How to cook a frozen steak

Conventional wisdom says to cook a steak that has been frozen, you must first thaw it. However, conventional wisdom is wrong, according to America’s Test Kitchen (reported by Food Republic). The Test Kitchen found that steaks cooked directly from the freezer had a smaller gray band, which indicates overcooked meat, than thawed steaks. What’s more, the frozen steaks lost less moisture throughout the cooking process.

The science behind this is that the frozen steaks act as a buffer for a quick high-heat sear and doesn’t let heat penetrate as far. Finishing the steak in the oven lets the inside come to temperature slowly without overcooking the outside. The Test Kitchen also provides advice on freezing the steaks so they don’t have an icy surface that would cause spattering during the searing process.

Although the Test Kitchen video is new, cooking steaks directly from the freezer is not a new idea. Nathan Myhrvold, author of Modernist Cuisine, promoted this method a couple of years ago, and the EYB Library contains a member-indexed recipe of Myhrvold’s technique from the blog Kitchen Konfidence (photo above).