Cold meat in a hot pan?
Putting cold meat in a hot pan is asking for trouble. The result is a tough steak that is still lukewarm inside. At least, that’s what people say—but is it really true?
Almost every steak recipe says to take the meat out of the refrigerator half an hour before you cook it, so it can come to room temperature. This is supposed to help the meat cook evenly and brown better, because you don’t lower the temperature by putting ice-cold meat in the pan. Serious Eats investigated to see whether this widely circulated tip is actually correct. Apparently not!
Room temperature
To test this, a large steak (425 g) was cut in half. One half was placed in the refrigerator and the other on the counter, in a room at 21 ºC. The internal temperature started at 3.3 ºC, and after half an hour, the temperature of the steak outside the refrigerator had risen by only one degree. After 2 hours—much longer than any recipe suggests—the internal temperature was 9.8 ºC. Still nowhere near actual room temperature. So that half hour is completely pointless!
Crispy and brown
What happens if you cook the steak straight from the refrigerator and the steak that has been outside the refrigerator for those 2 hours (!) in exactly the same way? They reach the perfect internal temperature of 55 ºC for medium rare at the same time and are cooked just as evenly. So those few degrees make absolutely no difference. And the color? No difference was found there either. What matters for a beautifully browned steak is that the steak is thoroughly dry. So pat it dry with paper towels before cooking. And from now on, just cook it straight from the refrigerator, okay? You can put that half hour to much better use.
Also read:
- Perfect steak for a large group
- How to: fry fish skin-side down
- These 5 pans should not be missing from your kitchen
