Bring the Steakhouse Home and Entertain Your Friends with a Steak Tasting

Looking for a fun way to entertain and engage dinner guests with a great grilled meal?   Fire up your grill, grab a handful of steaks, and slice up the results for your guests to pick their perfect plate.

Think of a steak tasting like a sushi bar.  One ribeye, one NY Strip and one Porterhouse please, or maybe a couple filet mignon too.   Each steak will receive a glorious sear and pampered to the proper doneness you’d expect from the steak house.  Bonus points for cool steak knives or cutting boards.

Ingredients

Your choice of steak:

• Ribeye
• NY Strip
• Filet Mignon
• Flank (underappreciated and great sliced for guests)
• Porterhouse
• Denver
• Tri-tip

*You can get all of these cuts and more at Hassell Cattle Company shipped directly to you.

Preparation

Some steaks deserve more attention in the seasoning department than others.   We suggest not bringing too wide a variety of seasonings to the table:

• White Lightning from Boar’s Night Out is a base that many of the steak cook-off winners use supplemented with a light top layer.
• Johnny Joseph Steak Rub is more often than not the top layer. He’s the winning-est man in steak cook-offs and his steak rub is a winner too!
• A Montreal seasoning is hearty and great for crust formation and added flavor for filet mignon and flank. Leaner cuts generally can be seasoned up a bit more.
• A short stint at room temps is fine to allow the seasonings to begin melting and crusting.

Grilling

Hot and fast is the general rule with steaks unless you are dealing with thicker cuts over 1 ½”.  Reverse searing thicker cuts such as the filets or thick strips is a good way to get the grills started a bit earlier.  Slow roast seasoned steaks at 225-250°F like you would ribs or pork shoulder.  Just before reaching your target temps (110-115°F to allow for carryover)  pull the steaks and lightly tent with foil.  If you have two grills- have the other hot and ready to sear the steaks, otherwise ramp up your grill to full hot and get your GrillGrates ready for precision searing and flavor creation!

Grill set-ups

Rails up for steakhouse searing.   Place steaks on a slight diagonal to the GrillGrates.   The “Lift and Twist” is next.  About 1 ½ minutes use the GrateTool to slide under the steak, lift it up, turn about 90 degrees and place it back down.   It’s OK to peek with the GrateTool to see how your marks are- dark or not.  About 1 -1/2 minutes use the GrateTool to flip the steak over and you wow the crowd with the gorgeous sear marks and browning.   One final lift and twist and it’s time to monitor the steaks with your instant read thermometer.

Flat-side up for that crusty all over sear.   The flat side of GrillGrates act like a high heat skillet that delivers a hard sear to the outside of the meat very quickly.  This method is ideal for reverse searing and sous vide since the meat is already close to finish temps- a hard and fast sear is the Ruth Chris kiss.  Ideal for filets, NY strip, sirloin and less fatty cuts.

Pro-Tip:  Grill on the rails and finish the sear (even just 30 seconds a side) on the flat side.  Precision searing dials in that perfect crust on your steaks, and burgers too.

You’ll need a few cutting boards to allow you to slice each steak and keep it intact and separate.

Your guests get to choose their perfect doneness.

Another bonus is you tend to eat less when presented sliced steak versus a plated steak.

Grilled steaks lends itself to wine pairings and great sides like  Blue Cheese Onion,  Hasselback potatoes,  or Steak Fries.

GrillGrate. Eat Well.

-Brad