Vol. XV · Dry Heat Plate 2 of 11searing, crust, grey band, steak, flipping, carryover, pull temperature, dry surface, restingHT

Searing.

Cut a seared steak in half: a brown crust, then a grey band, then pink. The cook's aim is to make that grey band thin.

Searing has two goals that pull against each other: a deep, even crust, which needs a surface well above 140 °C (VIII.1), and a centre at the doneness wanted, perhaps 54 °C for medium-rare (VI.5). Between them lies a band where the meat passed 60–65 °C and turned grey and drier. The hotter and longer the outside cooks while the heat travels inward, the thicker that band.

The cook trades one against the other with the pan's heat. A hotter pan browns faster but drives more heat into the outer layers; a cooler pan leaves a thinner band but may not brown at all. A dry surface browns at once instead of steaming first (VIII.2), so it allows a shorter, hotter sear. Turning the steak every minute or so browns both faces evenly. And because the hot outer layers keep pushing heat inward after the pan (II.9), the steak is pulled before the centre reaches the target. The workshop sears a steak and measures the band and the crust.

Below: a 30 mm steak seared in a pan at the temperature you choose, turned every minute, to the pull temperature you choose, then rested 6 minutes (thermal bench): the cross-section of highest temperatures reached, the grey band (above 62 °C) and the browning.

What you will learn
Workshop
Thermal bench: beef, 30 mm, from 5 °C, in a pan at the temperature chosen, turned every minute until the centre reaches the pull temperature, then rested 6 minutes in room air. Grey band: the depth of meat whose highest temperature passed 62 °C. Carryover in this model is larger than many cooks expect; measure your own.

Brown outside, pink to the edge

In a 200 °C pan, pulled at 42 °C, a 30 mm steak spends about 9.3 minutes in the pan in this model and rises to 60 °C at the centre as it rests. A 170 °C pan leaves a grey band of 14 mm in total but browns to only 0.10; a 240 °C pan browns fully (1.00) with a band of 16 mm. The rise after the pan is large in this model, because the outer layers are far hotter than the centre when the steak comes off: pull it well before the target and check with a thermometer as it rests.

Practical searing. Salt well ahead or just before (VIII.2) and pat the surface dry; bring a heavy pan (cast iron, carbon steel) to high heat with a thin film of high-smoke-point oil (IX.3); lay the steak away from you; turn it with tongs every minute or so; baste with butter and aromatics in the last minute if you like; rest it on a rack, not a plate, so the crust stays crisp. For thick cuts, the reverse sear (XV.7) gives a thinner band still.

At the stove

Sear two identical steaks to the same pull temperature, one turned once and one turned every minute. Cut both through the middle and compare the grey bands.

The old claim that searing "seals in the juices", popularised by the German chemist Justus von Liebig in the 1850s, was tested and refuted by food scientists in the twentieth century: seared meat loses as much juice as unseared, or more. Searing is for flavour (XVIII.3).

Terms

Sear
Browning a surface quickly with high heat.
Grey band
The overcooked layer beneath the crust.
Pull temperature
The centre temperature at which meat is taken off the heat, below the target.
Carryover
The rise in centre temperature after cooking stops (II.9).
A sear builds crust at the cost of a grey band; keep the band thin with a dry surface, the right pan heat and pulling early.

Sources

  1. A teaching value chosen for the course: the right order of magnitude and shape, not a measurement of a particular food.
  2. H. McGee, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, 2nd ed., Scribner, 2004.