Indoor steak

I bought a nice North Hollow Farms Delmonico steak for dinner tomorrow.

I cut it into two servings and seasoned it with salt, pepper, granulated garlic, dark chile powder and olive oil:

Normally I grill food on my Solaire infrared propane grill that is tiny, but extremely high temperature. It's basically the temperature of charcoal, with a 3 minute warm-up time. It's significantly hotter than normal propane grills. It only takes 1:30 per side to sear a steak.

Though my grill is under a porch I have to walk through an area that's currently full of ice and rain to get to it, so I decided to try indoor grilling. I'm not a fan in general because my electric stove cannot in any way match the temperature of my infrared propane grill and I have a severe lack of ventilation in my kitchen, which to say none, unless I open a window.

But I never attempted to grill meat in my Cuisinart grill/panini machine, so I thought I'd at least give it a try.

I cooked the steak for 3 minutes, and since it's a grill/panini press it has the advantage of cooking both sides at the same time, so my kitchen was not excessively smoky.

It looked pretty good:

They're probably not fully cooked yet. But they will be vacuum sealed and one frozen and one will be ready for tomorrow's dinner after 30 minutes to an hour in the sous vide at 133°F for a perfect rare to medium rare steak.

We'll see tomorrow.

One thing for sure: Cleaning the non-stick plates of the grill/panini press is more work than wire brushing off the stainless steel grate on the Solaire grill outside!

The verdict:

It really doesn't work that well, especially for a thin steak like this one. The steak was barely seared on the outside, and was cooked past medium rare inside, a result of the grill not being hot enough to effectively sear the meat. The Cuisinart was about 350°F on high, where my Solaire infrared grill can reach 900°F. So there you have it.

I bought a nice North Hollow Farms Delmonico steak for dinner tomorrow.

I cut it into two servings and seasoned it with salt, pepper, granulated garlic, dark chile powder and olive oil:

Normally I grill food on my Solaire infrared propane grill that is tiny, but extremely high temperature. It's basically the temperature of charcoal, with a 3 minute warm-up time. It's significantly hotter than normal propane grills. It only takes 1:30 per side to sear a steak.

Though my grill is under a porch I have to walk through an area that's currently full of ice and rain to get to it, so I decided to try indoor grilling. I'm not a fan in general because my electric stove cannot in any way match the temperature of my infrared propane grill and I have a severe lack of ventilation in my kitchen, which to say none, unless I open a window.

But I never attempted to grill meat in my Cuisinart grill/panini machine, so I thought I'd at least give it a try.

I cooked the steak for 3 minutes, and since it's a grill/panini press it has the advantage of cooking both sides at the same time, so my kitchen was not excessively smoky.

It looked pretty good:

They're probably not fully cooked yet. But they will be vacuum sealed and one frozen and one will be ready for tomorrow's dinner after 30 minutes to an hour in the sous vide at 133°F for a perfect rare to medium rare steak.

We'll see tomorrow.

One thing for sure: Cleaning the non-stick plates of the grill/panini press is more work than wire brushing off the stainless steel grate on the Solaire grill outside!

The verdict:

It really doesn't work that well, especially for a thin steak like this one. The steak was barely seared on the outside, and was cooked past medium rare inside, a result of the grill not being hot enough to effectively sear the meat. The Cuisinart was about 350°F on high, where my Solaire infrared grill can reach 900°F. So there you have it.