The Best Steak I Ever Made

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I'll admit it, I'm a Food Network junkie.  This time of year, right after Washington Nationals baseball, it's my most watch TV channel.  Every year after Memorial Day Weekend the Food Network airs a week of barbecue and grilling and I set my dvr to record many shows during the week so I can watch them later and to also save shows that have recipes I want to try.  This particular recipe idea for this post came from a show called The Best Thing I Ever Made during the grilling week specials.  For those of you not familiar with the show several chefs from The Food Network will share the best thing they ever made, along with the recipes and how to prepare them, on the show.  Every week the show has a theme and of course during grilling week the theme was.............wait for it.........Grilling!!!

Although there were many good ideas and recipes on that show the one that stood out to me was the Grilled  Ribeye Steak by Chef Geoffrey Zakarian.  In my never ending quest to grill a better steak I immediately filed this recipe away for later.  Chef Zakarian didn't give me any earth shattering information I didn't already know but he did use a little different method than I normally use.  His ingredient list is simple enough, olive oil, salt, pepper and a little pad of butter applied after grilling but it is when he applies all the ingredients, other than the butter, that is different.  My normal method is to get the steak out of the frig before I go out to start the grill and this is when I apply oil, salt and pepper.  If you checked the Grilled Ribeye Steak link above you will notice Chef Zakarian use a ribeye steak 2-1/2 inches thick.  What he said during the program was a thick steak like that needs plenty of salt and pepper and plenty of time to absorb the salt and pepper. He salt and peppered the steak the night before and let it sit in the frig.  The next day he got the steak out a hour before he wanted to grill to give it a chance to come up to room temperature (this also helps to cook the steak more evenly once on the grill).  Since my steaks were only 1-1/2 inches thick I applied the salt and pepper in the morning of the day I planned on cooking them.  

My choice of charcoal for cooking the steaks was the hardwood type charcoal.  I also knew I wanted a hot fire, the hardwood charcoal burns much hotter than the regular charcoal, so I decided to put a pan under my charcoal holders so the grate sat on top of the coals.  I watched Alton Brown on Good Eats cook steak on top of charcoal and it always intrigued me.  I'll admit, I don't think I will ever be able to put meat in direct contact with the charcoal but none the less, I still wanted to try something similar.  After the grill was ready I had one hot fire and it was time to get the steaks.

I made sure I didn't go far while cooking the steaks because I didn't want the steaks to end up as as big chunk of charcoal.  I cooked the steaks 5 minutes on each side, alternating with the lid up and with the lid down.  I only put the lid down whenever I thought the fire was going to flame up but once I was convinced fire wasn't going to engulf the steaks and turn them into blackened shoe leather I left the lid up.  After the steaks had sufficient sear marks on each side I slid them to the "cool" side of the grill and let them finish cooking for another 10 minutes until they were a perfect medium rare.  

Hot off the grill and tempting to pick up by the bone and start eating.  But I can't do that because these steaks need to rest for 15 minutes.  The recipe also calls for a pad of french butter to be added to the steaks while resting.  I'm not sure what "french" butter is or what makes it different but since I had some Lancaster County Pennsylvania Amish butter I used that instead.

Once rested, it was time to slice the steaks and get them ready for their final resting place, my plate.  I got to admit though, after I sliced the meat off the bone I did pick up the bones and chew the remaining meat off.  After chewing on a bone I can see why dogs fight over steak bones.  

The steak was served on a simple salad, leafy greens, red onions, red peppers and sweet grape tomatoes.  This might be the best way to eat a steak.

So simple and yet so delicious.  How did the steak turn out?  It's the best steak I ever made and gets a perfect 5 out of 5 forks.  You would have to search far and wide to find a fancy steak joint that could serve a steak as good on this.

Original Recipe

Grilled Rib Eye Steak with Romaine Marmalade and Watercress