Pan-Seared Beef Steak with Lemon and Garlic Recipe

Step-by-step recipe

1. Choosing meat for a steak is a tricky business. To paraphrase Captain Vrungel, as you choose your meat, so shall your steak be.
2. For obvious reasons, where we live it's hard to know how the steers were fed before they were turned into cuts of meat. And of course our stores don't sell Certified Angus Beef. I won't even mention marbled beef. Choose thick pieces of meat (up to 50 mm), what we usually call “bitki”. No bones, gristle, membranes or connective tissue, and no strip of fat along the edge (or just a little).
   

   Meat for steak

3. Professional kitchens clearly distinguish the cuts for steaks depending on which part of the carcass they come from. Rib steak is from the rib section, club steak from the short loin, T-bone from the start of the loin, porterhouse from the thick end, and so on.
4. The “decent” steak meat we usually find is most like club steak, that is, cut from the back, and sometimes a rib steak turns up. Lately at the local supermarket either the butcher has seen the light or they've learned: the meat is cut quite decently, and the beef steak comes out excellent.
5. As I said, the meat shouldn't be freshly slaughtered. You can buy it at the market, but then you'll have to keep it in the fridge for quite a while to let it age. Steaks aren't made from thawed meat either. Ideally, buy chilled meat. By the way, most supermarket meat is exactly that.
6. The meat doesn't need pounding or larding. In fact, you don't need to do anything complicated with it. Just rinse it and pat it very dry with a paper towel.
   

   Pepper the beef steak

7. Pepper the beef steak. Let the meat rest for 30 minutes.
8. Peel a garlic clove and crush it thoroughly to a paste. Squeeze the juice from half a lemon. Mix the garlic and lemon juice in a small bowl.
   

   Mix the garlic and lemon

9. After 30 minutes, brush the steak with the lemon juice and garlic mixture. Leave the steak for another 30 minutes. Let it rest.
   

   Brush the beef steak with the lemon and garlic mixture

10. Meanwhile, put a skillet on the heat. Pour in 1 tbsp of olive (!) oil. The skillet must be very hot.
11. All that's left is the hardest part: frying the meat. American steak has six degrees of doneness.
12. Blue (very rare): warmed through, almost raw.
    Rare: undercooked and bloody inside, seared outside.
    Medium rare: pink juices, no blood.
    Medium: light pink juices
    Medium well: clear juices
    Well done: meat cooked all the way through, no juices.
13. You choose the doneness you like. My favorite is medium rare: pink juices, no blood. As my American friend says, anything cooked past “pink juices” is like a rubber boot.
14. The half hour of marinating in lemon and garlic is up, and the skillet is hot. Wipe the rest of the lemon and garlic marinade off the steak and salt it. Put the meat in the very hot skillet and press it down lightly with a spatula.
    

    Sear the steak for 3 minutes per side

15. Then, without getting distracted and keeping an eye on the clock, fry the meat! A steak is usually cooked for 2-3 minutes per side, 3-5 minutes at most. Cook it longer and you end up with that same inedible rubber boot.
16. If for some reason you want it more done, don't cover the skillet with a lid, as we tend to do to let it braise a bit. Just turn down the heat after searing the steak, or move the meat to a cooler part of the pan.
    

    Cook until done

17. It's crucial not to overcook it. If you're not quite sure of your skills, or you're still learning, just make a careful cut in the side of the steak. Through the cut you can check the doneness. But it cuts both ways: the precious meat juices so highly prized in a steak will run out through the cut. Or you can use a meat thermometer that you stick into the meat to check the temperature inside.
18. One more important point. A beef steak keeps cooking even after it's off the heat and on the plate. The seared outside (the crust) is much hotter than the meat in the middle of the steak. I remember that in a restaurant in South Lake Tahoe, up in the mountains, where we had dinner, the waiter cut my beef steak in half right in front of me as soon as he brought it. That stops the heat of the crust from cooking the inside.
19. I'm not sure a steak needs a side. At most some herbs and a tomato, and that's more for looks. And, since we're used to shashlik, a little hot sauce. But a glass of wine with the meat isn't just welcome, it's practically a must!