A Pizza Oven Is The Unexpected Way To Get Perfectly Flamed Steak
If ever two things were divinely ordained to be together, it would be steak and fire. No carnivore can resist the sizzle, the sear, and the absolute magic that is a flamed steak. And that requires the heat that only a raging flame can provide. While many may be content with standard grills to get this job done, there is nothing more unexpectedly perfect for a flamed steak than the gaping, hellish maw of a pizza oven.
A proper, brick-and-mortar pizza oven has to be on every gastronome's wish list. They are a time-honored cooking tool, one that serves purposes far beyond simply making pizza. These ovens work so well because they are brilliant conductors of heat. Made with refractory materials that can withstand outrageous temperatures, pizza ovens are able to retain heat inside of a highly insulated dome. Thanks to this shape, the heat from the fire is able to continually circulate, bringing the pizza oven up to far higher temperatures than what you can get in a standard indoor oven.
Your home oven can reach only temperatures of around 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Thanks to that special construction, pizza ovens can get up to 700 or even 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit without much problem. So if you've ever wondered why that brick oven can cook a pizza in roughly 90 seconds, that's why. And the same principles apply to cooking steak.
Why so good for steak?
The intense heat you get in a pizza oven is perfect for cooking flamed steaks. You can get a great exterior crust on your steak very quickly, meaning you won't have to worry about overcooking the steak for the sake of a good crust. There are a couple of different ways to go about cooking a steak in a pizza oven, and one of the best has to be with the use of a cast iron skillet.
If you're using an old-school, wood-fired oven, you are going to have to deal with a fair amount of ash on the cooking surface. Therefore, you'll want some type of barrier between the two. Using cast iron allows for a lot more control in terms of both flavor and heat conduction. Cast iron is one of the only types of cookware that withstand, and match, the internal temperatures of a pizza oven.
For most steaks cut to the standard 1.5-inch thickness, you'll preheat the skillet in order to have a screaming hot surface on which to flash cook the steaks. If you've got thicker monsters, however, then you can begin with a cold pan as those will take longer to cook than the thinner ones. You'll still end up with that desired crust. All told, the pizza oven is a versatile tool and a worthwhile investment if you plan on using it often.