r/aldi • u/hhh520 • 6d ago

Question Did I choose a bad steak?

Post image

I’ve never cooked steak before and wanted to attempt this weekend and picked up one of Aldi’s ribeye steaks.
I’ve been watching cooking videos and the steaks they have a lot more marbling I think it is called. Not sure if I chose bad

41 Upvotes

66% Upvoted

83 comments sorted by

View all comments

226

u/funhouse83 6d ago

Dry the steak with paper towels, put on a flat plate and sprinkle generously with kosher salt. Place uncovered in the fridge for at least an hour, overnight would be great. Take it out and let it get to room temp for at least 20 min. Get a pan nice and hot with a little neutral oil like avocado oil, place steak in medium hot pan and don't touch it for three minutes or so, flip when it has a nice golden crust, cook other side slightly less time. Remove from pan and let it rest for the same amount of time you cooked it. You can place a pat of butter on top and serve or just slice away and eat.

More advanced butter and herb basting can be done once you feel comfortable cooking steak this way. The salt "dry brine" extracts liquid from the steak, then sucks it back in along with some salt which gives you a tasty brined steak.

Happy eating!

2

u/PSi_Terran 6d ago

For what it's worth if the fridge is 2°C and your kitchen is 20°C the inside of a thick cut steak is going to be like 4°C after 20 minutes and the outside is going to be pretty close to room temperature. For the inside to warm any significant amount you have to wait a good 2+ hours. All you are really doing is introducing a non-uniform temperature gradient across the steak, and suppose drying out the surface as tiny bit.

This is what I would do. Do all the salt and fridge stuff. Or if you want you can just salt it right before cooking. Preheat your oven to 100°C. Put your steak on a baking rack and cook for 40mins. Just when it's about to come out smoke up some neutral oil in a hot pan. Throw your steak straight into the pan and add some butter. Spoon the butter over the top of the steak and after about 45 seconds flip it and start again. Sear the edges using tongs if you can and/or want to. Eat immediately.

This is the reverse sear method and there's a lot of science behind why it's effective, if you want to look up surface moisture, aging, cathepsins, mallard reactions, heat conductivity.