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Mark Bittman’s Secrets: How to Make the Perfect Steak

Here are two foolproof options for grilling

Mark Bittman
Heated
6 min readJun 14, 2019

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Photos: Christina Holmes

Sunday is Father’s Day, and while I hate to be a cliché — especially when it comes to fueling the gendered expectation that dads are or should be grillers and carnivores — the occasion seems as good as any to talk about the perfect steak.

My idea of what constitutes a perfect steak hasn’t changed much over the years: really crusty, really juicy — and I don’t think that puts me in the minority. The technique for making that happen is also pretty enduring: a thick steak, a hot fire, a watchful eye, and the patience to let the meat rest.

To achieve perfection, I’d recommend one of two routes: The first is about as simple as it gets. The other is a bit more adventurous, but so damn fun — and entails cooking the steaks directly on blazing hot hardwood charcoal embers. But before we get to the recipes, here’s a bit more on grilling steaks.

The cut, how much you like it done, and the best way to cook it are all related. The supermarket meat counter — I mean a good one with an in­-store butcher — offers many different steaks. Understanding where they come from on the cow goes a long way toward choosing the right one for different occasions. Those cut from…

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Mark Bittman
Mark Bittman

Written by Mark Bittman

Has published 30 books, including How to Cook Everything and VB6: The Case for Part-Time Veganism. Newsletter at markbittman.com.

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