Steak Grilled Over Fire

Ingredients for the steaks: 

2 boneless beef steaks 6 – 7 cm thick

salt + oregano mix

Ingredients for the dressing:

3 tbsp mayonnaise – 3 tbsp extra virgin oil – 1 lemon juice and lemon jest (In a glass jar add all ingredients together, cover tightly and shake)

Method:

• Remove the steak from the refrigerator.  Let it reach room temperature — around 1 hour.
• Cut outer edges of fat on steaks, diagonally at 4-5cm intervals with a knife.  Use a paper towel to absorb the moisture from the meat.  Dry meat forms the best crust.
•  Sprinkle the mix of salt and oregano over the steaks into each sides.  Massage well all over the meat.
•  Build  up the fire until you can have a deep coal bed large enough to cook your steaks on.  (About the size of your grill rack). 
• Set the steaks on the grill.  Let them sear on one side,  once it’s acquired the Maillard reaction* color golden brown.  After 7 min flip it,  let it do the same on the other side.  (For thinner steaks, about 3 – 4 minutes per side for medium rare it’s ok, but a 6 cm steak takes at least 7 minutes) 

• Remove the steak from the heat, cover it with aluminum foil, and let rest for at least 3-4 minutes. This tip will allow the juices (myoglobin)  to redistribute into the meat.

Serve with lettuce salad,  top with the dressing.

Recommended wine: Chianti Clasicco. Typical Tuscan Red Wine – DOCG – Controlled and Guaranteed Denomination of Origin. 

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Tips, tricks & info’s

• The blood red color liquid in the steak is not blood at all. It’s myoglobin, a protein that only found in muscle tissue and delivers oxygen to an animal’s muscles; contains a red pigment- which why muscle tissue is red.  As a steak is cooked, the myoglobin darkens- which is why the more “well done” the meat is, the grayer it looks. So rare* meat isn’t bloody, it is just cooked to a lower temperature

• *Rare. This refers to a steak that is been cooked for a very short period of time — leaving the centre  red in colour. It’s just a stage up from raw meat — but cooked on the outside. Steak doesn’t contain parasites that chicken and pork do — eating it rare doesn’t pose any health risks
• *The Maillard reaction is a chemical reaction between an amino acid and a reducing sugar, usually requiring the addition of heat. Like caramelization, it is a form of non-enzymatic browning.

55°Celsius (130°F) for rare

57°Celsius (135°F) medium-rare

63°Celsius (145°F) medium

65,5 Celsius (150°F) medium well

and 71° Celsius (160°F) for well done.