When I started cooking steaks on the BBQ, I always had a problem getting the degree of cooking that I liked - medium, or sometimes medium rare. I mostly ended up with well done steaks or very rare steaks.
I read a few articles about getting the timing right, like 1 minute on one side then another minute on the other. This never worked for me and I never understood how it could since you could have different thicknesses of meat and you could have different temperatures depending on the fuel and capacity of your BBQ.
Getting temperatures right also wasn't easy since it's hard to stick a meat thermometer into a steak rather than a chunk of meat.
In the end, I found I had better luck with checking for visual signs during cooking.
- Heat the hotplate as hot as you can get it. Have the hood done if you have a hooded BBQ. I used the hotplate rather than a grill since cooking can be better controlled on one side of the steak. The grill sometimes cooks by wrapping the heat over the sides and on the top edges of the steak.
- Use canola oil or vegetable oil, as they have higher burning temperature than olive oil, and paint the hotplate with this using a silicone based pastry brush. Smoke should be spiraling off the hotplate by now.
- Paint oil on both sides of the steak and place on the hotplate to sear.
- This should be a light searing to seal the fibers of the steak so it won't dry out. Don't cook it on this first side for too long (I'll mention why later).
- Now turn the steak over and cook on the other side.
- This side of the steak is where most of the cooking is done. To gauge the degree of cooking, look for pooling of red/pink juices on the top of the steak. Heat pushes these juices to the top and this tells you how cooked the inside of the steak is. In the step above, if you seal the steak for too long, it will be harder to see this pooling of juices and it will most likely come out through the sides of the steak.
- For medium rare, I look for the first signs of pooling, then turn the steak again to sear the top side and then immediately remove it from the hotplate. For medium, I look for pooling in many different areas on the top of the steak, then turn the steak again to sear the top side and then immediately remove it from the hotplate.
- I then rest the steak on a metal baking tray lined with foil and then cover the steak with foil, but not completely covered. If you completely cover the steak, it braises the steak which can make it rubbery and the edges won't be crisp.
- Take it to the table and it's ready to eat.
