Steak cooking tips
How to cook your steak
- Our favourite way to cook steak is to pan fry it. The thicker the steak, the more time it will need, but as a rough guide, we’d suggest these timings for a 2cm-thick steak:
Rare: About 1½ mins each side
Medium: About 2-2½ mins each side
Well done: About 4-5 minutes each side - Take the steak out of the fridge 20 minutes before you’re ready to cook it so that it can reach room temperature. This helps ensure it cooks more evenly.
- Choose a pan with a thick, solid base to conduct the heat properly – cast-iron skillets are ideal. Turn the heat to high and get the pan very hot.
- Rub the steak with a little groundnut or rapeseed oil, but wait until you’re ready to put the meat in the pan before seasoning it. Otherwise the salt will draw out the juices, which can make the meat dry.
- Carefully place the steak in the hot pan. Avoid moving it around as this will allow it to develop a rich caramelised crust. It also seals the meat, helping to keep the juices inside.
- Gently prodding the meat with your finger will give you an idea of how ‘done’ it is. Steaks become firmer as they cook, so a rare steak will feel quite soft and spongy, a medium one will be soft and springy, and if it’s firmer, it’s more well done.
- Let your steak rest on a warm plate for 5 minutes before serving. This will allow the juices to settle and help keep it succulent.
- Large bone-in steaks, such as T-bones don’t always cook evenly in the pan, and can be undercooked around the bone. Try finishing them with an extra 10 minutes in a preheated oven (200˚C/fan 180˚C/gas mark 6).
Grilling & barbecuing
- If you prefer to grill your steak, use the timings above as a guide.For barbecuing, we suggest the following timings for a 2cm-thick steak:
Rare: 2-3 minutes each side
Medium: 4-5 minutes each side
Well done: 5-6 minutes each side
