Debunking steak myths

It seems like no other food accumulates myths and old wive's tales like the cooking of steak. I suspect this is partly because of steak's cost, relative to other foods. Cooking a steak is like putting a $10 bill in the pan. You don't want to waste all that money by doing it wrong!

And I suspect the other part is that most people simply do not cook steak very often. Steak is a "special occasion" food, something to cook for birthdays, anniversaries, and twice-annual barbecues. (Even then, most people stick to grilling burgers and hot dogs.)

I myself was the victim of this kind of Steak Anxiety for a long time. I didn't even try to cook my own steak until a few years ago, when I felt like I had mastered most of the basic cooking skills and was ready to try something "advanced."

It turns out that steak is actually easy to cook, and difficult to ruin. It doesn't deserve its reputation, nor does it deserve to be shrouded in myth and secrecy.

Over at the Serious Eats blog, J. Kenzie Lopez-Alt, the Chief Creative Officer at Serious Eats, has gone to a lot of trouble and experimentation to debunk some of the most common steak myths. It turns out that you can - and probably should - flip your steaks multiple times to cook them more easily. And it's harmless to slice a steak open to check the doneness.

Lopez-Alt also champions one of my favorite tools, the meat thermometer. A good meat thermometer really is the best way to cook steaks, particularly if you are unfamiliar with the process or the cut.

However, Lopez-Alt brushes off the practice of poking steaks to check their doneness. Once you have cooked enough steaks, you really do develop a feel for the poke test. But I would still fall back on the meat thermometer for unfamiliar cuts (because they all poke a little bit differently) or for picky eaters who won't accept "medium-rare" when they asked for "medium."

Image courtesy Flickr/with wind