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Hi everyone!

Do any of you think this method (slow oven then sear) would work well for lamb chops too? I'm planning on making some next week.

Thanks

Perhaps. I think you could successfully cook the chops, but you probably won't see much benefit. I think the big benefit for this method with steak is the slow and even rise to temperature. Since lamb chops are going to be much smaller, they're going to come to temperature much faster, unless you work at an even lower temperature. Also, the slow rise in temp is said to mimic dry-aging in beef, activating enzymes that create a more tender cut. I'm not sure that this would occur in lamb, and you could very possibly wind up with the opposite. Since lamb chops are such a quick-cooking item, I'm not sure I'd bother experimenting with this method.

Best,
Michael

I've long been a steak sear and blaster. In general, I think it produces fine results, but it is not fool-proof, it IS smoky and it is definitely not a relaxing cooking method. So when I saw the ATK "warm and sear" method and read others' experiences with it here, I had to try it. I wanted to throw a little bit of variability into the experiment as well, so I decided to do a horizontal test between two different qualities of the same cut of steak. Could the ATK method elevate the texture (and flavor?) of a cheap supermarket strip or would the spendier meat still win out? The results are quite promising.

First the steak -- I purchased two NY Strip steaks. One from Whole Foods was antibiotic and hormone free, raised on a vegetarian diet, presumably a happy roaming cow. Yeah right. The one from the generic grocery store was simply marked USDA Choice NY Strip. The WF strip was twice as expensive as the supermarket steak. Here they are, side by side. You'll notice no difference in marbling. They were also identical thickness although one was a bit larger.



With an Idaho spud for reference:


I followed the ATK method precisely, including cutting the steaks in half prior to baking in the oven. I also brought them to room temp before cooking. After all, the premise of this recipe is the gentle warming produces a superior texture similar to dry aging. Patted dry, salted and peppered liberally and put on a rack in a 275 oven.

Here are the steaks after their 17 minute bake. At this point,the thermometer read just below 105, the temp recommended for medium. I'm not sure why this cooked so quickly, although I have a theory (below) but next time I'd check it at 10 mins.


Close-up of the baked meat. I agree the look was kinda like a strange pastrami steak hybrid. Not appealing at all.


Then the sear -- in a hot cast iron skillet with a dribble of oil. The pan was smoking just a bit when I put in the steaks, but not blazing hot. I seared the edges a bit, but was starting to get worried about doneness at this point. Ideally I would have gone longer on the edges.


Side by side, the rested steaks. The big guy is still bigger, but my touch test indicated they were pretty much the same doneness.


After a 10 minute rest, here they are sliced:


Served with a baked potato and creamed spinach. Note the spinach is the Berlin wall of this plate -- I still needed to segregate the meat to conduct the rest of the test.



I'm pleased to report that the cheap supermarket cut won! (It was the smaller steak on the left in the pictures) The texture was great -- even slightly overcooked (more on that below) the meat was tender and juicy. The WF Strip was probably conventionally "tastier", with more mineral tang that one associates with a better cut of meat, but the texture was chewier and the meat didn't seem as juicy to me. Both were good, but it's quite nice to know you can pick up a steak at the market and cook it in this method and see real improvement in the end product.

A few notes: I definitely had trouble with doneness, probably due to user error. My oven started out hot from baking potatoes and even after cooling it down to 275 degrees it must have been residually hotter than if I had started from cold. (OK, I realize that's a real leap ... just try to find the science in that hypothesis). The meat ended up a perfectly acceptable Medium, but I like mine on the rare side of Med-rare, so I'll need to get more precise. Also, wonder if leaving the steaks whole instead of cutting in two could help in this regard. Finally, perhaps the meat should come to this process cold from the fridge instead of brought up to room temp. All questions to be answered through further investigation.

Secondly, let's not pretend this method doesn't produce smoke. It does, and as much as sear and blast I would say. After all, you are searing the meat for the same amount of time in a hot pan -- I found I needed a good 2 mins/side for a reasonable crust, just as I normally would with the sear and blast. I don't have a ventilation hood either, but I do have an outside door off the kitchen and some good cross ventilation so it wasn't too too bad. But for someone who is paranoid about smoking up a small apartment, this isn't your salvation.

But most importantly I concur this is a really chill way to prepare a steak. Yes, you have time to make a cocktail or pour a glass of wine while the meat is in the oven. Yes, you have time to make some creamed spinach while the steak rests. I find the sear and blast to be hectic and worrisome throughout. So, if you are looking for a way to bring your stress level down while preparing a steak indoors, I encourage you to try this method.

porklet-

Thanks for sharing the results of your experiment!

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-Mary

porklet -

Was there anything particularly unique about the Whole Foods steak? I mean, was it dry-aged? I ask only because I've never really been impressed with Whole Foods' beef, so I'm not sure how superior of a product it was from the "regular" grocery store steak. I wonder if your results would have been different if you included instead a prime steak, or a dry-aged one.

Thanks for sharing your experiment.

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Local Beet

Hi aschie -- there was nothing special about the WF steak, except the price. They were pretty identical in marbling, etc.

Because I am cheap, er ... thrifty I really wanted the experiment to end this way but I truly think the cheapo cut benefited more from this method because it had the greatest distance to go. Kinda like "most improved" in elementary school. Sure, the braniac is still smarter but you've come a long way baby.

I do want to experiment with better cuts of beef here -- prime, dry aged -- and also different cuts. I like a rib-eye the best, so that might be on deck.

Thanks for your interest.

If you have a costco membership, get yourself one of the 4-packs of USDA prime ribeyes. I think they run about $8-9/lb, which is cheaper than WF and most chain supermarkets sell choice for.

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Ed Fisher
my chicago food photos

RIP LTH.

Russet potato, the cubit of the culinary world.

Great post - I haven't tried the ATK method before but will definitely have to give it a shot. I'm usually a steaks on the grill kind of guy, but with Winter approaching, it's always nice to have a good indoor alternative (last year I had an incident where it was unclear as to whether I had a burn or frostbite on a finger after grilling in February)

-Dan

Fantastic early post! I'll look forward to your further experiments with this technique.

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Chicago Craft Beer Week!

The prime NY strips & ribeyes are now being sold for an "outrageous" $10.99/lb. @ Costco.

Seriously, I think that deal is worth the price of membership alone.

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Local Beet

I think the strips are actually up to $11.99, but for some reason I thought the ribeyes were still under $10.

You can also buy whole sub-primals of those cuts around the holidays for about $1/lb less than the precut ones.

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Ed Fisher
my chicago food photos

RIP LTH.

They were selling the eintire bone in primal (7 bone) for $5.99/lb. today at the Touhy Ave. Costco. Lesser bone in portions were also in the case for $1 or so more/lb.

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Steve Z.
Photographer/Pseudojournalist

"The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook." - Julia Child

of the prime stuff? great to hear. sounds like they're getting ready for christmas.

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Ed Fisher
my chicago food photos

RIP LTH.

One possibility - have you calibrated your oven recently? What the oven's sensor registers as 275 and what is really 275 might not be the same. Just a thought.

Thanks for the great report - reminds me of a dinner possibility when it's one of my nights to cook while visiting during the holidays (assuming no ventilation issues - bad form to smoke up your sister's house!).

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Objects in mirror appear to be losing.

Kman -- totally reading my mind. I should do this anyway since we're in baking / roasting / braising season now. I have no idea how accurate my oven's thermostat is at the moment but I wouldn't be surprised if it was off.

I tried the ATK method last night with some grass-fed steaks I purchased from El Mercado, the little sister store to Tango Sur. I asked for two ribeyes, but I'm pretty sure the guy gave me new york strips.

The steaks...16-17 oz each


I put them in a 275 degree oven as advised and took them out once they reached an internal temp of 90 degrees. I pulled them early thinking that they would spend a longer amount of time in my stainless steel pan getting the deep crust I desire as opposed to shorter amount of time it would take in a cast iron. As previously mentioned, the look and texture of them is quite interesting.

The steaks after their time in the oven


The steaks spent about 4 minutes a side in a smoking hot pan with some butter and light olive oil. I was aiming for medium rare and despite my instant read thermometer registering 127, they came out pinker than I had hoped...that being said I found the texture and taste of the meat to definitely be more medium rare than medium.

Cooked steak




This was my first time trying this method. I've always done the sear and blast method and was always happy with the results. To be perfectly honest, I couldn't tell much of a difference, and I was actually underwhelmed with the steaks. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that my exposure to grass-fed beef is limited to the times I've eaten at Tango Sur which have always included plenty of wine so I never really noticed or remembered how I felt about the meat. With a chance to really focus on the meat, I found my palette unaccustomed to the earthy and well grassiness of the beef and coupled with the relative leanness of the meat compared to grain-fed beef, I didn't enjoy the steaks as much as I had hoped. Next time I will use some nice heavily marbled grain-fed beef to compare the results.

I did this with some "Prime" graded Sirloin from Costco (which has been in my freezer) on Tues evening. I didn't cut the steak in half, and it was still pretty cold in the center when I started (35 F). I did trim off the outside fat layer. The steak was under an inch thick, and weighed around 10 oz. I used a probe thermometer (the kind with the tail attached so you can keep it in at all times) to keep track of the temp. I used my toaster oven, and that doesn't have 5 degree settings, so I did it at 270 F.

The doneness was perfectly medium-rare. When I took the steak off the sear it was 110 F inside, and warmed up to a final temp of 120 F. According to charts I have seen that is rare, not medium-rare, but it was exactly how I wanted it - warm red center and very juicy.

I still like the smoky taste of a steak done over the grill better - I use lump hardwood and put some wood chips or chunks on the fire. What I do there is put it on the grill and close the lid, then flip when it gets up to 90 F or thereabouts. So it gets cooked from the top as well, and (my theory) does a similar sort of cook.

But for an indoor cooked steak, as someone else said, this is pretty nice. I wasn't really interested in cooking outside during "dangerous thunder and lightning"

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Leek
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I bought a hunk of meat labelled a "round tip roast," which I know comes from the round and is therefore lean and ... well, let's just say my expectations are not overly high.

Looking around the internet for ideas on how to roast this, I found a recipe that seems to take the "low and slow" philosophy to new levels of low and slow:

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
***
Rub meat all over with seasoning mix, or use seasonings of your choice. Place meat into flat bottomed pan - do NOT cover pan or place water or anything else into pan. Insert meat thermometer into thickest part of meat.
***
Calculate cooking time at 7 minutes per pound (these roasts are generally 2-1/2 - 3 pounds each). Place roast in preheated oven, and immediately reduce heat to 475 degrees. Cook for length of time you calculated, them immediately turn off heat. DO NOT OPEN OVEN. LEAVE ROAST IN OVEN FOR 2-1/2 HOURS WITHOUT OPENING OVEN DOOR.
****
Open door and check roast. It should be perfectly cooked with an internal temperature of 145 - 155 degrees; rosy pink and delicious! Enjoy with pan juices!

What do you think? First, at 7 minutes per pound, my 2.8-lb roast will only be cooking with the oven on for 20 minutes. Second, I'm having a hard time believing that once I turn the oven off, it isn't going to cool off to room temperature a lot sooner than at 2.5 hours. I know it's lean, tough meat and could easily get overcooked or dried out, but ... this couldn't work, could it?

I'm willing to give this a try, with ordering a pizza as a fallback. Just wondering if anyone has an opinion about the recipe or experience with this roasting technique. I should add my "remote" meat thermometer (probe with metal wire connected to external display) seems to have died, so I'll really have to take a leap of faith here to not open the oven for more than 2 hours.

Additional note: For comparison, I found a recipe for slow-roasted beef on the Cooks Illustrated website. That recipe involves (1) pan-searing the meat first, (2) roasting at 225 deg F for 1.25-1.75 hrs for medium rare, and (3) turning the oven off and leaving the roast in the oven for another 30-50 minutes. The pan searing is an extra hassle, but the roast cooking in an oven turned off for 30-50 minutes is more believable to me than for 2.5 hrs.

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"I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."

I'd definitely go with the CI method. Personally, I'd give the keller method a try: blowtorch the outside and then pop it in a 250 degree oven until medium rare. Nothing else.

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Ed Fisher
my chicago food photos

RIP LTH.

I'm back to report that low and slow dry roasting does indeed produce a round tip roast with a perfectly medium rare interior. Looked lovely, but the proof was in the (difficulty of the) slicing. Unfortunately, a medium rare round tip roast is still a round tip roast, which is to say, a lean and chewy piece of meat. All that slow roasting didn't achieve the tenderness I hoped for. I wouldn't say it didn't have good flavor; it just didn't have the flavor that a fattier, juicier cut of beef would have at the same temperature. Meh.

Himself, on the other hand, worked very hard for 12 hours that day, came home drained, sore muscles all over, happily chewed through a half dozen slices of the roast, dropped off to sleep on the couch, and woke up feeling fine. So there's something to be said for the restorative properties of a big serving of protein and B vitamins.

I can also see how a round tip roast would do well braised (in oven or crock pot) and sliced thin, as for Italian beef or cold roast beef sandwiches. Dry roasted, not so much.

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"I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."

Folks, please let me add my $.02 to this.
Have you read about vacuum tumbling? before sous vide became popular for home cooking, this was a way that butchers could get lots more flavor and increased income. I vacuum tumble with a home unit that is not longer in existance, and when I hit the lottery I am getting a commercial stainless unit. However, the way I do ANY cuts of meat these days is flavoring in the vacuum tumbler which also breaks down the meat and tenderizes it, then a vacuum sealer with flavors to be put into the souis vide, and torched after that. Or, until my Green egg was smashed, tossed on the grill for a high temp sear.

My kid did a few extra credit assignments for his school that involved his cooking using this method. One 7th grader (at that time) brought samples home of the meat and vegetables I did (veggies were just vacuum tumbled and steamed) to her father who runs a well known place in Milwaukee. I was begged to bring in my equipment for a demonstration by her father.

Anyway - another option. Makes really cheap cuts of meat awesome.

Hi,

I followed the originally prescribed method this evening with two NY strip steaks. We are not big steak eaters, though on this occasion it was devoured. This method allows someone who cooks steak rarely, to have excellent results.

Regards,

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Cathy2

"You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
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This "reverse sear" method is pretty much the only way I make steaks anymore. Roasts, too. Any cut of meat that I want cooked to a lower level of doneness. I don't know how much I believe this "dry aging" simulation stuff, but it does produce a cut of meat that is cooked very evenly on the inside with a seared crust. When I do the normal method, it seems to me that there is more gradation in the meat, from a well-done exterior to a rare interior. When I do the reverse sear, I get a lot more of that rare interior, and just a thin portion on the very outside that is cooked well. It also seems to me that the "sweating" that occurs in starting the meat out slow leads to a better crust. I even follow this method when grilling: I put my steaks away from direct heat to start, bring them slowly up to temp, and then finish on the direct, hot side of the grill.