Guy Fieri's Steak-Searing Tip Will Get You A Perfect Crust Every Time
Even if you buy the most expensive steakhouse-quality steak, it won't taste the same if you don't cook it properly. The cut of meat and the seasoning is just as important as your grilling technique or the temperature of your stove. Plenty of celebrity chefs have shared their foolproof methods, for example, Wolfgang Puck swears by searing steak on high and finishing it low and slow in the oven, and Curtis Stone cooks his at 60 to 90 second intervals with five-minute resting periods in between.
Guy Fieri, on the other hand, has another way about it. The TV personality and restaurateur shared with PEOPLE that does something called reverse searing. Similar to Puck's method, he uses both the oven and the stove, but instead of starting with the stove and finishing in the oven, he does it the other way around. Fieri sets the oven to a low temperature and slow roasts it until it's at his desired doneness. He then transfers it to a hot cast iron skillet and sears it. "It gives you better internal temperature control and produces an awesome brown crust," he told PEOPLE.
Why does Guy Fieri's steak-searing tip work?
Given that Guy Fieri cooks his steak in the oven and then blasts it with heat in a cast iron skillet, you might assume that it's an easy way to end up with overcooked steak. However, the truth is that the method actually allows for more control. The reason for this, as cookbook author J. Kenji López-Alt explained in a Serious Eats post, has to do with a food science principle called the Maillard reaction.
The Maillard reaction occurs when direct heat transforms the protein and sugar on the surface of foods to create a brown crust, which essentially translates to flavor. Less surface moisture and less time spent in the pan produces the best Maillard reaction sear. With Fieri's method, the steak gets cooked in the oven with indirect heat beforehand, and that means it will need to spend less time on the stove and won't have as much surface moisture. As a result, the steak gets the best possible crust and the steak will be cooked evenly.