NY Strip steak with peppers and onions, baked potato

I have tried most of the preparation methods people suggest for steak – grilling, pan-frying, sous vide, reverse sear – and for my money I still get the best results in my cast-iron skillet. Four minutes a side, flipping every two minutes, with a four-minute rest produces a medium-rare steak and lagely escapes the “gray ring” of overcooked outer meat. I picked up the two-minute flip technique from Sam The Cooking Guy on YouTube. You do have to have the pan pretty hot to get a good Maillard reaction in the short surface time, and using a high-smokepoint oil like avocado oil is a good idea.

I think New York strip is my favorite cut, even though I think ribeye tastes better. The extra fat on a ribeye is great for flavor, but it makes the steak a little greasy.

For this steak, I first sauteed up some sliced onion and green bell pepper in a small amount of bacon fat in the cast-iron skillet. The vegetables took up almost all the bacon fat, so there wasn’t any left over to burn in the pan. I put a smidge of avocado oil on the steak itself, along with salt and pepper, and used the same pan. The steak,smothered with the onions and peppers, was fantastic.

For baked potatoes, I usually follow America’s Test Kitchen’s method of dunking the potatoes in salted water before baking, but this time I only lightly brushed the potato with avocado oil. Both methods result in a super crispy skin after roasting at 450 degrees for one hour.