After a total of around 5 minutes on the first side, flip the steaks over using your tongs (never pierce the steaks with a fork!). Rotate again. After another 2 or 3 minutes on the other side, again rotate the steaks 45 degrees to create our grill marks on the other side.
As a rule of thumb, when cooking steaks that are 1-1/2 inch thick, you want to go by the 3-4 rule. That is, three minutes per side on direct heat, then four minutes per side on indirect heat.
But the reality is that flipping a steak repeatedly during cooking—as often as every 30 seconds or so—will produce a crust that is just as good (provided you start with meat with a good, dry surface, as you always should), give you a more evenly cooked interior, and cook in about 30% less time to boot!
Why Do You Let Meat Rest? Internal juices constrict during the cooking process, and resting meat allows its juices to reabsorb and redistribute. Cutting it too soon will cause its juice to pool out and yield a dry cut of meat.
Recent experiments and noted food scientist and writer Harold McGee indicate that flipping a steak several times while cooking results in a steak that is ready sooner but also yields better overall results than the single flip method. Flipping your meat constantly also minimizes the desiccation zone or the dry area.
Flipping a steak frequently can actually improve its texture and prevent it from drying out. According to McGee, flipping it multiple times means that neither side has enough time to lose a lot of heat or absorb excessive heat, so the meat cooks faster and has less of a chance of being overdone.
The timing.
As a rule of thumb (for a steak 22mm thick) – cook 2 minutes each side for rare, 3-4 mins each side for medium-rare and 4-6 mins each side for medium. For well done, cook for 2-4 minutes each side, then turn the heat down and cook for another 4-6 minutes.
The center of the steak becomes supersaturated with liquid—there's more liquid in there than it can hold on to—so when you slice it open, all that extra liquid pours out. By resting the steaks, you allow all that liquid that was forced out of the edges and into the center time to migrate back out to the edges.
You can rest your steaks one minute for every 100 grams. So for a 14 to 16 ounce steak, you should rest it about 5 minutes and you can let it rest as long as 10 minutes (as long as you keep it in a warm place). The meat will continue to cook once it comes off the heat for several minutes.
How to rest the meat. Take it from the heat and place it on a warm plate or serving platter. Cover the meat loosely with foil. If you cover it tightly with the foil or wrap it in foil, you will make the hot meat sweat and lose the valuable moisture you are trying to keep in the meat.
To cook a medium-rare steak, place it on a hot grill for approximately 5 minutes. Flip, rotate, and move to another spot on the grill. Cook an additional 4 minutes, or until it reaches an internal temperature of 130°F (it will continue to cook while resting). Let rest for 5 minutes, slice and serve.
For 1 inch steaks, grill them for 3 minutes on each side over high heat for quite rare, 4 minutes on each side for medium-rare, and 5 minutes on each side for medium.
If you're cooking more than one steak, make sure there are at least a couple of inches between them—you don't want to crowd the pan. If it's a tight fit, use two pans or cook the steaks in batches.
Often mistaken for cube steak, minute steak is actually thinly-sliced sirloin that's quite tender and therefore cooks quickly. This very lean cut can become leathery if cooked for too long, so stay close and attentive throughout the cooking process.
Dietary goal
If you eat red meat, limit consumption to no more than about three portions per week. Three portions is equivalent to about 350–500g (about 12–18oz) cooked weight.
Rare steak - 125 F, about 6 minutes of cooking. Medium-rare steak - 130 F, about 8 minutes of cooking. Medium steak - 140 F, about 10 minutes. Medium-well - 145 F, about 12 minutes.
No. The United States Department of Agriculture recommends not eating or tasting raw or undercooked meat. Meat may contain harmful bacteria. Thorough cooking is important to kill any bacteria and viruses that may be present in the food.
If a perishable food (such as meat or poultry) has been left out at room temperature overnight (more than two hours) it may not be safe. Discard it, even though it may look and smell good. Never taste a food to see if it is spoiled. Use a food thermometer to verify temperatures.
To properly rest meats after cooking, you must wrap them. After a cut of meat is finished cooking, gently wrap it with aluminum foil in a tent-like fashion. This will keep the meat warm after it reaches its peak internal temperature while resting.
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.
After your steak is cooked, put the steak on the plate, cover it loosely with foil and pop it back in the oven. This way your steak won't go cold while resting, and will give the muscle fibres a chance to relax and reabsorb any moisture. Your steak will be beautifully tender and won't bleed out onto the plate.
Yes, there are scientific reasons to back up the fact that slow cooked meat is better. Tenderness in meat comes from the melting of collagen – the connective tissue protein present in meat. When collagen melts, it turns into gelatin, a rich liquid that gives meat a lot of flavour as well as a silky texture.
If you're cooking steak on the grill, you most definitely should flip it about halfway through the cooking process. We typically recommend flipping your steak just once on the grill because it's not getting direct heat on one side like it would on a pan.