Smoke-out!

I think it's been discussed in here before, but how do you pan-sear a steak without creating a condo full of smoke? I use a cast iron skillet, heat to med-high and add 1/2 tblspoon butter and 1/2 tblspoon olive oil. This smokes up the condo like a Cheech & Chong movie but I love the "sauce" it leaves behind.

My wife has banned steaks until I "get it right".

Help!

You're always going to have some smoke, but I can provide you with a different method that will produce less.

I use a sear-and-blast method for most steaks described in this thread.

The key to limiting smoke is to limit the fat. Adding a full tablespoon of fat (especially butter) directly in the pan that early in the process is going to produce a lot of smoke in a hot cast-iron pan.

When I use the sear-and-blast method, the only fat I use goes directly on the meat (a light rub-down) and I use a neutral fat with a high smoke point like canola or grapeseed.

Best,
Michael

If the smoke alarm doesn't go off, how will your family know dinner is ready?

Michael,

I was just reading that thread after doing a search for "cast iron skillet". I use the sear/hot oven technique and it works quite well, except for the smoke. I'll try the grapeseed oil method next weekend when my wife will be out of town.

Thanks!

Mhays wrote:If the smoke alarm doesn't go off, how will your family know dinner is ready?

LOL...the bigger problem last night was seeing the dinner table! Very smokey. And it wasn't the best night to have the windows open...the whole condo smelled really nasty this AM, getting me in trouble again!

Do you have a hooded vent? I'm guessing not. You could always do the old college smoke removal trick--put a box fan in an open window facing out to suck all the smoke out the window.

I generally tend to sear and then finish in the oven as well myself--but there's still some smoke to contend with.

Alton Brown once pointed out that you can have the best vent fan in the world, but if there isn't some air intake from somewhere, it's not going to do you much good. Weather permitting, we use our back screen door with the top window down as our intake, which helps a bit (except when we forget to close it when using the grill outside)

My most serious complaint with the new condo is the fake exhaust vent, built into the over-the-oven microwave, instead of a real vent to the outdoors. You'd think that since they're running the pipes to vent two bathrooms and a dryer outside, they could run a stove vent as well. My smoke alarms go off all the time. I kept a list for a while (scrambling eggs, grilling cheese sandwiches, boiling water!) but finally gave up. I keep my EZ grabber near the alarm that goes off first (and sets off the others) and poke the reset button when it starts shrieking. But often now I can avoid it, having learned a few tricks by trial and error.

Here's what I do about steaks, which I inexplicably still insist on cooking.
1) Turn the fake fan on to high
2) Turn on the exhaust fan in the bathroom that's in the opposite direction from the alarm that goes off first.
3) Heat the pan slowly, adding a very small amount of fat only right before adding the meat
4) Use the "sear and oven" method to keep the time in the pan down to the minimum necessary.

Good luck. You do eventually stop jumping every time the shrieking starts, but it's still awful when it makes the grandkids cry.

Frustrated by the smoke issue, I've come up with what I think is a good alternative. I just lay down a good sprinkling of salt in a dry cast iron skillet on the stovetop, crank it up to "stun" and, when it's ripping hot, set in the steak.
I sear the bottom, flip it over, and slide the skillet into a hot ((500 degrees) oven. At this time, I drop in some sliced garlic to roast around the meat. Just before I take it out of the oven, I toss in a couple cubes of frozen beef stock. They steam up, moisten the meat, and make a bit of garlic-scented jus. Voila! Seared, juicy steak, barely any smoke.