(A T-Bone steak is almost the same cut as a Porterhouse but with a much smaller section of the filet attached. Because of this, the T-Bone steak is a little less tender than a Porterhouse. Cook a T-Bone steak the same way as a Porterhouse steak.)
I prepared the mushrooms on the side burner of my propane grill while prepping and grilling the steak. First melt two tablespoons butter in a pan and allow the butter to foam.
Place 8 oz. sliced mushrooms (button or medium cremini work well) in the butter and saute on medium heat until mushrooms give off moisture.
Once most of the moisture has boiled off, add a 14 oz. can of low sodium beef broth to the pan and allow the broth to reduce.
When the broth has reduced to the point where it coats the back of a spoon, add two tablespoons of heavy cream. While stirring, let the heavy cream reduce the sauce until it coats a spoon again. Remove from heat and set aside for topping the steak.
Meanwhile, build a two level charcoal fire or preheat your propane grill. Prepare your Porterhouse steak by seasoning with salt and pepper on both sides. I prefer to cook thicker steaks of about 1-1/4 inch to 1-1/2 inch in thickness (a little less than 2 pounds). During grilling, the thicker steak results in a more even medium rare throughout the meat.
Place the steak on the hottest part of the grill and leave it there for 2 minutes. If using a propane grill, close the lid. On a charcoal grill, keep the lid off, but keep an eye open for flame ups and put them out with a squirt bottle or simply move the steak to prevent charring. After two minutes, flip the steak over and brown the other side - two minutes.Latest Articles
The filet of the Porterhouse steak should not be cooked beyond madium rare or it may toughen. I solve this by rotating the steak such that the strip steak is closer to the high heat while the tenderloin cut is on the cooler side. This will cook the filet a bit slower and not dry it out while trying to finish the top loin. Serve with mushroom topping over the steak or on the side.Grilled Porterhouse Steak (serves 2 hearty eaters)
| 1-1/4" Porterhouse or T-bone steak | salt & pepper | grill on high for 2 min. each side | grill on low until 130°F |
Mushrooms
| 2 Tbs. butter | melt | sautee | reduce | reduce |
| 8 oz. sliced mushrooms | ||||
| 14 oz. low sodium beef broth | ||||
| 2 Tbs. heavy cream | ||||
Caveat: I'm an accountant, but then I'm also an academic and a Perl hacker, so maybe I'm not normal, but a sub-engineer? Who knows. At least I can now learn to cook !!!!!!!
See my post on this topic in the Standing Rib Roast article.
In the first photograph with the steak (when it is raw on the plate), the strip (or top loin) section is the lower portion. The smaller portion (on the upper half of the steak) is the tenderloin or filet cut. The strip can be cooked closer to the heat as it handles overcooking better than the filet, so orient the tenderloin away from your heat source.
I'll try to take a picture the next time I grill a Porterhouse.
The way to cook the mushrooms is a great idea. Thanks.
I assume that you'd just leave it on for a few more minutes on low heat, but do you have any suggestions on how to keep it from drying up too much going to medium or medium well? There's a big difference between "medium well" and "burnt leather" that I've tasted before, but I haven't figured out how to replicate reliably.
My $.02
PS Nice site!
The fat conducts the heat to the meat very efficiently and helps keep the meat from drying out. The butter solids and salt will add some richness to the meat to help compensate for overcooking. The sugar in the jelly will also enhance the flavors and contrast nicely with the saltiness of the butter.
Add a pat of butter to your saute pan and heat until butter starts melting, and a spoonful of currant or other jelly (not jam, but jelly, there is a difference) that will work with your seasoning mix. The jelly and butter will melt together and start to bubble. When a small amount foam starts to form, add the steak and saute it until you reach the desired level of doneness. The meat will cook very rapidly. Turn it frequently and check for doneness.
This works very well if you are cooking for a big group and you want to precook your steaks. Just cook them all rare and hold hot. When you are almost ready to serve your food, ask each person how they want their steak. Saute each steak to the desired level.
great web site.
Just two tips: I would not season the meat before, but during cooking, as soon as you move it from high heat to low heat. Salt causes the uncooked meat to dry out, and pepper can burn on high heat, making the meat bitter.
For the barbarian who wants his meat overdone: The trick is to work with really low heat. I have not tried the pan solution, but what works is to cover the steak in aluminium foil and keep it on very low heat - an oven set to 80 degrees centigrade works well. Or cover it in foil and keep it at the very side of the fire - less reliable, but more of the stone-age barbecue feeling ;-)
As any chef will tell you, black pepper will become carcinogenic if heated. If one insists on having the pepper present while cooking, whole peppercorns should be use, as it will diminish the carcinogenic effect. That is why all of the fine restaurants have peppercorn steaks on the menus.
For a different, more savory taste, try putting whole juniper berries on the steak while grilling.
This is the first I've heard that ground black pepper is carcinogenic when heated. Do you know where I can find more information on this?
Grease the grill first so it doesn't stick. Jeez.
Turn only once, the first side is your presentation side.
Or sear first on a cast iron pan for a minute or so and we're talking red hot pan.
Toss in to a 500 degree oven for about 10 minutes or less depending upon thickness.
Basic stuff man. Sorry for your 100 steaks, poor things. Steaks been done before.
Dr. Biggles / MeatHenge
Even Bruce Aidells, the king of meat, strongly refutes the idea of post-salting.
Regarding the comment on not using pepper when grilling due to carcinogens, two things. First, I have heard that everything grilled is full of carcinogens due to the fact that the food is cooked over burning coals, wood and/or gas. I have not heard that pepper specifically has anything to do with this. Even if pepper does increase the carcinogens, I say it’s worth it. In my opinion, a steak without plenty of salt and freshly ground pepper applied before cooking will never be as good. And let’s not forget, YOU’RE EATING A PORTERHOUSE – a healthy meal is not the objective!
I also agree on minimizing turning of the steak. The steak needs to sit in one spot for a period of time to develop that tasty crust.
As for cooking a steak beyond med rare, the first thing I would suggest is to avoid porterhouse. It’s simply not worth the money if you’re going to cook it that long. Fillet Mignon (one side of the Porterhouse) needs, more than any other steak, to be on the rare side since it has so little fat. If you want a more well-done steak, I would suggest a thinner and fattier cut which will allow you to cook it through w/o totally drying it out (ribeye or thinner strip steak for example).
Also, great site!
The carcinogens intrinsically produced in grilling are mainly free radicals that are produced whenever you heat a hydrocarbon (i.e. butter, fat, burnt-sugar, etc.) to high temperatures. This is why french fries are so incredibly unhealthy: not only are they high in fat but they are also loaded with free radicals.
Fortunately for us, there are antioxidants that bind to free radicals and render them harmless. Anthocyanin, the pigment responsible for most of the red in fruits and vegetables, is just one such antioxidant. My favorite source of anthocyanin just happens to go excellently with steak: red wine.
Cheers!
R. Westin-Frisco, Texas
Yes, Texans know how to grill. It's genetic!
Also not an engineer but my lab is populated by them and I am the daughter of one =).
Re: the salt/pepper thing. I rub the meat with Maggi, a salty, German liquid seasoning. I don't think it would help form a "crust" though. And I wouldn't add pepper, DH is much fonder of pepper than I am. I'm much fonder of salt than he is. So, the compromise is to rub a little Maggi on the steak and grill it and we season our own. I've never noticed it hurting anything taste or texture wise. But then, I've never heard that salting or not salting it did before grilling did anything, either.
Re: the filet/NY structure of a Porterhouse. If you really want to grill a bunch of NY steaks (and I've had to a time or two) every once in a blue moon Porterhouse steaks are cheaper. You can remove the filet (I cubed it and put it in the freezer, to be Stroganoff later.) and grill the NY steaks. You don't have the worry about the two textures and cooking times of the meat that way. And, for a party, it makes it much easier!
jkd
ANTI-CANCER MARINADE FOR BARBECUE
(From Lawrence Livermoore Labs)
6 T. olive oil
4 T. cider vinegar
4 T. lemon juice
1/2 c. brown sugar
3 T. grainy mustard
3 medium cloves garlic, crushed
1 1/2 t. salt
Mix all ingredients together in a glass bowl. Put meat in re-sealable plastic bag. Cover completely with marinade and refrigerate for at least 4 hours to overnight. Barbecue as usual.
Does anyone have any tips as to what makes a steak tender on the grill? My husband and I seem to get it hit and miss and I haven't been able to isolate what makes the steak perfect when it turns out so. We recently took some medium thickness steaks and cooked them on WHITE coals, and they turned out absolutely perfectly - never had a better steak in my life. We did the same thing the next time, and it wasn't nearly the same. The only thing I could see we did differently was that the steak was thin the second time.
Comments?
Emily
Everything Kitchens
This is a topic that could easily take a couple articles to cover the bare essentials - but I'll try to see if I can summarize the key useful info.
It depends on a variety of factors, but probably the most important factors are the cut, the quality of the cut, and the temperature to which the cut has been cooked (in no particular order).
Cuts from the back are generally more tender because the muscles have been used less. A couple examples are: tenderloin (including the filet), top loin (such as New York strip), and rib (like a rib-eye or delmonico steak). A rib-eye steak has more intramuscular fat than a filet and this will also affect the tenderness and flavor. A filet (the choicest cuts from the tenderloin) is almost always the least used part of the least used muscle and is therefore very tender. However, it doesn't contain a lot of intramuscular fat, so it tends to have a less beefy flavor than other cuts. Another factor of having less fat is that when cooked to the point where the proteins tighten up, there isn't any fat to melt into the steak and lubricate it, so you lose a key factor in how tender the meat feels to your mouth when cooked beyond rare. The rib-eye has more intramuscular fat (the distribution of which is referred to as marbling) and so tends to have more flavor and a more tender consistency when overcooked (i.e. beyond medium-rare).
The quality of the meat is determined by three main factors - the age of the cattle when slaughtered, the amount and distribution of intramuscular fat, and the aging process of the meat. I will skip the first factor (almost all cuts you will be buying are from young cattle - older cattle produces meat for canning, hamburgers, and commercial meats) and briefly explain the other two. The marbling is important because of the affect of fat as it melts and spreads through the cut during the cooking process. It brings flavor and a perceived sense of tenderness. The more marbling, the higher the quality of beef and the higher the USDA grade (Prime has more marbling than Choice which in turn has more then Select). Be aware that many popular supermarkets have recently taken to branding their beef (usually USDA Select) to bolster sales of lower cost cuts at a higher price point. It's probably best to examine your steaks and look for ample amount of white flecks of fat dispersed liberally throughout the cut than follow fancy sounding supermarket labelling. The aging process also serves to tenderize beef. Generally supermarket beef is wet aged (sealed in a vacuum bag and refrigerated for a couple weeks) to allow the natural enzymes to begin decomposition of the tough proteins - naturally tenderizing the beef. In the U.S. almost all beef sold is wet aged to provide tender beef. Some places will dry age (sometimes they will wet age and follow it by dry aging) where the beef is not vacuum packed and is hung in a refrigerated compartment or room where humidity and temperature are controlled to allow the enzymes to do their work without the meat going bad. This is typically done for about 14 days for more supermarket dry aged beef (if you can find a market that carries it) to up to 1-2 months depending on how lucky you are and how much you are willing to pay. Dry aging yields a superior flavor (dry aging enhances the flavor of beef while wet aging does not) and tenderizes effectively. Unfortunately dry aging takes up space and results in a significant loss in edible beef as the exterior of the cut drys during aging and must be cut away by the butcher before sale. Therefore, dry aged beef is more expensive - but more flavorful and usually more tender than the standard wet aged beef.
Finally, we come to the cooking part. After selecting a cut that maximizes your chances of tenderness (let's say a USDA Prime filet or rib-eye that has been dry-aged for 3 weeks), you'll want to make sure you don't overcook it. An accurate and fast meat thermometer (such as a ThermaPen) is a vital tool for hitting the exact same temperature window every time because (unless you cook steaks everyday) it's difficult to tell how fast the temperature is rising in a steak as your cooking because, between two different meals, your steaks may be a different width or shape or the starting temperature may be drastically different... anyway, what temperature are we aiming for to achieve maximum tenderness? I'd say 125°F at the center. At this point, the proteins have just begun to tighten and form the tell tale striations that reveal that water has just begun to be squeezed out. Further cooking will cause the muscle fibers to continue to tighten and more and more water and juices will be lost. Cuts with more intramuscular fat will help mitigate the loss of tenderness. Most people's tastes tend to lean toward a more cooked steak at around 135-140&176;F - but the steak has become noticably less tender at this point - which is considered medium-rare to medium. Thicker steaks make it easier to sear the outside forming a brown crust while the inside doesn't overcook. Steaks thinner than 2-in. often have a tendency of being unpredictable and disappointing (either the outside is perfect and the inside overcooked or the inside perfect and the outside laking the rich, brown crust that is the only reason that makes a steak better than a slow roast).
To accomplish a 125°F, you should grill on the high heat. With a gas grill, that's basically as much heat as you can muster. On a charcoal grill, build a two level fire with a generous amount of lump charcoal. When the initial fire has burned down a bit, slap the steak down and leave it for five minutes. Using tongs, flip the steak over and leave it again for five minutes. Pick up the steak with tongs, insert the instant read thermometer from the side (through the part of the steak that is perpendicular to the grill) and measure the middle of the largest muscle of the steak (the coldest part). Take it off the grill to rest once it hits 110°F. If it hasn't hit 110°F, place the steak on the cooler part of the grill and check again at regular intervals (every 30 to 60 seconds). Keeping your steaks refrigerated until grill time also helps as extra insurance that you won't run past the designated temperature as you sear the outside. Cover the steak with a tent made of aluminum foil and wait ten to fifteen minutes. The unevenly heated steak (very hot on the outside, 110°F on the inside) will even out the temperature a bit, causing the interior to warm up to about 120-125°F - perfect.
Cavenders Greek sesoning is great, I use it on all my meats,save fish.
Mushrooms fresh,cut , broiled in butter as you say are very tasty, try adding beef bullion granules and garic at the begining then don't add cream, but after the moisture is out of the mushrooms UNCOVER them ,reduce heat and let the "sauce" reduce to a "glaze", don't burn them!
Leave your steak out to come up to near room temp and you can reduce cooking time or more easly get medium or better doneness.
Now I now you will flince, but to get it more done, off the grill put it in the microwave and nuke at NO MORE THAN 60% POWER and WACTH your time!Or you WILL ruin your steak. Try these and use the ones you like.
My guests never know "I NUKED their steaks"!
Emily
Everything Kitchens
I don't know, but it may have picked up it's name from the old porterhouses (like a bar & grill). Perhaps a particular porterhouse served it as their Porterhouse special and the name stuck? (Like the Delmonico steak named after the restaurant which undoubtedly served more than a single cut of beef for steaks... the weird thing is that the Delmonico is a different cut depending on what reagion you're in.)
Is there no way to turn down the heat on your grill? If not, then transferring to the oven may be the best course of action. Preheat the oven to about 300°F and then when you're done searing the meat, measure it's internal temperature bofer placing it on a sheet pan (or some other heat proof container). I can't really give you guidelines here because it all depends on your oven and how thick you get your porterhouse cuts. But if you've got quite a ways to go (steak is at 90°F) leave it in the oven fore ten mintues and check again. After you cook two steaks this way, you'll get a good feel for how long you'll need to keep it in your oven.
I've gone down many paths of marinades and seasonings and for this type of cut, I always come back to one standard.
Seasoning Salt (Lowry's or McCormick if possible)
Worceschire Powder (or Powdered Worceschire Sauce..I've found a few brands) - this works great since I've found that the fat and liquid in a good steak prevents actual Worceshire sauce from really penetrating the steak, and when grilled, the juices that are forced out of the meat wash away that great flavor. The powder sticks and cooks on with the seasoned salt. That's all a great steak needs.
Now for marinades...Michael needs to do a good Grilled London Broil thread! There's a real grilling challenge! :)
I remember that episode I think. I've always seared them over the coals and then move them off the heat to finish to doneness, and never had a dry steak. I eat mine rare and the wife likes med. rare though. Never cook anything well done. In fact, even when I make a pork tenderloin roast, my thermometers say 170* and I usually only go to about 155* and let it rest for 5-10 min. Maybe hits 160* tops. Always delicious and jucy!
build a big fire until the wire rack glows red
put the steaks on 2 minutes each side / no salt no pepper
take off the fire / let them rest 5 minutes and dig in
the mushroom sauce sounds good on pizza
don't forget a big mug of beer (Sam Adams)
boyaaa!
I took some pre-sliced mushrooms that i picked up at my local Stater Bros. market. I poured about a 1/2 cup of red wine vinegar and 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar in a bowl, added about 1 tbsp of McCormicks steak seasoning and about 2 cups of the sliced raw mushrooms. I let them soak in the mix for about an hour. I put about 2-3 tbsp of EVOO in a frying pan on high heat, drained the mushrooms and put them in the hot oil. Saute'd until brown and carmelized. They came out awesome!!!! They had a sweet and savory flavor with the balsamic reduction and the steak seasoning. Put them out in a serving dish with a cup of crumbled bleu cheese for topping some sirloins.
Rave reviews!
build a big fire until the wire rack glows red
put the steaks on 2 minutes each side / no salt no pepper
take off the fire / let them rest 5 minutes and dig in
the mushroom sauce sounds good on pizza
don't forget a big mug of beer (Sam Adams)
boyaaa!
Pffffff!! Propane not hot enough? If your grill doesn't get hot enough, make like an engineer and take out the valve and drill the gas orifice a little larger to get more gas into the fire. Then re-install. If you are leary about this, you can buy an extra set of orifices before you drill if you are concerned about the results. You can also try it out on only one burner until you see the results. Replacement orifices cost only a few dollars apiece and are available at any good propane store. It helps to have a number drill set (#1-60) and just experiment enlarging the holes until you have the inferno you desire. Enlarge the hole one drill size at a time and test it. Using fractional size drills is not recommended because the graduations between sizes is too great. Your burner may wear out faster, but it's worth it! Let the orifice be the limiting factor for the high setting and the valve will be the limiting factor for the low setting. You'll be amazed how well your grill will cook.
I know the way the Keg gets theirs to come out perfectly is using a flame broiler, but presumably there are no home versions of those.
I saw the post about taking a drill to your propane grill. That's a little bit hardcore for me. I get lost just trying to follow Rachael Ray on TV.
The only practical home option that I haven't tried is the charcoal grill. I've heard those produce a better heat for searing. But doesn't it take a lot of time and preparation to get a charcoal fire going -- a lot just for one steak for myself for dinner? And in any case I'm hoping to avoid buying any more big equipment until I've ruled everything else out.
So, what's the most common troubleshooting tip for people who can't get their steaks to come out dark brown crusted on the outside and pink on the inside?
The key is to get really high heat onto the surface of the steak so that the time ti takes to brown it is minimized. If your propane grill, broiler, and electric grill aren't doing it, then use the good old cast iron pan. If you don't have one, you should be able to pick one of for $10. Put it on high heat and let it get really hot. Slap the steak on and don't touch it for at least three minutes. Flip it over and see if you've got the brown sear you're looking for. If not, then you'll have to leave it on longer on each side - which means, you probably can't get high enough heat to not end up cooking your steaks to well-done. The solution at that point? The easiest is just to buy thicker steaks - 2-in. steaks are wonderful to cook with and result in delicious crusts with ample medium-rare flesh. 3-in. is even better, but you'll probably want someone to share that with. :)
Also, you might want to try brushing on some melted butter before grilling or searing the steaks. It adds a nice flavor and promotes browning.
1) For an average-size cast iron pan on over high heat, how long does it take for it to get "really hot"? (I'm an engineer, not a cook :) )
2) As a healthier substitute for butter, can I brush on olive/canola/flaxseed oil instead? (Weight Watchers lets you eat steak, you just can't put butter on it!)
- Any experience ordering steaks by mail order from OmahaSteaks.com or similar companies? Do they taste noticeably better than what you can get in a grocery store?
- Do steaks, even the very high-quality ones, taste any different after they've been frozen and defrosted? I know that chicken and fish taste noticeably different after being frozen so good restaurants always serve them fresh. But I assume steaks taste the same, since even Omaha Steaks delivers theirs frozen.
It depends on your stovetop. I'd say that after 5 full minutes of sitting on the flame (or heating element), it should be plenty hot. You can always fling some water on it as a test (wet you hand and flick it towards the pan so water droplets fall on it). If the water doesn't move - it's way too cold. If it sizzles away quickly - you're almost there (this is a good temperature for cooking just about everything else). If it jumps around like mad, throw on the steak.
Yeah, sure. You'll lose out on the flavor though. What is the rationale of allowing oils and not butter? Same number of calories for a given quantity (in fact, butter is a little less because it's not 100% fat).
- Do steaks, even the very high-quality ones, taste any different after they've been frozen and defrosted?
My personal experience is limited since Omaha steaks is so expensive, but the only time I tested their product it was pretty good but not as good as the natural rib eye I get from Whole Foods (not even the dry aged stuff). My personal feeling is that either Omaha Steaks is all marketing or the freezing process does detract from their product. They use a flash freezing process which is different from home freezing which will definitely affect the texture and eventually the flavor of beef.
I'm guessing I'll have to experiment with this for a while to find the right heat level to cook the steak brown but not black! Hope someone can chime in with some experience on this specifically. I see people posting about going through 100 steaks to get their technique right!
Yeah, I think I might not have mentioned that you do not want to put oil in the pan for this method. Sorry.
So, start off by salting your steak. Leave it out with sprinkled kosher salt on it surface for about 15 minutes. Then slap it on the cast iron pan. The water drawn up to the surface will evaporate quickly and might look like it's shooting off like steam rockets horizontally. Before it blackens (which sounds like is one minute), flip it over. Once you get the brown crust that you want, you might have to finish the steak in the oven (at 350°F) to bring the internal temperature up to the desired level.
If you're getting uneven patterns (not evenly browning/blackening :) ), the heat might be too strong. Reduce and try again. I think we can nail this down in less than 10 steaks...
Sorry about that last burnt one.
I assume that if you're pan-searing the stake, you should rub the seasoning (not the salt you're talking about, but the actual seasoning) on the steak after searing it? And that if the steak comes from the store with seasoning already rubbed on it, that searing it in the pan wouldn't work? This seems to burn the seasoning to a bitter flavor on any heat that's high enough to sear the steak.
I see a lot of posts saying "season before searing!" "season after searing!" "great taste!" "less filling!" "Windows!" "Macintosh!" But I assume that even the season-before-searing camp are only talking about steaks seared on a grill -- even they would presumably not advise seasoning a steak before searing it in a pan, if the seasoning gets burned?
So I assume if it comes like that from the store, I'd have to broil it or grill it.
In the case where the steak is preseasoned, you'll have to use a lower temperature technique (which means less of the meat will be medium-rare). We can still maximize the amount of medium-rare flesh in the middle though. You'll want to turn the heat down a bit and get the pan hot but not ridiculously so. Flinging some water onto the pan should result in a quick sizzle, but not the jumping and running around of the water pellets as before. This should be a temperature where the meat will still get seared, but not so high as to burn the seasoning too quickly. Give the steak a couple minutes on each side, and then measure the internal temperature with a fast reading meat thermometer by sticking it in through the side of the steak (the thin side, not the sides created by the butcher's cuts) into the thickest part of the muscle. This will give you an idea of how much warmer the steak will need to be. Stick the whole pan in a 300-350°F to finish the steak off evenly.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_99,00.html
I was able to get the steak to come out nice and evenly