Reverse Sear vs Cast Iron
- Preheat oven to 200°F/95°C.
- Pat the steak dry with a paper towel, and generously season all sides of the steak with salt and pepper.
- Transfer to a wire rack on top of a baking sheet, and bake for about 45 minutes to an hour, until the internal temperature reads about 125°F/50˚C for medium-rare. Adjust the bake time if you like your steak more rare or well-done.
- Heat the oil in a pan over high heat until smoking. As usual, do not use olive oil, as its smoke point is significantly lower than that of most vegetable oils and will smoke before reaching the desired cooking temperature.
- Sear the steak for 1 minute on one side, then flip.
- Add the butter, and armonatics (garlic, rosemary, thyme, etc.) and swirl around the pan. Transfer the garlic and herbs on top of the steak and baste the steak with the butter using a large spoon.
- Baste for about 1 minute, then flip the steak with tongs and baste the other side for about 15 seconds.
- Turn the steak on its side and cook to render off any excess fat.
vs
- Pat steaks dry with paper towel
- Salt both sides, and let rest for 1 hour in the refrigerator.
- Wash the salt off, dry again with even more paper towel.
- Heat the canola oil in a pan over high heat until smoking. Do not use olive oil, as its smoke point is significantly lower than that of canola oil and will smoke before reaching the desired cooking temperature.
- Here’s where there’s still disagreement, and I’ll do a side-by-each comparison one of these days. Cook until internal temp is 120-125F (medium-rare), remove, let rest a few minutes, serve.
- 1-2 minutes before you expect it’s done cooking, add the butter and aromatics. Get the butter underneath, and baste for at least 1 minute, make sure to flip with the aromatics on top, baste a bit longer, done.
- Either cook each side for 3-5 minutes, total of 6-10, OR flip after 1 minute each side, then flip every 2 minutes until internal temp is reached (this makes for a more pronounced difference between crust and the pink). You shouldn’t need to use a press or iron to keep the steak flat in the pan, but if you see it starting to curl up, either press it flat with a spatula/iron/press, or flip it immediately and keep it pressed flat until it stays down. Resume normal cooking after that.