Steaks taste horrid in the center?
I followed in this answer to How do you properly cook a steak?, but I ended up with one problem. After cooking in the oven for 10 minutes, my steaks were soggy and flavorless in the center, yet okay on the outside. I cooked a few minutes longer in the oven and the steaks started turning white and firm, obviously overcooked.
Should I flatten the steaks first; is thickness the problem? I had 1-1.5 inch thick ribeyes from Whole Foods.
One thing: after searing the steak in the pan, my oven wasn't fully heated yet. So I stuck the steak in at around 267° F and it sat there for about 5-7 minutes before reaching 425° F, after which I cooked it for 10 minutes. Could this have messed it up?
Best Answer
If your steaks were soggy and flavorless then the steak wasn't good to begin with. It's possible it was old as well, or had been frozen and thawed. It doesn't sound like your method was wrong (except not having your oven to temperature but that shouldn't make them soggy and flavorless), but meat itself wasn't good. You paid $6 per steak, I'd expect to pay triple that for decent meat to be honest.
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Why does my steak have a funny taste?
What Does Bad Steak Taste Like? While it isn't recommended to check for spoiled steak by tasting, meat that has gone bad will have a rancid taste. If your steak tastes extremely sour or bitter, it's definitely gone bad.Why is the middle of my steak not cooking?
If your steak is raw and bloody in the middle, it's undercooked. This can happen if you cook a steak directly from the freezer or at too high a temperature. It then looks cooked, or even burnt, on the outside but is still raw on the inside. There's a lot to consider when cooking a steak.How do you know if a steak is ruined?
A steak that has gone bad feels slimy. When you touch it, you'll notice a slimy film on the surface. The slime feels slippery and sticky, which are signs of a rancid steak that is days away from molding. Mold is an indication that fresh meat has absorbed bacteria and is no longer safe to eat.Is steak supposed to be raw in the middle?
This method is very simple, as all you have to do is press the outside center of your steak with your finger or tongs to judge the degree of doneness. If your steak is very soft, it means that your steak is undercooked. If it is firm, then you have a well done steak.Every Term to COOK A STEAK (All Steaks Doneness \u0026 Time frames)
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Answer 2
(based on Richard's later comment) :
Non-stick pans aren't typically oven-safe, or even suitable for high-heat cooking. If it's a teflon pan, you might've actually cooked off the coating -- look to see if the surface is is smooth, or looks like it had lots of tiny holes like popped bubbles in it.
If it's got holes, I'd recommend throwing the pan away. It's never going to perform well again, and coating will break down and end up in your food.
It's possible that some of the new ceramic non-stick are rated for higher temperatures and/or oven cooking ... I've never used them, myself.
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All that being said ... I still don't know that it'd account for a horrible taste only in the middle of the steak. It's possible that the flavor of the charred outside of the steak covered up the off flavors of the non-stick surface, but this still might be a problem with the meat itself.
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(Disclaimer : back in college, I got a hand-me-down set of pots & pans from my great-uncle ... I put one in the oven. It wasn't non-stick, but the handle wasn't oven-safe ... of course, when I opened the oven, I knew something was wrong instantly by the smell. I've also over-heated a teflon pan, and so I know the look of it, but I can't remember if it smelled the same or not (it might be the difference between the closed oven vs. open stovetop w/ more air)
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