Finish Your Steak Like This Every Time For A Flavorful Crust And Buttery Bite

Many will know the pain of a steak gone wrong, be it overdone and chewy, or grey and pallid. If this sounds familiar, you shouldn't feel too down — achieving a steak's full potential is a deceptively complicated endeavor that involves far more that uniting meat with heat. While there are many ways to up your steak game, from garnishes to marinades, one of the simplest is also one of the best. For a flavorful crust and a deliciously indulgent taste, finish off your steak with rich, real butter.

This may not sound like a revelation, but it's one of those seemingly simple tasks that can easily go wrong. While alternatives such as grilling and sous vide have their devotees, finishing off your steak in a butter-soaked pan is the only one that will elicit this delectable combination of taste and texture. Sous vide, though it may produce enviably tender meat through slow cooking in a heated water bath, will not produce the transformative Maillard reaction that gives it a darkened exterior while keeping the insides pink and juicy. Grilling, on the other hand, does not allow the cook to baste the steak in butter as it finishes cooking, with inimitably delicious results.

For the best, buttery steak, begin cooking your meat in oil with a high smoke point, as the milk proteins in butter will burn under the temperatures searing a steak demands. Once you have achieved your desired crust, add butter a few minutes before it is done. Before long, you'll have that desired flavor imparted onto your meal.

A simple, high-quality butter introduced at the right moment of cooking will elevate a steak, but once you've taken that first step, there is no better excuse to discover the wonderful world of compound butters. For those who are unfamiliar, compound butter is simply butter combined with other flavorings or ingredients that really come into their own when melted or introduced to the cooking process. If they seem fancy, don't be fooled — compound butter can easily be made with only a food processor and your preferred aromatics and additions.

When pondering what kind of compound butter would pair best with your steak, think about what would complement the taste of the specific cut best. If cooking filet mignon, for example, you may not want to overwhelm this high-end beef with too many strong flavors. On the other hand, for a ribeye or sirloin, compound butter gives you the perfect opportunity to drench your steak in garlicky goodness or introduce some prized umami in the form of anchovy butter.

If you have the ambition for something more complex, you may even discover something you hadn't previously considered. You may not have thought you could cram all the flavors of Caesar salad dressing into a compound butter... But now that you know, how can you resist?