A delicious steak is a perfect way to enjoy weekends, celebrate special occasions like birthdays, weddings, and festivals. Source your steak from a specialist beef butcher.

The rich and gamey texture of this precious red meat recipe has all the proteins and fats needed and all the flavors that are required to delight an adventurous palate and fulfill a strong appetite.

GTAMeats.ca/’sStrip loin steak is one among various kinds of steak that comes with its unique umami flavor and texture along with its necessary tenderness and juiciness.

The New York Strip is the prime of all strip loin steaks. This meat has fat running down its border with marbling in some parts of its core consisting of fat pockets. This strip looks just like the map of Manhattan and is sometimes also referred to as the Manhattan or the Kansas City Strip.

With a perfect balance of fats and proteins, strips have fine-grain texture and quite a symphony of flavor and tenderness. It has mild juiciness in its flavor and a lot of tenderness. If cooked the right way, it will just melt in your mouth.

There are many procedures by which a perfect strip loin steak can be cooked. The most traditional method is grilling it till it is golden brown and finishing it off in a hot oven.

A Strip Loin Grill

Grilling a strip loin steak is the most authentic and traditional method of cooking this cut of beef. Before proceeding towards the actual instructions essential ingredients need to be mentioned.

Ingredients

• New York Strip Loin

• Olive Oil

• Rock Salt

• Black Pepper

• Rosemary

• Thyme

• Garlic

• Butter

Process

The strip loin needs to be properly seasoned with rock salt and black pepper on all possible sides. Olive oil can be used to make the seasoning stick to the meat properly. After seasoning, it should be covered and left to rest for 30 minutes. In this time, all the seasonings will properly imbibe and infuse into the meat and it will become ready for the hot pan.

Prepare a hot grilling pan on high heat. When it is smoking hot, lay the steak over the grilling pan. There should be an instant sound of sizzle when the meat touches the grill.

Grilling the meat would depend on a few factors like the thickness of the meat and how much tenderness is preferred by a certain consumer. There are many levels of doneness and the duration and internal temperature on the pan to determine their tenderness. These levels are blue-rare, rare, medium-rare, medium, medium-well, and well done.

Blue-Rare

This is the first level of doneness for cooking a strip steak. It has a purple and blue hue with a basic sear on the exterior and a completely raw interior. Cooking this requires a very high heat on the grill with a very brief duration of searing time. The internal temperature should be 115 F (46.1 C).

Rare

A red center and pinkish-red hue is the trademark of a rare steak. The borders can be slightly charred and the internal temperature needs to be maintained between 120 F (48.8 C) to 130 F (54.4 C).

A 5 minute sear on the first side and a 3 minute sear on the other will give the strip rare doneness.

Medium Rare

This is the best choice for cooking a strip loin steak. The internal temperature of 130 F (54.4 C) to 135 F (57.2 C) gives a golden brown exterior and pinkish soft interior. At this temperature range, the marbled fat pockets meltdown and enriches the flavor of a strip steak. The tenderness for this steak seems to strike the sweet spot between too soft and too hard.

Medium rare can be achieved with 5 minutes of sear on one side and 4 minutes on the other. The golden brown color is a very good indicator of a supreme quality steak and medium rare is ideal for New York Strips.

Medium

With a brown hue on the outside, medium steaks are less juicy and tender to a medium-rare strip but it is quite a preferable doneness to many people.

This level requires an internal temperature range of 135 F (57.2 C) to 155 F (68.3 C) and the duration for searing the first and second side is 6 minutes and 4 minutes respectively.

Medium-Well

An internal temperature ranging from 155 F (68.3 C) to 164 F (73.3 C) gives a medium-well steak with little to no pinkish hue in the core and a very brownish exterior. This kind of doneness makes a strip less flavorful and tender.

A 7 minute sear on the first side and a 5 minute on the other is ideal for a medium-well steak.

Well Done

This is the other end of the doneness spectrum and here the meat has toughened up. There is no pinkness in the middle and the internal temperature is 170 F (76.6 C).

This kind of doneness requires 12 minutes on one side while 10 minutes on the other. Due to its long duration of grilling, the heat needs to be kept low and the grilling should be slow and steady.

Sometimes, grilling for 8 minutes on each side and finishing it off in a preheated oven of 400 F (204.4 C) for 10 minutes will also give similar results.

Mushrooms are generally preferred with such kind of doneness.

During the grilling process, a few knobs of butter need to be added into the pan along with garlic. Few herbs like rosemary and thyme are ideal for cooking a strip loin steak.

Other ingredients can also be used for different flavors like dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar, and barbeque sauce. The dish can be served with sauteed vegetables, mashed potatoes, and even french fries.

Key Advice

• A strip loin steak should be freshly bought from a supermarket or a butcher shop and a thickness of 2 inches is ideal for a delicious output.

• Although there are many levels of doneness from the rawest blue rare to the toughest well done, medium rare is the gold standard for cooking a strip.

• This level has the right amount of internal heat for the perfect balance of flavor, richness, texture, and tenderness.

• A good steak should be prepared with a great choice of sides. Mashed potatoes and cheese fries are incredible options.