Bobby Flay's Grill It! - Bobby Flay [10]
Grilled Rib Eye with Horseradish Sauce
Grilled Filet Mignon with Fig–Cabernet Vinegar Glaze
Spice-Rubbed Rib Eye with Bar Americain Steak Sauce
Red Wine–Marinated Flank Steak Filled with Prosciutto, Fontina, and Basil
Spanish Spice–Rubbed Steak with Sherry Vinegar Steak Sauce
Mini Open-Faced Steak Sandwiches on Garlic Bread with Aged Provolone, Caramelized Onions, and Parsley Oil
Thai-Inspired Grilled Beef Salad with Watercress
Santa Maria–Style BBQ Tri Tip
There is something so satisfying about beef; it’s hard for me to turn down a steak when my hunger is kicked up into full gear. And when it’s prepared on the grill, the pleasure it gives is practically primal. Charred and crusty on the outside with a juicy interior, a well-grilled steak is a great thing.
From your local supermarket to the specialty butcher, you can find a plethora of cuts and grades of beef readily available these days. Options range from organic grass-fed to kosher to the trendy Kobe-style beef. Most beef in this country is raised on a diet of grass until the last few months, when it is fattened up with grains, primarily corn. This beef tends to be milder in flavor and fattier than purely grass-fed beef. Grass-fed beef has a slightly more pronounced “beefy” flavor. Most American palates are accustomed to the flavor of grain-fed beef, but grass-fed is certainly worth trying if you come across it. What it all comes down to, though, is flavor, and you can find and emphasize that in any cut and/or style.
Beef is graded on its marbling: the more marbling, the better. Those ribbons of fat running through beef melt during cooking and create endless flavor and juiciness. It might not look as pretty as that lean, red steak, but adequate marbling is the key to a superior end result. While in better restaurants and butcher shops you are likely to see meat that has been labeled prime, only a small percentage of beef has enough marbling to qualify as such. Supermarket beef is generally labeled choice, the most popular and available grade. I like to use dry-aged prime beef at home and in my restaurants, but it can be pricey and hard to find. You can achieve good results with choice as well. Just be sure to look for some marbling and remember, the less fat your cut has, the less you should cook it.
A very lean cut won’t have enough fat to stay juicy if you cook it past medium. This is the case with the super-lean tenderloin. Tenderloin is certainly supple, but it doesn’t have a very full beefy flavor on its own, which is why I like to punch it up with rubs. A rub will also help create a beautiful crusty exterior, making a differentiation in textures that the meat might not have on its own. There are other cuts that you won’t want to cook past medium or medium rare, such as skirt and flank steaks. These are plenty flavorful and juicy, but they have a pronounced grain that becomes tough if overcooked. Marinades are popular treatments for these cuts as they break down some of those tough fibers, but cooking flank and skirt steaks quickly and then cutting thin across the grain will also ensure a tasty, juicy, slightly chewy steak—not a tough one.
Here’s a cooking tip for beef—especially if you like your meat as I do, cooked to a nice medium-rare (or medium): Pull your meat out of the refrigerator about twenty minutes before you plan on grilling it. You want it to come to room temperature so that it grills at an even, level rate. This way you won’t char the outside before the inside loses its icy chill.
There is one other thing that I cannot stress enough when it comes to grilling beef—or most any meat for that matter: Let it rest! Pulling your meat off of the grill and then letting it sit for five minutes or so under a foil tent is incredibly important. Give those precious juices time to settle back into the meat. Cut the meat too soon and all of those juices will run off into the cutting board, right where you don’t want them.
Perfectly Grilled Steak
The grill might just be about the best thing to happen to a steak, and