I take the point, but I think the author picked a poor analogy. Cooking even an excellent steak is actually not that hard. In fact, I'd argue that it's among the easiest things to master/make at a top level quality at home. Does it require some modicum of attention and understanding? Sure. But starting with a high quality cut, owning a meat-thermometer, and knowing about reverse searing is about all it takes to reliably and easily get a near perfect steak every time.
There are far, far better cooking examples out there.
Agreed. I'm an avid cook. Sous vide circulators are cheap now, and so are meat thermometers. Doing a steak well is one of the easiest cooking tasks, to the extent that I won't bother paying top dollar in a restaurant because it's so easy to do restaurant quality at home. I could teach someone to cook a restaurant quality steak in a couple hours and a few practice runs.
I've made steak probably 100 times in the past decade (sometimes with a sous vide) and I don't think I've ever made one I would say is great. Certainly not as good as what I can get at a good restaurant.
I think what my home steaks are really missing is the crust from salamander broiler. I don't have anything at home that can exceed 1000 F / 550 C.
Salamander broiler would be incredible to have at home. We get decent results from using a cast iron pan thats as hot as we can get it. At most we can sear 2 steaks as it tends to cool off pretty quick even under high heat. Got any better alternatives that a home cook could use?
As noted in an earlier comment of mine, I have one (actually made for burning weeds) connected to my gas grill tank, and a fancy Japanese one inside. They're honestly pretty rinky-dink. What they are good at is transferring heat just to the crust. But they only do a small patch at a time, and you have to hover for far longer than you'd think. Like, you do a little patch, leave the torch there for 30 seconds, move on. They just don't pump enough energy into the crust fast enough for them to be a general solution. I use them for touching things up, or crisping up a bit.
MostlyStable · · focus · HN ↗
There are far, far better cooking examples out there.
wheels · · focus · HN ↗
criddell · · focus · HN ↗
I think what my home steaks are really missing is the crust from salamander broiler. I don't have anything at home that can exceed 1000 F / 550 C.
garbageman · · focus · HN ↗
criddell · · focus · HN ↗
wheels · · focus · HN ↗
kasey_junk · · focus · HN ↗