This Steak's Secret - Butter

 What makes for a good , well cooked and well flavored steak? Butter.It's been a long used ingredient in cooking up any meat .Not only that it adds such sweet flavor, melding well with the juices and the taste of the meat.

Regular contributor and chef Eric Kim wrote about this in yesterday's New York Times Food Wednesday section.He was inspired by Twelve, a waterfront restaurant in Portland Maine.everyone sits by the plancha station where the New York strips are prepared and cooked. The meat is first seasoned with salt and then the fat cap(Or fatty area on top) is seared holding it up with tongs perpendicular to the plancha.The fat bastes both sides of the meat before it's put in the oven.Butter  - usually two tablespoons of it (and here Kerry Gold is recommended) can give the same effect. Herbs such as thyme are used  a long with avocado or canola oil (again this is a personal choice olive oil also is good). The French have long used this method, calling it arroser or to baste. why use butter to cook a steak? Chef Kin states there are a lot of pluses.Butter basting helps the steak maintain an even rosy interior along with a mouth watering juiciness.Not doing this will create a distinctive red line in the middle along with undesirable hot and cold spots in the strip's interior. Another plus is that' it makes for a good sauce mixed with the juices for the asparagus Mr. KIm recommends  as a side.

What steak will work. Try to get a good boneless one pound New York strip steak with a fat cap or strip of fat along the top.The butter itself should;d be hot and foaming.If's its too watery, according to Twelve's chef de cuisine Hannah Rider, It needs to elevate the temperature within the steak. Another tip Chef Kim strongly recommends is hiding all the home's fire detectors You'll need a high heat to cook the meat and as Chef rider puts it "anything can set off." As for the thyme leaves you can add garlic which will be a good foil for the meat's flavor . Ginger also works here.Ginger leeches out the meats sugars giving the exterior a nice crusty edge, making the pan sauce shiny and sticky. You could also add a splash of soy sauce too. Reserve the pan sauce to cook the asparagus in. For the plancha effect , heat up a skillet and using tongs hold the cooked steak over the skillet's bottom. Carefully lay t down and search one side without moving. A nice golden crust should appear. Flip and brown for two to four minutes. Serve with the asparagus or better yet on long slices of crusty baguette.

A steak cooked in butter  is the best kind of meal. Baste and search for a perfect cut  inside and out. It;s worth the time.