will smoke and burn before the steak colours; the beef's own fat renders out quickly enough. Trim a little of the fat edge and rub it over the hot pan surface if the cut is very lean.
- Frequent turningModern testing broadly supports this: turning every 30 to 60 seconds tends to give more even cooking and a good crust, and the common advice to turn only once is not required.
- The searing mythSearing does not in fact seal in juices — that idea was current in cookbooks of this period and has since been disproved. It is still worth doing for flavour and crust, so follow the method and disregard the reasoning.
- Cut and donenessChoose something 1 to 1 1/2 inches thick: sirloin, ribeye, strip. Judge by internal temperature rather than time — 130F for medium rare, 140F for medium — and rest the steak five to ten minutes before serving.
- Pan gravy"2 or 3 spoonfuls" most likely means tablespoons, though the book does not say. Adding boiling water to a pan this hot will steam and spatter, so stand back; scrape up the browned residue at once, while the pan is still hot enough to dissolve it.
- VentilationA pan this hot with meat in it produces real smoke. Open a window and run the extractor before you start.