How to Cook Perfect Medium Rare Bone in Steak

Why Cook Steak with the Bone in?

Cooking steak with the bone is said to infuse the meat with rich flavour from the bone marrow. Regardless of whether or not bone-in steak tastes better, many people love the experience of cooking, carving and eating bone in steak (gnawing meat from bone is a primal pleasure, after all!).

Cooking bone-in steaks is pretty straight forward – with the right cooking method, these steaks can easily be cooked to perfection every time.

How to Cook Perfect Medium Rare Bone in Steak

This cooking method uses oven and pan cooking, as this combination guarantees an even cook with just the right amount of sear on the outside.

What you need:

• Bone in steak, at least 1 inch thick
• Oven dish and cooling rack
• Foil
• Paper towel
• Salt
• Meat thermometer
• Tongs

Step 1: Purchase a good quality cut of beef

For this reverse sear cooking method, your steak should be at least 1 inch thick. If you want steak perfection, we recommend that you start with the all time favourite T-Bone steak.

Step 2: Season steak and prepare cooking rack for your oven

Preheat your oven to 130ºC. Prepare an oven tray by covering it with foil (to catch drippings) and placing a cooling rack on top.

The rack will allow air to circulate on both sides of the steak, so you won’t need to flip it.

Pat your steak dry with paper towel, and season liberally with salt. You can also add pepper, although this can burn at the sear stage, so is better added at the table. Once your meat is prepared, pop it in the oven!

Step 3: Cook until the internal temperature reaches 55ºC

Your steak will take between 45-65 minutes to reach this temperature – we recommend that you start checking at the 35 minute mark and keep an eye on it.

To check the temperature accurately, you need a meat thermometer – precision is important at this stage, as it completely determines the outcome of your cook!

Once your steak reaches 55ºC, take it out of the oven. Don’t worry if your steak doesn’t look very appealing at this stage, that happens later!

Step 4: Let it rest

Wrap the steak in foil and let it rest for at least 15 minutes. This allows the juices to redistribute and will ensure the steak is tender, juicy and as flavoursome as possible.

Step 5: Sear it

Get a non-stick fry pan and heat it until piping hot. A hot pan is essential for caramelisation. Once the pan is hot, put the steak in (it should sizzle as soon as it touches the pan) for about 1 minute per side. You can continue to cook each side for a further 30 seconds, but don’t cook the steak any longer than this. And that’s it!

If done correctly, this method should give you perfect medium rare steak!

The information in this post is adapted from Kitchn and Jess Pryles.