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Tomorrow we ve got Jack Bishop and Bridget Lancaster of America s Test Kitchen here to give you cooking tips on turkey, stuffing, potatoes, pies (and more) for Thanksgiving !

How To Make The Perfect Steak

I rarely cook steaks these days. Don’t get me wrong: there’s nothing quite like a juicy, dry aged, 100% grass fed slab of meaty perfection. But let’s face it: prime cuts like steak are pricey. So when I throw down a stack of bills in exchange for the best meat I can afford, there’s no way I’m going to take my chances with an unreliable recipe. My mama didn’t raise no sucker.

Longtime readers know that back in the day, I was all about cooking steaks (and, well…just about everything else) sous vide. And sure—cooking with a temperature-controlled water bath guarantees a properly-cooked steak every time. But as many of you have pointed out, not everyone has an immersion circulator or stand-alone sous vide cooker sitting on their kitchen counter. (Really: I’ve gotten the message. That’s why the last sous vide recipe I posted was back in 2011. believe it or not.)

So: how do you perfectly cook a steak with basic kitchen tools? The answer is in the fabulous new cookbook by the obsessive food nerds at America’s Test Kitchen: The Cook’s Illustrated Meat Book !

Here’s the thing: it’s not about fancy pan sauces or marinades, folks. Instead, you want to highlight the inherent primal beefiness of the steak by cooking it to the proper temperature—end to end—and sealing the deal with a uniform sear on the outside.

The key steps are to simple: season the meat with salt and pepper, roast it in a low oven until it reaches the correct temperature, and sear the steaks in a screaming-hot skillet. By following this technique, even novice cooks can whip up fool-proof restaurant-quality seared steaks at home.

Ready to make the perfect steak?