Pat LaFrieda's Tip For Reverse Searing Steak Without Turning On The Oven - Exclusive
Reverse searing is a steak-cooking method that many home cooks (and even professional chefs) prefer because it allows you to more accurately control the steak's level of internal doneness. Often, reverse searing is done by first baking a steak in the oven, at a low temperature, until it's very near the desired internal temperature, and then searing the steak very quickly, on the stovetop. The result is a steak that's perfectly seared on the outside, but the exact right level of doneness on the inside.
However, Pat LaFrieda III — of the famed Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors, a New Jersey-based company that's been supplying restaurants and hotels with some of the best meat in the country for decades — doesn't think that this method of reverse searing is the best way to go. Instead, he told us, in an exclusive Chowhound interview, that you can skip the oven altogether.
He said, "You don't have to go from the stovetop into an oven to cook the steak to your wellness. You [can] use one cast iron pan, or I like the non-stick induction pans myself. If you do it all in that one pan, it saves you a lot of time. It saves you from having to heat up an oven. When I see most of my friends cook steaks that way, I ask them 'Why the two? Why have the oven on also?' It's just something they saw or learned from a cooking show, and they thought that was the right way."
Why you should reverse sear steak
Pat LaFrieda recently teamed up with Thermador to promote the brand's induction cooktops, and he told us that an induction cooktop is an excellent fit for reverse searing a steak — just in that one pan, just on the cooktop, no oven required. He explained, "You can get the temperature up really hot, really quickly. I like to reverse sear steaks, so I like to cook them on a lower heat for a little bit — but when you want to turn [the heat] up and sear [the steak], you won't overcook it using induction, because you can turn the heat up so dramatically fast that you go from a resting state to a searing state in seconds."
However, he noted that even if you don't have an induction cooktop, or even if you want to use the oven reverse searing method, reverse searing overall is the way to go when cooking a steak. It preserves the crispy texture of the sear, which can otherwise be lost if you sear the steak first, before bringing it to the desired level of doneness.
Learn more about Thermador's induction cooktops at the company's website. You can have premium cuts of meat shipped to your house directly from Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors.