Turn a $7 Sirloin Into a $100 Steak - The Old Chuckwagon Cook's Trick

📖 Texas Ranch Cooking (Straight from the Chuckwagon) — 428 pages, 116 recipes, 36 old ranch tricks. Link in the top comment 👇 The Cast Iron Cowboy Ribeye is Recipe No. 018 (pages 50–51), and every trick in this video works on a sirloin too. Pages below. Most folks who cook a steak straight from the package in a warm pan end up with a gray steak with no crust, and it was never their fault. ⭐ WHAT YOU NEED (per steak) • 1 sirloin steak, 1 to 1½ inches thick • Coarse kosher salt (about 1½ teaspoons) and coarse black pepper (about 1 teaspoon) • 1 tablespoon beef tallow or high-heat oil • 2 tablespoons butter • 2 garlic cloves, smashed • 1 sprig rosemary or thyme • A 10-inch cast iron skillet, an instant-read thermometer, and a towel ⭐ THE 7 TRICKS (counting down) 7. Buy it an inch to an inch and a half thick. [pp. 50, 214] 6. Coarse salt and coarse pepper, nothing fine. [pp. 260, 261] 5. Use a pan so hot it smokes, and leave the steak alone. [pp. 51, 273] 4. Flip once, or flip every minute. Neither is wrong. [p. 51] 3. Butter, garlic and herbs at the end, with the heat turned down. Pull it by the thermometer. [pp. 51, 10, 11] 2. Rest it 10 minutes, then slice across the grain. [pp. 50, 51, 139] 1. Salt it early: one hour ahead, up to overnight. Never 5 or 10 minutes before. [pp. 286, 51] 📄 EVERY PAGE NAMED IN THIS VIDEO • p. 10 · Tools: the instant-read thermometer, "the single best tool" • p. 11 · Safe temperatures: steaks at 145°F with a 3-minute rest • p. 50 · Cast Iron Cowboy Ribeye (No. 018): "don't cut into it the minute it comes off the heat" • p. 51 · Ribeye method: salt an hour ahead, smoking pan, flip once or every minute, butter at the end, rest 10 minutes • p. 84 · Smothered Pork Chops (next video) • p. 139 · Cast Iron Fajitas trick: slice across the grain • p. 214 · Steak & Eggs Ranchero (No. 093): sirloin or leftover steak • p. 215 · Steak & Eggs method: warm leftover steak slowly in the salsa • p. 260 · Wade's Salt & Pepper Rub (No. 114) • p. 261 · Rub trick: coarse salt and pepper build the crust • p. 273 · Which pan for which job: the 10-inch skillet • p. 286 · Salt Early: steaks 1 hour up to overnight, and the in-between trap THE HONEST WORDS: • Gray, no crust → the pan wasn't hot enough, or the steak was wet [p. 51] • Tough → you cut with the grain, or cooked it past medium [p. 139] • Burnt outside, raw inside → the steak was cold or too thick; finish it in a 400°F oven [p. 51] • Dark buttery bits stuck to the pan → not a failure, that's the cook's private reward A ranch cook never had much, and he never wasted a bite of it. Were you taught to salt at the end too? Tell me your county in the comments. The best comment picks the next video. 👇