Why we "rest" steaks at Za Restaurant
This information is courtesy of
SeriousEats.com.
Several big, nation-wide, corporate steak houses are promoting sizzling
steaks - sounds good but is it? This has lead to customers of Za
Restaurant wondering why our steaks are not served sizzling hot. Well,
we have a good reason: TASTE and SUCCULENCE (that moist tenderness so
prized in our mouths).
Aside from over/under-cooking/seasoning, not resting meat properly is a
major, major cooking blunder chain steak houses are now selling to you.
They've taken "sell the sizzle" literally! The result: you get a dry
and less flavorful steak.
Here's why:
This is a picture of a steak that was cooked in a skillet to medium rare
(an internal temperature of 125°F or 51.7°C). The steak was then
immediately placed on a cutting board and sliced in half, whereupon a
deluge of juices started flooding out and onto the board.
The result? Steak that is less than optimally juicy and flavorful. This
tragedy can be easily avoided by allowing your steak to rest before
slicing.
Here's what's going on:
After No Resting: The meat around the exterior of the steak (the parts
that were closest to the pan) are well over 200°F (93.3°C). At this
temperature range, they are pinched tightly shut, preventing them from
holding on to any moisture. The center of the steak is at 125°F. While
it can hold on to some of its juices at this temperature, cutting the
meat fibers open is like slitting the side of a soda bottle: some juice
might stay in there (mostly through surface tension), but liquid is
going to spill.
After 5 Minutes of Resting: The outermost layers of meat are down to
around 145°F (62.8°C) and the center of the steak is still at 125°F. At
this stage, the muscle fibers have relaxed a bit, stretching open a
little wider. This stretching motion creates a pressure differential
between the center of the muscle fiber and the ends, pulling some of the
liquid out from the middle towards the edges. As a result, there is
less liquid in the center of the steak. Cut it open now, and some of the
liquid will still spill out, but far less than before.
After 10 Minutes of Resting: The edges of the steak have cooled all the
way down to around 125°F, allowing them to suck up even more liquid from
the center of the steak. What's more, the center of the steak has by
this time cooled down to around 120°F, causing it to widen slightly. Cut
the meat open at this stage, and the liquid will be so evenly and
thinly distributed throughout the steak that surface tension is enough
to keep it from spilling out on the plate.
The difference is dramatic. Just take a look at these two steaks:
In the steak on the left, all those delicious succulent juices are all
over the plate. In the steak on the right, everything stays inside,
right where it belongs.
But wait a minute—how do we know that those juices really are staying
inside the rested steaks? Is it not possible that in the ten minutes
that I've allowed it to rest that the liquid hasn't simply evaporated,
leaving me with a steak that is equally un-moist?
To prove this is not the case, all you need to do is weigh the steaks
before and after cooking. Aside from a minimal amount of weight loss due
to rendered fat, the vast majority of weight loss comes from juices
that are forced out of the meat.
