Steak with Gorgonzola Sauce

Celebrate this weekend with a seared steak with gorgonzola sauce. Whether you cook over charcoal on an outdoor barbecue or indoors with a piping hot grill pan, a beautiful steak makes the dinner.

Steak Options

Which cut of steak is best is a personal (and often financial) choice. When buying meat at the grocery store, the options are narrowed down to the most basic steak cuts. 

Rib Eye Steak

This cut is from the rib section of the cow. It is the same meat as what is commonly known as prime rib. The difference is that the roast has been sliced into steaks instead of being left whole. A rib steak in the same cut with the bone attached where a rib-eye steak is usually boneless. It has a wonderful beefy flavor, a good amount of internal fat, and is inherently tender.

Strip Steak

Also called New York steak or Kansas City steak. This cut comes from the loin area of the cow. This part of the animal doesn’t do a lot of work which makes it very tender. It also has a great flavor and good marbling. This steak is one part of a T-Bone or Porterhouse steak. The other side of the bone is the very tender filet cut.

Sirloin Steak

This cut is the most economical of the popular steaks. The meat comes from the top part of the sirloin area. This is the next area back on the cow which is near the back end. This makes the meat a little tougher than a rib eye or strip steak, but still a good choice. A top sirloin steak is boneless which makes this cut a good option when buying for a crowd.

Tips to Choosing a Great Steak

• Choose marbling! Marbling is the thin white streaks of fat in the red meat. This (intramuscular fat) is pure flavor. It comes from the diet and a small degree on the breed of the cow. Choosing a steak with lots of marbling is the number one tip. If you want to learn more about marbling and how the different grades of beef, check out this great steak guide.
• Choose a thick cut of steak. Since steaks are all about the sear marks and beautiful color, you need a certain thickness to get good marks and be able to cook it to your preferred level of doneness.  I try for at least a 1” thick. 1-1/2” or more is even better!
• Choose the right size. While steakhouses give everyone their own steak, you can cook a large steak or several steaks and serve the meat sliced on a platter. This lets you balance the serving size rather than the meat determining this.

Now that you have your steak, it is time to get cooking. No matter if you are grilling outdoors, cooking on a grill pan or even in a cast-iron skillet, there are some rules to follow to produce a fabulous steak.

Rules for Cooking a Steak

1. Preheat, preheat, preheat. Unless you are smoking or cooking your steak sous vide, which is a totally different technique, you are looking to sear the meat as soon as it hits the grill. This means high heat. I can’t give you how much time since there are many variables such as weather, wind, cooking device, etc. Just make sure the pan or grill is very hot before you even think about moving the meat onto it.
2. Bring your meat to temp. You want the meat to start cooking a second it hits the heat. Meat that has had a chance to rest out of the fridge for 15-30 minutes starts cooking immediately, instead of having the juices leach to the surface of a cold piece of meat and steam for the first minutes of cooking.
3. Trim the meat to remove straggling bits. Any thin or loose bits of the steak should be cut off before you start cooking since they won’t cook at the same rate as the rest of the steak.
4. Season both sides of the meat before you cook. This is your chance to add a bit of flair to the steak. Salt and pepper are classic for a reason since the seasoning enhances the beefy flavor.
5. Don’t overcrowd the grill. Make sure there is plenty of room for the meat to cook  It is better to cook in batches or even sear to get the marks and then finish cooking multiple steaks in the oven.
6. Remember to rest. Let the steaks rest for about 10 minutes after removing from heat. This lets the juices redistribute into the meat rather than drenching the cutting board. 
7. Underdone is better than overcooked. You can fix the first condition, but overcooked steak is a waste.  
8. Plan on 8-12 ounces of beef per person. Remember steaks will lose up to 25% of weight during the cooking process. 

Enjoy your steak with gorgonzola sauce. The blue cheese is a wonderful counterpoint to the beefy flavor of the steak. Cream and rich cheese make this a luscious sauce that pairs wonderfully. Serve the meat with sauteed mushrooms. Or cook up this recipe for scalloped potatoes.

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