Cooking a Steak

Steaks are sautéed (panfried), broiled, grilled, and occasionally fried (as for chicken-fried steak). I avoid broiling because my broiler doesn’t get hot enough to brown the steak before overcooking it. This is less of a problem if you are broiling very thick steaks, which take longer to cook but no longer to brown, or if you like your steak cooked more than rare. Broiling also causes any juices released to drip down through the broiling pan so that they are lost or at least difficult to recover. Grilling, too, causes the juices to be lost—they drip down into the coals—but at least grilling contributes a lovely flavor of its own. In France, steaks are either grilled or sautéed—the broiler is used for quick browning and glazing, but I’ve never seen it used for cooking meats—and are then usually served with a simple dollop of flavored butter (for grilled steaks) or a sauce made by deglazing the pan (for sautéed steaks) or a sauce such as béarnaise, prepared in advance (for sautéed or grilled steaks).