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1. Buy the best meat your budget allows. The butcher usually has better meat than the grocery store. Your choices (as dictated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture) are prime (what you’re shelling out $30 for at a high-end restaurant), choice (Chef Dunn’s choice), and select. Grass-fed or organic is a personal preference. (Caveat: If it’s cheap, it’s probably too good to be true.)
   
2. Pick your cut. For the two of you, try a 32-ounce, two-inch thick, bone-in rib eye. For individual steaks, go for 11- to 14-ounce rib eyes, T-bones, or porterhouses (the last two include the ever-so-luscious filet mignon) cut 3/4 to 1 1/2 inches thick.
   
3. Thirty minutes before cooking time, take your meat out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature.
   
4. Put your pan of choice in a 450-degree oven for 8 to 10 minutes to heat up. (A square, cast-iron grill pan with ridges, like the ones found at lodgemfg.com, will give your meat fresh-off-the-grill-looking sear marks.)
   
5. Put the empty pan on a burner with the heat turned up high (no need for oil or cooking spray).
   
6. Season your steak while your pan heats up. Rub it with pomace oil (olive oil with a high smoke point, webrestaurantstore.com, $15 per gallon) and sprinkle both sides with kosher salt and chunky, ground black pepper.
   
7. Put your steak in the pan (it'll crackle if hot enough) and let cook 3 to 4 minutes for medium-rare (rare, let cook for 2 minutes).
   
8. Flip it with tongs -- not a fork -- so you don’t puncture the steak and lose those juices that you’re trying to seal in. Let it go 3 to 5 minutes more, depending how well-done you like it. The thicker (not wider) the steak, the longer it'll take to cook.
   
9. Let it set 4 to 8 minutes on a cutting board with a lip so it continues to cook while the meat really absorbs the juices.
   
10. If you’re serving the steak sliced, you can sprinkle it with sea salt just before you serve.

To Tell if It’s Done

• Chef’s Trick Use a toothpick or a thin metal skewer and to spike the center of the meat, then touch the pick to your lips. If it comes out cold, it’s definitely rare. If the pick is warm, the meat is medium. If it comes out as hot as the exterior of the meat, it’s between medium-well and well-done.
  
• Hand Trick Hold your hand in front of you and make an “okayâ€� sign with your forefinger and the tip of your thumb. Touch the base of your thumb with your other hand. The muscle of your hand should feel soft -- similar to rare meat. Go to the middle finger to feel medium-rare. Then, the next finger for medium, and the next for well-done.
  
• Not Really a Trick Use a meat thermometer. 140 degrees is considered rare; 160 is medium; and 170 is well-done. In order to get an accurate temperature reading, you must actually stick the thermometer into the meat.

by Maria Ricapito
6/26/08

See more: cooking q&a, Dinner