Cooking Marathon: Part 2

Spring time is here ,and summer is coming around the corner; Grilled Steaks are what's on my mind. Grilling is America's favorite way to cook, but the problem with that is we fall victim to bad weather occasionally. Yes, we are not able to grill outside at times in sunny California. The great thing about steaks though, is that they're good as long as you keep it simple. Simple doesn't mean boring, however. The great thing about cooking inside is cooking with a pan, heres how you take advantage of cooking with a pan.

Making a pan sauce sounds really hard, but its actually pretty simple. Learning to make a pan sauce is an easy pay to step up your cooking game, without having to go to far from what's comfortable.

The ingredients needed are

4 Steaks
1 cup of pepper
Salt
Beef broth
Milk
Cooking Oil

First, the Steak.

Make sure that the steak is at room temperature before you cook your steaks. Cold steaks will throw off the cooking time. Also, dry your steaks with paper towels before you season them, you will taste the difference. Season each side of the dried steaks with salt. Then, pour the pepper onto a plate. Put the steaks onto the pepper. The goal here is to create a crust of pepper on each side of the steak. Let the steak sit while you heat the pan up to medium-high. When the pan is ready, add about a tablespoon and a half of cooking oil and spread around the pan. Add steaks and shake the pan for 20 seconds. This will make sure the steaks will not stick to the pan. Depending on the cut, cooking times will vary, but a good place to start is 5-7 a side. For medium-rare, I usually go six minutes a side. Do not do anything to the meat like press it or move it around, just let it be, it'll be okay. Flip the meat and repeat the process.

After the meat is done, cover it loosely with foil and let the meat rest.

Now for the pan sauce.

Now that the steak is done, the pan has nothing left in it right? Wrong, flavor has only just begun. Empty the remaining grease out of the pan and put the pan on medium. Take about a cup of beef broth and pour into the pan, the goal is to de-glaze the pan. You want to dissolve the little brown bits your steak left on the bottom of the pan; use a wooden spoon for this. Bring sauce to a boil and then let it simmer for 5-7 minutes. The broth will reduce to a more flavorful liquid. Finally, add a 1/4 cup of milk and reduce the sauce some more. The sauce will be done when it can coat the back of a spoon. Add salt and pepper to taste

See? That wasn't too bad was it. Promise me you'll try it, it makes you a better cook, and its super easy!

MAH BAD! We ate it before I could get a picture haha