Spring is here and that means people are firing up their barbecue grills.
For our family, grilling a perfect steak is a challenge. Typically, our steaks don’t taste anything like those served at four-star restaurants. More often than not, our steaks are tough or lack flavor.
The bottom line is we need some professional grilling help. For advice we turned to Emporia State University’s famed chef Harold Jensen for some of his steak secrets. Chef Harold, who works for Sodexho, is from Las Vegas and has cooked for many celebrities, including Barbra Streisand, Wayne Newton, Celine Dion, David Copperfield and, of course, ESU President Michael Lane.
Q What is the secret to grilling a good steak?
A To me it’s all about the meat. If you buy a good piece of meat, you really have to try hard to screw it up.
Q What cut of steak is good and what price range?
A My favorite is the sirloin because it has a lot of marbling and the price is right. It is under $5 a pound. Strips and rib eyes are also good, but they can cost more. You definitely want it to have a lot of marbling. The marbling is fat and fat is flavor. As the fat cooks, it is dissolving into the meat and tenderizing it.
Q Do you marinade the steak?
A You want to only marinade a cheap steak. Top round, inside round, bottom round, ball tip — anything under $3 is really a simmering steak that you want to slice up and cook for a long time and give it a lot of moisture to soften it up.
With good meat, I just brush it with olive oil, salt and pepper. That’s all I do before I put it on the grill. The reason I only season it with that is because I want it to taste like a steak. People really can over-season a steak with garlic powder, paprika and other seasonings. By the time they get done, it doesn’t taste like a steak anymore.
Q At some restaurants they talk about dry aging steaks. What does that mean and can people do that at home?
A At home, I will lay them out on the bottom rack in the refrigerator unwrapped and unseasoned for three to four days. Then I trim off anything that turns green or gray. The top will turn very red and dry looking. The green and gray will just appear on the edges. Make sure you do it on the very bottom shelf so it won’t drip on anything else. You really want to make sure you trim off the green and gray parts off, otherwise it can make you sick. What dry aging does is dries out the steak and sucks out the moisture. So what you are eating is just steak. There are no fluids or solutions that a meat packer may have added.
Q For cooking, is there a difference between cooking with propane or charcoal?
A It really doesn’t matter. But my preference is charcoal with some wood in there because it gives that nice outdoorsy taste. You need to make sure the grill is hot and you have a nice hot red glowing coals. You also want the cooking grate clean and spray it with non-stick spray.
Q How long should the steaks cook? Do you do anything while they are cooking?
A I like my steaks medium rare and that is about 3 1/2 minutes each side. If you use a meat thermometer, it should reach 135 degrees for medium rare. But as I am cooking the steaks, I am brushing on real melted butter. It adds flavor and also works as a tenderizer.
Q Where do you think most people get into problems?
A I think most people get in trouble because they want to save money and buy a cheap piece of steak. People will also not let the fire get hot enough and they put the steak on too early.
Q When you go to the store and you see beef with names like Sterling Silver, is that beef really better?
A To me it’s a marketing thing. But if you buy one of those brands, you know the good marbling is going to be there.
i_am_the_batman (anonymous) says...
lol, just lol. BREAKING NEWS!! Learn to cook a steak, the secret, buy a steak, the end.
May 4, 2007 at 4:15 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
sciguy (anonymous) says...
Chef Harold was the BEST possible thing that could have happened to ESU's food services department.
I don't know about the cafeteria food (I don't eat there), but the event food went up in quality by a few orders of magnitude.
It's actually possible to look forward to eating on campus. That wasn't the case very often before Chef Harold.
May 4, 2007 at 6:29 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )