How to cook perfect sirloin or rib eye steak recipe
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Beef and Steak and Veal | 105 comments
Frying steak is easy once you have been shown how to do it
Friday night is steak night chez Cottage Smallholder. It has become an institution. We started it when Danny was weekly boarding at at an assignment in Exeter, five years ago. The promise of a really good steak bolstered him up on the drive home.
The steak has become an integral part of our life. We now accept no invitations on a Friday night, preferring to batten down the hatches, open a bottle of good red wine and pig out on unbelievably good sirloins and, occasionally, rib eye steaks.
These were supplied by Fred Fizpatrick on the Exning Road, Newmarket (now retired) and always cooked by Danny.
His recipe is below.
| How to cook the best tastiest pan-fried steaks recipe (for two) |
- 2 sirloin steaks, not too thin. We love ours at about ½ inch or 2 cm thick
- 2 small knobs of butter, about ½ oz (10g) each
- 2 tbsps olive oil
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- ½ tsp garlic granules or powder (this is optional and does not overwhelm the steak)
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tbsp Balsamic vinegar
- A timer that can measure minutes and seconds
- This method is for medium rare steak. Simply allow extra cooking time if you prefer medium or well-done steaks.
- Using a flat frying pan or a skillet (there is no difference in cooking time), pour the olive oil, one knob of butter and sprinkle on the salt, black pepper and garlic granules (optional). Set your stove top ring to a medium heat. Ours goes from 1 to 9 and we set it at 6. Allow it 2 to 3 minutes to heat through, so that the butter has melted and the pan is hot.
- Place the steaks on the frying pan. Arrange them so that the fatty edges are in the middle of the pan.
- Cook for 2 minutes on one side. Then turn them over and cook for 1½ minutes on the other side. If you like them medium rare, do not exceed these timings.
- Remove from the pan onto warm plates (not hot, as cooking will continue) and leave them to relax for 5 minutes or more.
- Add ½ mug of boiling water to the pan and toss in the second nugget of butter and the Balsamic vinegar. Turn the heat down to about 3 so that it reduces without boiling dry.
- Pour this “jus” over your steaks.
We always cut our steaks in half so that we each get a portion of the two steaks. For some unknown reason, they never taste the same.
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Made this last night, and it was the tastiest home-cooked steak I’ve ever had – great recipe, especially the jus!
The only thing I’d do differently next time would be to rub some pepper into the steak first as personally I like them a bit more peppery. Perfect other than that though. Now the only question is what to have with it…
Hello Aaron,
In the UK the barbacue grill season is short so we have to make do with these. But they are scrummy, delicious and give a skip to my heart when I am driving home on a Friday evening.
Havent cooked them just yet, but would like to say that I used to cook mine on a charcoal grill. I’ll try them on a stove top, though. Mom always said, “Nothing beats charcoals.”
great recipy
Hello Shaun
So pleased that you liked the recipe! Thanks for dropping by.
hi thanks for the recipe
Hi Josh
Thanks for leaving a comment! frying them with onions and mushrooms in the pan sounds like a great idea.
i just made them like 10 minuts ago, very good in my opinion. i diddnt know how to make them on a stovetop so i seen this and tryed it, i also fryed some onions and mushrooms in with mine. i diddnt do the vinigar topping though, i just threw A1 on it! thanks for the recipe
Hi Jane,
Great! We have sirloin steaks nearly every Friday night. They are tasty. I fact I prefer a good sirloin to a fillet steak – far more depth of flavour.
thanks for the advice. it was quick and easy and delicious!