Should You Grill Or Pan-Sear A T-Bone Steak For Best Results?
NEWS
By MATTHEW LEE
Among the many methods of cooking a T-bone steak, most people go for pan-searing or grilling to get a nice, charred crust. However, pan-searing the cut is way harder than grilling.
An evenly pan-seared steak requires the meat to have as much direct contact with the hot pan as possible. While this can be easy with other cuts, a T-bone makes things difficult.
As a T-bone steak cooks and shrinks, the T-shaped bone inside it lifts parts of the meat away from the pan's surface. This leaves some areas caramelized and some undercooked.
If you have no choice but to pan-sear, use tongs to press down on the steak near the bone and force the meat to make contact with the pan or simply remove the bone altogether.
While grilling works better for a T-bone than pan-searing, it has its own challenges. That’s because a T-bone is a cross between the lean tenderloin and the fatty, marbled strip.
Marbled cuts cook slower than lean ones, so you’ll need a smart grilling set-up and good positioning. To start, keep the burner on high on one side and keep it off on the other.
Then, position your steak with the T-shaped bone in the middle of the grill, the fatty side on the hotter zone, and the lean side on the cooler area. Grill it for 15 minutes.
This way, the fatty strip will have the heat it needs to cook through, and the leaner tenderloin will cook at its own pace with gentler heat, resulting in an evenly cooked steak.
